Good pay - Manager 3d Realms Employee Review

Company Culture , Helpful people

all online, can be hard to communicate

Frankly, none to speak of.

Flagrantly laid off dozens of staff without warning, attempted to blame parent company Embracer Group as the force behind the cuts, despite all the core issues being the senior management and their complete mishandling on every level - The problems were rampant long before Embracer. 3D Realms laid off a whopping 30-40% of the staff and cut multiple projects immediately before Christmas 2023, assured the remaining staff no further cuts would occur, only to lay off an additional 40% of the staff and cancel even more projects immediately after New Years 2024. The very few remaining projects were on skeleton crews at best, just trying to reach release on their games, while management even pushed for use of genAI in game assets, voice over, and other areas. The business practices of 3D Realms senior management were extremely suspect years before this. I know a dev personally who carries a considerable amount of influence (in the indie scene especially), and had been approached by 3D Realms and asked to put together a business proposal for something to do with indie publishing. The dev's pitch was ultimately turned down, but they (seemingly) parted ways on good terms. However, the dev later found out that 3D Realms was not only using the material from their pitch to do basically the same thing they had suggested and been turned down for, but 3D Realms management was ALSO name-dropping this very dev and saying they were involved, because the indie projects being courted recognized the dev's name and were impressed. The dev did not consent to nor receive any form of communication about any of this -- only finding out from a friend who was approached by 3D Realms with this very method, who then asked "Wait, I didn't know you were involved with 3D Realms?" In the 2023/24 layoffs, not only were tenured developers core to the 3D Realms teams canned without so much as a direct email informing them, despite YEARS of work at the studio, but even project showrunners weren't actually told their projects were cancelled -- they had to find out by complete coincidence through third parties discussing it over a discord call, among other such cases. The blatant mismanagement, complete lack of professionalism or respect, and underhanded business tactics were damning enough. But the way they fostered very personal relationships with many of their developers - some executives even going so far as to take individual developers to dinner with their family, and other such gestures - only to lay waste to their entire team and projects without a single word was disgusting. All this, and 3D Realms has the audacity to act like their company is continuing despite a "minor setback." And the CEO continues expanding his collection of disgustingly expensive collector's cars. Do not apply to 3D Realms. Do not interact with 3D Realms. Do not allow 3D Realms to publish your game. Do not allow 3D Realms to "help" you in any capacity. Do not believe a single word they say.