Obsidian Entertainment Reviews

Pros

Great company culture, good pay and great work-life balance.

Cons

There can be frequent layoffs.

Pros

- You will make close friends in the trenches. - If you already live in Orange County and need a paycheck, you can earn one here.

Cons

At the heart of Obsidian is a coterie of apathetic underperformers propped up by a slow churn of overworked, underpaid developers held to higher standards than senior employees. - You will not be able to afford to live near the office. - Highly political work environment. - Obsidian’s development strategy is to expect as few developers as possible to achieve more than is humanly possible, in as little time as possible,...

Advice to Management

The supposed pedigree of Obsidian, with its best work slipping ever into the past, is is not worth the personal cost of working here. If Obsidian can not or will not pay average salaries, and if it will continue to expect employees to move mountains while being jerked around by all and sundry, then the very least they can do is treat everyone who puts up with it with the same level of respect.

Pros

Really friendly and caring people Monthly birthday treats Parties and holiday activities are fun when they happen

Cons

Company has been around 15 years, run by people who've been around 10 more. You'd think they'd know how to run a business by now, but you'd be wrong. Leadership is completely entrenched in old ideas and micromanagement. Despite several close calls in the past, the company has not structured deals in a timely & effective manner to prevent massive layoffs. Any sense of "open" structure is an utter farce - leadership...

Advice to Management

-Get out of the way of your top talent, and hire top talent to fill in where leadership is lacking -Establish adequate training and career progression -Lose the nepotism -Explore new ideas

Pros

- Great devs, you’ll love your core team minus a director or two and most of the company owners - Despite cons below, devs and hanging out with fellow employees outside of work is great - you get to work on RPGs (except Pathfinder and a few other games in past not being RPGs)

Cons

- Compliments on performance or any feedback at all is rare - All gender issues in reviews below, lot of women have resigned, although lack of promotion and training happens to everyone - Pay is below average, raises are minor, money seems to be in a trashfire somewhere (DICE parties, sponsored or attended). What seemed to generate revenue for the company doesn’t last long, keeping the treadmill going - Sense owners...

Advice to Management

- You set an example in all respects, take a good look at how you manage and how you treat people - Owners and directors - If your teams get more done at better quality and make publishers happy when you’re NOT involved, question how you lead and how you’re really contributing when you are involved - Grow up. The “we’re still the same scared kids we used to be, finding our way” doesn’t hold water 20+ years later, so...

Pros

- Some really talented, awesome people work there

Cons

- Structural decision-making problems. They've been making the same types of games for 20 years, and still don't know how to run a project without crunch time. - Leads are not well-supported, nor are they trained in how to manage people. - No senior women, and women are not promoted to senior positions. For a company that touts itself as caring about diversity, and that makes games with female characters in important...

Advice to Management

Create a clear pipeline for advancement. Restructure reviews to leave less room for individual bias.

Pros

- Some interesting IPs. - Cool people with a good sense of community because the company is pretty small. - Fun work events. - few weekends and after hour crunch periods.

Cons

- They get bullied by publishers often. which often means making bad deals leading to later problems. - career progression is muddled. It's not clear what you need to do to advance and it can be hard unless you know or have someone vouching for you. Good work gets overlooked and rarely praised. - The pipelines need work, between collaborating with publishers and making sure employees are tasked correctly and with reasonable...

Advice to Management

- Create clearer hierarchy. - Don't hire seniors, make them, and promote people who do good work. - Stop leaning on past successes and push towards doing something new.

Pros

They appreciate their employees and have fun projects to work on

Cons

No cons just make sure any comments about the projects are constructive, the artists and directors don't take "sound" comments lightly... like "ehh, meh, eesh, umm"

Pros

Consciencious and humane development tone.

Cons

I seriously can't think of any problems that other studios don't have.