Volition Reviews

Pros

I worked at Volition for many years. Coworkers are nice. Company is almost completely remote since pandemic. Has started to use more and more outsourcing companies in other countries, so jobs have been eliminated. The company always seems to be hanging on by a thread but keeps surviving. PTO was always generous, including giving the week between Christmas and New Years off without having to use PTO.

Cons

Uncertain how long company will be around. It had several massive layoffs over the last fifteen years or so.

Pros

Low cost of living, remote work available. Flexible work environment. Great culture among the content creators and lower management. Focus on diversity and welcoming atmosphere.

Cons

Always behind industry trends Chronic understaffing. Micromanagement. Poor leadership. Uncompetitive salary. Very few bonuses which are always small when they are given. Severe overdependence on outsourcing. Constant delays make games take forever to release which end up un-polished. Stagnant game design philosophy leads to non-competitive mediocre products. IP can never escape the shadow of other games that dominate the genre, but are given higher weight than the more unique IP's the studio has produced. Scheduling leads to burnout. Little room for employee skill growth.

Pros

Good people and flexible work hours.

Cons

The location can be a pain. No other studios remotely close.

Pros

Fun and collaborative work environment. People there are great and work/life balance is respected + protected.

Cons

Chronic understaffing and proprietary engine limit scope and quality of games.

Pros

Since Embracer Group has taken over as the main POC for publishing, every has drastically improved. Management is much improved and actively trying to make the company better. Cost of living is super low here making it affordable to own a really nice house on a dev's salary.

Cons

There are still too many cooks in the kitchen when it comes to creative direction, but it looks to be shaping up for the next project.

Pros

Low cost of living. Saints Row is a popular series.

Cons

So many cooks wanting a say in creative decisions and management and keeps adding more, like it’s a corporate goal. Not enough people in UI, tech art, tech design, lighting. Volition insists on building their own tools like it’s 2002, but they have one tenth the team they need to support them, so the they’ve been falling behind for the last 5 or more years. Company will never ship a successful game that’s not Saints Row. Too many people involved to really be sharp and creative.

Pros

There are great designers here.

Cons

Upper management is a bit of a blackbox.

Pros

Great people to work with, low cost of living

Cons

Inexperience in senior areas of studio leadership and management leads to avoidable mistakes in studio direction

Pros

its a great job to be at

Cons

boring and takes a lot of time

Pros

Flexible Work Environment (FWE), where you can roughly set your own daily hours and even work from home as much as is practical for your current tasks. There are also still quite a few very talented and knowledgeable developers, particularly in the programming department, but those numbers are dwindling quickly under the current continued mismanagement by Deep Silver and Koch.

Cons

Currently Deep Silver and Koch are effectively running Volition into the ground, with much of our senior staff and most of our studio level management having either been laid off or resigned within the past few months, including numerous employees with 20+ years at Volition. There's still probably time to turn things around, but things really need to start improving soon, or there won't be much left of the heart and soul of this great studio.