Frontier Developments accused of "inhumane and cruel" dismissal process
In October 2023, Frontier Developments announced its decision to reduce staff. In a conversation with GLHF, several former and current employees of the company called the dismissal process extremely disrespectful.
F1 Manager 2022
- According to GLHF's interlocutors, the layoffs stretched over months — some employees got to the first HR consultation only in December.
- Employees of the company could pass aptitude tests well, but still remain on the list for dismissal. The fact is that Frontier Developments evaluated the effectiveness of people, including using the so—called Bradford factor, which measures the weight of unplanned work absences (for example, due to illness or family reasons). As a result, employees had to repeatedly prove that they were absent from work for really good reasons.
- During the layoffs, the atmosphere in the company was "terrifying." The employees who lost their jobs did not even have the opportunity to say goodbye to their former colleagues or properly transfer their responsibilities.
- Employees who lost their jobs were provided with the most minimal compensation allowed by UK law.
- Frontier Developments allegedly fired primarily those who criticized the management. Top management reacted sharply to any form of criticism. At one point, employees were told that their use of clown emojis in response to management's refusal to provide an explanation for the restructuring was "a manifestation of hostility."
- The publishing division suffered the most from layoffs (50% of its staff was cut) and community management.
- The interlocutors of GLHF called the reason for the dismissals insufficiently high sales of the F1 Manager 2022 racing simulator. The game sold well for a niche project, but Frontier Developments spent too much on buying a license and developing it. As a result, the company earned less than a third of the projected amount.
- "In fact, these are [management's overestimated expectations. — Editor's note.] is the biggest problem of many games. Uncontrolled expenses, wrong decisions (for example, which licenses we pay for, which games we make and what we finance), and then the hope to compensate for the costs with unrealistic forecasts, and even at an early stage, anyone in the company will say that we will never reach such figures," said one of the employees of Frontier Developments.
- According to GLHF, the management blamed the employees for the failure to fulfill the sales plan. An official representative of Frontier Developments in a comment to the publication confirmed the failure of the game, but denied that the company blamed its employees for everything.
- The GLHF interlocutors added that the leadership of Frontier Developments has made many financially unsuccessful decisions in recent years. Among them is the purchase of the Canadian studio Complex Games and the launch of the Frontier Foundry label. The company closed this label in June 2023, recognizing it as financially unprofitable.
