There was a concerning trend in interviews with Square Enix from this week's Famitsu, and it had nothing to do with their actual games, but rather involved employees describing poor working conditions.
Given that this is a magazine that is essentially an advertisement to consumers, I'm quite surprised that Square Enix let them voice their circumstances to consumers in it, but since they did, I feel it's a worthy point of discussion.
First up, Tanaka took a far more subtle route. When asked what he would do if he was CEO, he did not respond with an answer of what games he would make, but rather this:
Now, this might not sound too bad to people, but let's look at what Naoki Yoshida said about what it's like working on Final Fantasy XIV.
Between this and experience GRIN had working with the company, it sounds like things haven't been going so well at the company lately in the realm of employee land.
Given the variety of recent departures from the company, several of them higher profile, I have to wonder if they're actually just burning their staff out instead of parting with them over creative differences.
Given that this is a magazine that is essentially an advertisement to consumers, I'm quite surprised that Square Enix let them voice their circumstances to consumers in it, but since they did, I feel it's a worthy point of discussion.
First up, Tanaka took a far more subtle route. When asked what he would do if he was CEO, he did not respond with an answer of what games he would make, but rather this:
Source: http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2011/07/13/famitsu_squenix_feature/AndriaSang said:Famitsu also asked Tanaka what he'd do if he were Square Enix CEO. He'd revive the company trips, he said, and invest in employee wellbeing.
Now, this might not sound too bad to people, but let's look at what Naoki Yoshida said about what it's like working on Final Fantasy XIV.
Source: http://www.dualshockers.com/2011/07...sts-new-interview-to-naoki-yoshida-published/DualShockers said:If you thought the guys at Team Bondi had it hard when working on LA Noire, Yoshida is no slacker himself. Final Fantasy XIVs cheerful producer walks into the office at 10 AM, attends development meetings until 9 PM, and leaves the premises at around 2-3 AM, after responding to an average of 230 emails. Since taking this job he routinely soldiers on by sleeping between two and three and a half hours a day.
Between this and experience GRIN had working with the company, it sounds like things haven't been going so well at the company lately in the realm of employee land.
Given the variety of recent departures from the company, several of them higher profile, I have to wonder if they're actually just burning their staff out instead of parting with them over creative differences.