Okay short-term. Painful & exhausting for the long-run. - Designer Sumo Digital Employee Review

Unfortunately, Sumo Digital still has a lot to learn if they want to be the triple AAA powerhouse it claims to be. Both in company culture, process, and how it treats its staff. There has been a massive wave of leavers recently, who probably share a lot of cons I will describe below: Underpaid, overworked, under-rewarded, and underappreciated. Pay is painfully low. The company considers this to be "good for the area". Unfortunately, your money doesn't go very far outside of the area. The Sheffield studio is terribly located at an industrial business park outside of the city. Commute via public transport has been consistently dreadful for many years, and despite studio management saying they are solving the parking issue; it is still dreadful 2 years down the line. The company has been around for quite some time, which also means there are a lot of employees that have been there for +15 years that are really stuck in their ways. I've had multiple friendly, but direct meetings with directors and production to refute why these legacy processes are hurting overall productivity, proposed ways we can do things differently using experience and empirical evidence, only to have them make the same mistakes later on in the project again (and worse even, on new projects several years down the line!) There is a reason why Sumo's games haven't been received very well and why many have been cancelled / delayed after many years of development. Sumo will commonly claim that it's "the publishers fault". Unfortunately, after multiple failures with multiple different publishers, perhaps the studio should begin to look at itself as the "problem". Almost every project I have been on has been over-promised and under-delivered. It seems Sumo negotiates its contracts based on how much money it generates, without reflecting on whether the studio has the technical knowledge and expertise to deliver on it. Shame. As of 2018, Sumo implemented the "Sumo Pathway", which is how the company outlines overall career progression at Sumo. In principle, this gives employees a set of non-negotiable criteria they need to meet to be eligible for promotion. In execution however, this heavily depends on your line manager; which is where the problem lies. I have seen people that have been at sumo for less than 2 years be promoted to a senior position, whilst others that have been here for much longer (and have far more experience under their belt) be ignored. I have seen people that have consistently saved projects from the brink of cancellation and took up responsibilities way above their role's expectactions be ignored and swept under the rug. Furthermore, Sumo Digital is dreadful at acquiring and fostering talent. Individual members on projects may acknowledge a person's contribution and dedication towards a project, but the company as a whole doesn't. Sumo treats its employees as faceless entities, rather than what an individual person can bring to the studio in terms of knowledge, experience, and skill set. As Fred Brooks once said: "What one programmer can do in one month, two programmers can do in two months" sadly doesn't apply to the studio. They assign people to projects and tasks not based on their merit, preference, or skillset. Seriously, it's like Sumo doesn't want to keep it's most productive and valuable staff. Development and role models: This ties into the problem described above, that there really isn't any form of role modelship going on at Sumo. Most experienced people just gather a pay check. Come in at 10. Leave at 4, the typical things. During my entire time at Sumo, I have never felt that my levels of experience and skills was below that of the rest. If anything, it seemed like they always matched or were far above the mean. This is disappointing if you're looking to learn from very experienced people, as you're often just left to tend to yourself. Company culture / values / morals / integrity In all fairness, I don't see how Sumo is advertising this as one of the key reasons people should apply to Sumo. There is an uneasy aura of cliquiness and unprofessionalism amongst its staff: Seniors dating juniors/interns, gossip, defamation, highschool drama, recruitment sleeping with studio management, people being promoted because of personal relationships... you get the point. What is frustrating about this culture is that there are thousands of people dying to break into the industry (who are probably also way more qualified), but instead, some people at Sumo deliberately undermine this and opt for cronyism and favouritism. So much for the equal employment agenda the company is pushing so hard for. Yuck! Crunch / Overtime Overtime is (very) common place at Sumo and is unpaid. As described earlier, almost every project has had this problem due to terrible scheduling and unrealistic deadlines. I've seen people get fired because they refused to work overtime. Again, nobody is acknowledged or rewarded for the many, many over-hours that they (voluntarily) spent away from their families just to ensure we are able to deliver on a set of constraints foolishly negotiated by people in positions of power that nobody on the workfloor ever sees. HR: HR is incredibly understaffed and unprepared to take on the issues that come with an ever-expanding studio. HR still operates as if the studio is still only 30 people strong: it's not anymore. Problems and issues will arise, and employees need to feel safe and comfortable when coming to work. For many, HR is the first port-of-call when dealing with workplace issues, and these issues need to be addressed fairly and appropriately. There have been many instances from many different employees that felt harassed and bullied, but despite multiple attempts, nothing concrete has been started.