Management doesn't care about project or people - Anonymous employee Freedom Games Employee Review

Unlimited PTO, Good Healthcare Package, Great Developer Partners

Freedom Games has the potential to be a good company, The developers you get to work with are great and genuinely want to make great games. However, upper management makes that all but impossible. They put a huge focus on churning out as many games as possible in order to seek out a hit game while barely supporting developers in any meaningful way. They over-promise and under-deliver to developers in almost all facets, and force team members to go along with this charade, with many employees juggling 30+ games to support at a time. Upper management also does not listen to their employees and have massive egos. They believe everything they do is correct and if you do not agree, or say anything to contrary, you are being difficult and will either find yourself on the chopping block or ostracized. In 2023 many people left Freedom Games or were fired. Upper management wants to surround themselves with as many 'yes men' as they can in order to inflate their own egos. Likewise, if anything goes wrong with the company or its approach, they blame the employees instead of taking any responsibility themselves. Many employees were treated poorly, from being gaslit about things to having their job titles scrambled so much they didn't even know what they were supposed to be doing. Overall, this is a terrible company to work for because it is rotted at the top. I worked with many amazing employees who genuinely had a passion for indie games, but were never given the chance to actually do anything positive to support our titles. This company treats indie games like an assembly line. Sign it, do some bare minimum work, and ship it. Rinse and repeat until they hopefully get a big hit that recoups all the costs.

Healthcare for US full-time time employees was great. Unlimited PTO. Remote Work. Social Environment. Freedom Games was once a promising force in the indie publishing space. They gave power to their seniors, which in turn gave power to their teams. For many months before November of 2022, the company was a blast.

Starting in November of 2022, Freedom Games began to under-compensate for their managerial needs. They brought on-board a technical director without proper experience at being a director. Friends with benefits, I guess. On top of this, the technical director had no prior experience with creating commercial video games. Now leading the technical teams at a commercial video game publisher, our team was wary. Despite plenty of opportunities to learn, they became defensive and began culling team members who stood against their directives. We were deceived about raises and compensation, as the technical director would promise us financial gain without first clearing it higher up. This led to several instances of late pay, missed pay, unpaid hours, and more. This technical director is the king of labor violations. We as the technical team were forced to work every weekend, or else we would be reprimanded. Our human needs were acknowledged, but never appreciated. Whether a family member was lost, a sickness inflicted, or a child born, the expectations were the same, no matter what they said. The other directors at the company contributed to the problem furthermore. They were often belligerent with teams and would strong-arm people into bending to their needs. There was an extreme lack of communication from the company, both internally and to external partners. Every team was isolated from one another, and never encouraged to share vital information. Through repeated efforts to improve the lives of our developers, who I personally have become very good friends with, and the repeated efforts to improve the workflow of the company, teams were fired. Advice was not heeded, and fingers were pointed at the advisor regardless. I cannot under any conscience recommend signing with or working for this company, unless your job will be extremely repetitive and specific. Then though, they would only replace you with an obsolete tool.