Yeah, just to be clear here, the problem is not R*. They’ve been very professional, extremely generous, etc.
The problem is that when the acquisition happened, a group of chancers within CFX saw their opportunity.
Their plan was basically
- extort the nta for millions of $ in bonuses while still pretending to be his friend (3 people did this by begging, emotional manipulation, ignoring, etc)
- get nta removed from the project by any means necessary (simultaneously ^^)
- get themselves all senior boss positions (fluffed resumes, exaggerated feats, etc)
- … Oopsie we didn’t think this far ahead… What do you mean work?
(BONUS) lead chancer is also suing nta for 15%-30% of the sale. You can guess who this is (probably a valuable dev right?)
So yeah I’ll probably get written up to HR by the obvious party for this, but I’ll take one for the team.
I basically see this as a manipulation/mooching off of an autistic savant for years. Keep in mind that these same people drew a paycheck from him for years for just barely ‘hanging out’.
R* has been too nice, but it’s not their fault. They didn’t know anybody until last year~ and then all of a sudden they’re hearing 4-6 team members all say that nta is horrible, mean, pushed him IRL, and then something so horrible&gruesome that I’m not even allowed to know(which is most likely a lie).
In reality, it’s crazy how nta is so bad that he can make people have “PTSD” and become “suicidal” from a job where it’s fully-remote, 100% text-chat only, no meetings, any-hours, any amount of hours, any self-assigned task, unlimited PTO(some people were paid >1yr to do nothing), and almost impossible to get fired – all while strangely the internal chat at CFX was always a ghost town.
CFX was the cushiest job I think I’ll ever have, easy to tell that these babies have never held a real position before.
I’ll end this with some high notes:
- I think their nepotism+ineptitude is really starting to show itself.
- R* is hiring lots of pro’s and talented gta modders like Gottfried (this is all public on linkedin)
- Things are starting to change, work reports are starting to be expected on a bi-weekly basis.
I’m still optimistic about the project in general, otherwise I’d be gonzo. This is a legendary modding collaboration in -the-werks with tons of opportunity for cool things. The last thing I would want is to see gaming companies take this as a bad example of what happens when you work with modders. The reality is that we unfortunately were in a bit of a unusual state @ CFX beforehand - I’ve seen plenty of talented folks tinkering away in obscurity on their own projects.
It’s Nothing that can’t be fixed.