Tidligere ansat kritiserer 2K Games

En person som påstår at have været tidligere ansat hos 2K Games i Australien har rettet hård kritik imod sin tidligere arbejdsgiver i et nyt blog-indlæg. Han/hun skriver at det var flere dårlige beslutninger der ledte til lukningen af mange af deres studier i landet.

Det første eksempel er The Bureau: Xcom Declassified, hvor 2K Marin fik hele skylden, og blev derefter lukket oven på dårlige salgstal. Det blev endnu værre da Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel udkom og solgte mindre end forventet, og det kostede endnu et studie. 2K sagde at det var en forretningsbeslutning, men det har gjort den tidligere ansat godt gal i skralden:

"The Borderlands Pre-Sequel was developed with a skeleton team of 40 people at 2K Australia in just 18 months, and went on to sell 1.7 million units, plus significant DLC sales. 2K's official reason for closing the studio was that it was 'no longer economical for 2K to run game development operations in Australia'. You mean no longer economical to run a team of 40 developers paid significantly less than their American counterparts, who just sold 1.7 million units after an 18 month production cycle? That makes precisely zero sense, but we were told not to worry about it 'because developers just don't understand how the games business works.'"

Men ifølge den tidligere ansatte, så stopper det ikke her, for det fortsætter med Mafia III:

"2K HQ was very keen on relocating staff to the more expensive Novato office to add to their 150+ person strong 'Hanger 13' studio. Hanger 13 spent many years and many 10s of millions of dollars creating 'Mafia III' which has recently tanked in reviews and has no hope of ever making its money back (it needs to sell ~8 million full price units to make up for its expenses, it has so far sold well under 1 million units)."

Anmeldelserne har været mindre end ideelle med et gennemsnit på 62 på Metacritic for PC-versionen, så udsigten til at sælge otte millioner eksemplarer er ikke alt for god.