In the new week's Steam Weekly Sales Chart, Eldon's Ring of Law, produced by FromSoftware, has been at the top of the list for the third consecutive week. Its hot sales and high reputation have made it one of the most successful games in recent years. No one doubts that Eldon's Ring of Law, which sold more than 10 million copies in its first week, would make FromSoftware a lot of money.
In the eyes of players, FromSoftware always brings fun new works; In the eyes of peers, FromSoftware is a learning object; In the eyes of the game media, FromSoftware can greatly alleviate the external pressure on itself to vote for the best game of the year. But in the eyes of FromSoftware's employees, FromSoftware's image is not very good.
Recently, on the Japanese company evaluation website Career Connection, employees gave FromSoftware a rating of only 2.6 out of 5, and even the passing line was not reached. Because it's an anonymous vote, employees are able to express their true thoughts more recklessly.
According to the data, The average annual salary of FromSoftware employees is 3.41 million yen (about 183,000 yuan), but the overtime work is as much as 40 hours per month. Through the six-dimensional data graph, you can clearly see what FromSoftware is doing well and what is not good.
FromSoftware's only option that's above four stars is "Work Value." "Employees generally feel that they are making great games and that their work is meaningful and can help others. The high ratings of the players and the sales of the game confirm this.
Led by master game producer Hidetaka Miyazaki, FromSoftware has created industry myths over the years. "Dark Souls", "Only Wolf", "Eldon's Ring of Law" and other works, in the case of trying not to eat the old, have made many upgrades and evolutions, and constantly absorb new players, and have achieved great success.
However, in terms of working hours and salary, FromSoftware employees are not satisfied, and everyone feels that the effort is not proportional to the return. The above points are easily reminiscent of the word power generation with love.
With dreams of making great games, employees may be able to leave it alone for a while. But on the one hand, the works are selling well, and on the other hand, there is constant overtime and unsatisfactory income. If you want to maintain your original intention and motivation from beginning to end, it is not a simple task.
As an employee of a big game manufacturer, especially a member of the development team, it is very common to work under pressure and overtime. Ubisoft, R Star, CDPR, every time the masterpiece is launched, there will be relevant news. But even if cyberpunk 2077 released at the end of 2020 did not work as well as expected, employees still received bonuses after making money.
Although the average distribution of $28 million among five board members and $29.8 million among 865 employees (an average of $34,000 per board >3.41 million yen) caused complaints, it was also much better than the FromSoftware employees who had nothing to gain.
In the process of game creation, the importance of people is self-evident. Perhaps FromSoftware will respond with actions after understanding the demands of employees.