Team17 Employees Speak About Concerns With Management Skip to content Click here to check out the GameByte Shop great games, consoles and more! Another studio with a series of problems. Team17 Employees Speak About Concerns With Management 11 February 2022 by Oisin Kuhnke A recent report on Team17 has uncovered a series of issues at the company, from low pay, to mediocre working conditions. At the start of the month, Team17 announced that it would be collaborating with Reality Gaming Group to make Worms themed NFTs. It faced immediate widespread backlash, and in turn the project was cancelled. Part of the issue with the project was that a majority of staff at Team17 weren’t aware it was happening. Of those who did, most disapproved. Now, a new report from Eurogamer goes into other issues that plague the company, like incredibly low pay, issues with overtime, and more. Multiple members of staff at Team17 spoke with Eurogamer under the condition of anonymity. When the Worms NFTs were cancelled, a town hall meeting was held that felt like a “political apology,” staff said. But this caused further anger. “If it was the people in the office who swayed them – if it had been the employees – they wouldn’t have done it,” said one staff member. “They didn’t apologise to staff, even the community managers who were subjected to a barrage of abuse because of it.”ADVERT ADVERT Team17 is both a developer and a publisher. In 2020, the company published seven games, and in 2021 they published eight. Staff saying that this increased workload since the company went public in 2018 has led to more overtime. Staff say that company bosses prioritised quantity over quality. And game testers have struggled as they would alert bosses about development issues, only to be ignored and the bugs fixed post-launch. Credit: Team17 issues with fair compensation QA staff that spoke with Eurogamer described pay as “low” or “terrible” with apparently a base rate of £16k, up to £19k for a more senior QA role. For comparison, the national living wage is £9.90 an hour, and presuming you’re working a 48 hour working week, that’s a little over £24k a year. Salaries also apparently used to be even lower starting at around £13k. Bonuses at the company have become an issue recently as well. Staff would put in extra hours hoping to receive an appropriate bonus as a result, but last year’s bonuses weren’t as high as expected, some cut by more than £1000. This is in spite of Team17 reporting record profits in the first half of 2021. “This is something greatly out of our control,” said one member of staff. “A lot of people relied on that. Even those who put in extra hours or worked to the extremes got a substantially reduced bonus.” ADVERT ADVERT an unhelpful hr and overbearing ceo Staff also do not have faith in the company’s HR team, which has apparently failed to act on sexual harassment cases. There have reportedly been instances where women at the studio were sent degrading messages and suggestive photos by male staff members. Despite reporting this to HR, the accused were just given a slap on the wrist, victims being told to sort it out amongst themselves. Staff are also critical of the company’s CEO. One anecdote Eurogamer was told from numerous staff was that the CEO, Debbie Bestwick, had asked staff to wrap her family’s Christmas presents for her. And staff also describe her as “formidable,” and as someone who does not take criticism well. Staff have also seen her single out members of staff, leading to people leaving the room in tears. The full report goes into even more detail and is an incredibly important read, and highlights that no studio, indie or not, is safe from misconduct of any degree.ADVERT ADVERT Featured Image Credit: Team17 TweetShareSharePin Follow us on @GameByte @gamebyte GameByte GameByte GameByte Noobs Play @GameByte @gamebyte GameByte GameByte GameByte Noobs Play External Links Policy GameByte Staff About GameByte Advertise with us Careers Ambassador Program Contact Terms and Conditions Privacy Policy Cookie Policy Manage Cookies Preferences Submit Your Content FragHero Sporf 9 to 5 Life Social Chain Social Chain Agency