20
eNPS Score
Q&A With Obsidian Entertainment Employees
Obsidian Entertainment employees answer questions about what life is like behind the scenes at their company, including queries about culture, leadership, professional development, and compensation.
How employees describe working at Obsidian Entertainment
Warm, welcoming people who thrive in creativity
Leadership is receptive to change and overall positive environment, very inclusive.
The quality of Games they create
well you dont sound like you want to be an owner anymore
Don't rock the boat and don't expect feedback
Q&A With Obsidian Entertainment Employees
IDX: 0 TOT: 10
If you could make changes, how would you improve the culture at Obsidian Entertainment?
Top Employee Response
I really enjoyed the culture at Obsidian.
More room for upward promotion (and track it when it’s requested and what needs to be done to get there, which is often forgotten from yearly performance review to review), more focus on gender equality across positions. More production training and less negative reinforcement when left on one’s own to solve issues if time can't be spared to train new employees.
Get out of the way of your top talent, and hire top talent to fill in where leadership is lacking. Establish adequate training and career progression. Lose the nepotism. Explore new ideas
What do people at Obsidian Entertainment think about the CEO? What do they do well and what can they improve?
Top Employee Response
Tough because there’s 4 owners and it’s hard to tell who’s in charge except for main CEO – of the 4, 1’s involved (which is sometimes good, but not always), 1 (the main CEO) is half-involved (when involved on projects, he’s can be helpful but can slow everything down with approvals), and the other two you don’t see much of and if involved on a project, it’s hard to tell what they’re doing on it (programming). The worst words to hear are “let me think it over” or “let me think on it” which means your question or request is likely never to be answered. They would do well to promote better and be honest about titles when hiring, often unclear how to get ahead and feedback is poor (reviews are hit or miss)
Leadership is completely entrenched in old ideas and micromanagement. Any sense of "open" structure is an utter farce – leadership has no time for you on a personal level (despite the façade of an ‘open door policy) meanwhile getting involved on a microscopic level on projects and not allowing the talent they have to shine. Massive nepotism. Owners have explicitly said they don’t read reviews and decide raises based on their opinion of you. Due to micromanagement, leadership causes massive delays in projects due to midnight hour decisions or pivoting.
He's great! Seriously, a wonderful guy to work with.
How's the work life balance at Obsidian Entertainment?
Top Employee Response
Occasional crunch as deadlines approach, but 40hrs 90% of the time.
Good during prototyping and production, much longer hours during vert. slice and end of project, and often, devs can be double-assigned patch work while they have a full task load on a new project, which is problematic
Depends on length of crunch and pivots in features and requests (usually internal requests, but sometimes publisher), could be managed better
What's the interview process like at Obsidian Entertainment?
Depends on department - design and programming both test heavily, production doesn't seem to test for anything, it is easy for producers to get hired
What part of Obsidian Entertainment's business is growing fastest? What part is having difficulties?
Fastest growing part of the business: company debt and owner friend hires. Difficulties: finances, although not always transparent to employees.
What are you most excited about working at Obsidian Entertainment?
Most excited about not working there any longer
What's the office vibe like at Obsidian Entertainment?
Top Employee Response
Depends on project and project income to company. Also matters if an owner or not is on project as a few owners micromanage, others are more laid back (but mostly waste time, but don't interfere too much) Some projects that make a lot of money (Armored Warfare) are sidelined against more popular, lower-funding projects and caused programmers to leave
What interview questions does Obsidian Entertainment ask?
Top Employee Response
Difficult on the programming side, as there's a long test to see if you can get a phone interview (and no feedback on test if you "fail")
Curious about what work's like at Obsidian Entertainment?
Anonymously Ask Obsidian Entertainment Employees Any Question
Should I work at Obsidian Entertainment?
60% of Obsidian Entertainment employees would encourage their friends to become coworkers, whereas 40% would not recommend working at Obsidian Entertainment to their friends.
| 60% | Promoters |
|---|---|
| 0% | Passive |
| 40% | Detractors |
Working at Obsidian Entertainment's competitors
Recently Asked Questions about working at Obsidian Entertainment
- How's the work life balance at Obsidian Entertainment?
- What do people at Obsidian Entertainment think about the CEO? What do they do well and what can they improve?
- If you could make changes, how would you improve the culture at Obsidian Entertainment?
- What part of Obsidian Entertainment's business is growing fastest? What part is having difficulties?
- What's the interview process like at Obsidian Entertainment?
