Alice 🌺 · @WnderlandReject
12th Dec 2022 from TwitLonger
My Story with Gamefam
Hi I'm Alice, Roblox user GunsBullets. I was an employee of Gamefam's for 4 months in 2021, and I'd like to write here about my questionable experiences while their employee including being fired under false pretenses and led on to work for free for an entire week. I'm a generalist developer who's been working on games for years, a former Accelerator Intern, and frequent RDC attendee since 2018:
https://www.roblox.com/users/16474668/profile
In August 2021, I was interviewed by the CEO of Gamefam for an Associate Producer position, something I was encouraged to apply for despite asking them for open artist positions (something I found odd, but not too out-of-the-way as I had decent production experience). The interview arguably too well, the CEO pointed out multiple times how bringing on more women to their team was exciting. I left the very first interview with the job, and was excited to get started.
I was given a starting salary of $55,000/yr with health benefits, something I initially found to be generous. Later on I would not say it accurately reflected the proportion of work that was asked of me in any way. At first I was tasked with taking over an existing game from an employee being moved to another project, where I was asked to manage a team of Turkish game developers entirely new to the Roblox platform. This will become an important trend. I would spend each day checking in with them on the present project state, planning for the future, communicating with investors, my own bosses, and more, it was a full time job by itself. My first month or so at Gamefam went decently well.
It started going downhill when I was given a 2nd project to become producer of, as I was told most producers at the company did. I was an Associate Producer at this point, its important to note. This project was ambitious and to be created from the ground up, ontop of regular producer responsibilities I was given the task of teaching an entire team of artists and programmers who'd never touched Roblox before how to use every single relevant aspect of Roblox Studio - All of these wonderful developers were also speaking English as a 2nd or 3rd language in countries across the world, making time and language barriers add even more challenge to the work. It was at this point I began falling behind on both projects due to the immense amount of work on my plate, while my higher ups only offered sympathy, comparisons to their own unfairly high workloads, and comparisons to my coworkers. One such comparison was my boss telling me a fellow producer "Stayed up for an entire week" before his project launched, implying I should be more like him.
On a Monday mid-December, I woke up to start work and was locked out of my work email. This had happened frequently before, so I assumed it was a technical issue and asked HR. I was told passive aggressively to "Talk to your boss 🙂" by this HR rep. I am told she is no longer with Gamefam. I reached out to my bosses, and it was six entire hours before I was given any acknowledgement. This acknowledgement was only a link to a Google Meet, which I was told to join. I was met by the CEO, and both higher ups that I reported to. This is where I lose my mind. The CEO tells me that I was fired that weekend, the first I'm hearing of it. The reason: "Leaking company secrets." When I asked what led him to believe this, I was told he had no proof but that it was the "only explanation" for my lack of productivity. I was devastated, everyone around me knew how hard I worked for this company that was completely overworking me to the bone. When I informed the CEO I had no second job like he'd said, his only response was a short "Oh, okay." and promised me either severance if I wished to leave, or he could reinstate me with a new contract. I was the only person leading both teams I was responsible for, I felt a burden to them to keep them taken care of and to not abandon them. So I begrudgingly agreed to continue working and until the aforementioned contract came in, I was to continue work on my projects as normal with "increased help. This help never came.
Instead I worked Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday that week with no contract, no email, and no word on how much or even if I'd be compensated for that time. Each day I'd ask my bosses what was happening with the contract, or how much I'd be compensated for my unchanged workload. None of these questions would go answered. On Thursday, I was even told that I need to "Watch my tone" and "Be grateful" I was even being given a chance. It was at the end of that week that I said my last goodbyes, and chose not to come back. I never received any of the severance I was promised in my original firing meeting with the CEO, or any compensation for that last week of work. In many ways, it was my fault for agreeing to work without a contract in the first place.
I want to add that Gamefam employs a lot of incredibly hardworking developers from all over the world, of all levels of experience, and they don't deserve vitriol for corporate decisions. If you want to make change, focus your attention at the top of the pyramid - where it matters most. The developers of companies like Gamefam are usually the ones already suffering enough. I've since spoken to many current Gamefam employees, and I'm told things are better. I hope this is true, but I've heard enough to have my doubts. All I mean to do with this message is share my story, and encourage other Gamefam employees who had similar experiences to do the same. Thank you everyone for reading.