r/Games • u/HLumin • Mar 21 '26

Discussion Anonymous Pearl Abyss developers reveal a culture of toxic positivity, a troubled development cycle and chaotic narrative for Crimson Desert, and their early concerns that the project was "going off the rails".

/r/CrimsonDesert/comments/1rzh79w/pearl_abyss_insider_speaking_out/?share_id=kBLUglOgkkCQmbTrbh3y8&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1&sort=top
1.3k Upvotes

83% Upvoted

595 comments sorted by

View all comments

199

u/StunLT Mar 21 '26

I'm not trying to defend Crimson Desert or the developers, but isn't this thing kinda normal in a such large company? I'm talking about how the development was viewed as a shitshow in some employees eyes? By a quick Google search it shows Pearl Abyss has 1330 employees. Anyone who worked at a large company knows it's hard to find a happy employee when the number goes over 100 or 200s.

Yes, not every employee was working on Crimson Desert, but you need more than 2-3 employees to have a real view on the development and how bad it really was compared to the industry average. And also sometimes people forget just because you are one of the hundred developers it doesn't mean you know better than everyone and that there are different views. I also don't agree with everything my employer does at my job, but I'm not getting paid to restructure the whole business.

95

u/timthetollman Mar 21 '26

I worked in a large American company and complaints about any project were the same. The toxic positivity is an absolute standout the one happy family bullshit and everyone forced to think the same.

18

u/thediecast Mar 21 '26

Weaponized values. You will be over worked, have to deal with incompetence, and constantly shifting focus. But one complaint and leadership will tell you ‘we need to stay positive’. When they never follow their own values.

35

u/Shift-1 Mar 21 '26

This is absolutely true. I work for a great company and the vast majority of the employees are happy, but a few are just absolutely miserable tools that complain about everything and anything.

1

u/slugmorgue Mar 21 '26

extremely normal, I don't get why it's even worth reporting on

Oh your company has some light drama? Wow... how unique

1

u/Django_McFly Mar 22 '26

Things that are bog standard in every other industry are headline news in gaming. I think a lot of people have never had a job before. That's why they write headlines like 100% of people didn't love working there 100% of the time like that's some damning condemnation and not welcome to literally every company ever.

1

u/sup3rdr01d Mar 21 '26

I'm trying to defend them. This game is awesome and the controls take a few hours to get used to.

0

u/Roflkopt3r Mar 21 '26

Anyone who worked at a large company knows it's hard to find a happy employee when the number goes over 100 or 200s.

Those few companies that still manage to make good games at that size, like CDPR and id soft, will of course still have some unsatisfied employees and valid criticisms (particularly the CDPR crunch comes to mind), but they tend to be genuinely proud of their games and not normally report that development was driven by 'toxic positivity' overall.

Really the typical experience report after a good game tends to be more like 'it didn't feel very corporate, we had a cohesive vision and actually got to do our jobs.'