Team17 CEO says "action will be taken" to address last week's allegations
Detailed pay review and plans at staff meeting
Team17 CEO Michael Pattison has addressed allegations by staff that the company underpays and overworks staff, and failed to address HR complaints. In a company-wide meeting held last Friday, details of which were shared with Eurogamer, Pattison said that "action has to be taken."
Staff told Eurogamer that the meeting went into detail about pay, bonuses, workloads and company culture. That included the announcement of an immediate pay review for QA staff, who were a focus of the allegations regarding low pay and overwork in last week's report. Pattison said that their aim was to pay people in line with the market rate. "We'll make necessary changes there where we see any deltas - where we're off in terms of competitive pay."
On the subject of overwork, Pattison said he "had seen real problems there."
"We're struggling. As we grow there is always going to be an increasing need to sign potentially more titles - or refocus and sign higher quality titles with more commercial potential. And that's my focus. I'm trying to improve that ratio, I don't want to see us on a continual treadmill of just filling the pipe."
There was also a brief mention of Team17's NFT project, which was announced and then cancelled a day later, which was said to be "totally outside of the principles and values we have as a company."
Pattison joined Team17 from PlayStation last year. There was no mention during the meeting of Debbie Bestwick, Team17's co-founder and Group CEO, who was the subject of some of last week's allegations of mismanagement.
Staff who spoke to Eurogamer said they were cautiously optimistic. There's a lot more details and quotes from the meeting over on Eurogamer.