Double Eleven Gives Workers £2,500 Raise Due To Cost Of Living Crisis
Double Eleven, a support studio that has helped develop LittleBigPlanet, Fallout 76, and more, is giving its workers a salary boost of £2,500. This comes as the UK faces a cost of living crisis, with food and energy costs spiraling in recent months.
The news was revealed by IWGB, a union that represents game devs. This is a particularly significant move for a UK-based company right now, as many workers across all industries are striking in order to have their own pay rise to match inflation,
Related: Interview: Keywords Devs Couldn't Afford To Work, So They Unionized
Developers at Double Eleven have responded extremely positively to the news. "My employer just announced a BLANKET £2.5k pay rise, on top of previous uplifts/annual raises, for every single employee in order to offset the cost of living increases", writes senior game designer Natalie Wicks. "Constantly dumbfounded how Double Eleven manage[s] to be so cool to our workforce."
QA lead Steph McStea agrees: "Immensely proud to work for a company that so genuinely cares. Hopefully more will follow suit."
Double Eleven is based in Middlesbrough, and has around 300 employees. It has previously worked on LittleBigPlanet for PS Vita, Goat Simulator for Xbox, and Rust for Xbox and PlayStation.
Right now, it seems that Double Eleven is the only gaming company that is known to be increasing wages to assist with the cost of living crisis. The energy bill cap is set to increase to £3,420 this October, so this raise hasn't come a moment too soon for the Double Eleven team. It's not known if workers had to put any pressure on management to secure this deal, but it likely means that this is one company that won't be participating in the renewed wave of industrial action
Read more on thegamer.com
