Undead Labs employees accuse studio of misogyny, mismanagement
Jeffrey Rousseau
Staff Writer
Thursday 31st March 2022
Undead Labs
Today a new report alleged that State of Decay maker Undead Labs has developed a culture marked by misogyny, burnout, and mismanagement.
In an exposé by Kotaku, the publication spoke with 12 current and former staffers that describe the time following the studio's acquisition by Microsoft as a "period of crisis."
A current developer said bluntly, "The culture the studio had up until recently was not the most hospitable for anyone that was not a white cishet man."
"It's improved in the last six months or so. But the studio hired a lot of diverse talent that it did not adequately support [in the past]."
Some of the problems came with the departure of founder Jeff Strain, who left the studio in 2019 as ArenaNet head of development Philip Holt stepped into the role as chief of staff.
After Holt joined the developer, he and Strain brought on Anne Schlosser as its first head of people and culture to help the company. However according to sources, she didn't help resolve issues between staff and discrimination at the company.
"There was a guy on the [State of Decay 3] team who was being blatantly sexist, and Anne didn't do anything about him," a former developer told Kotaku.
"There was a manager of the tech art team who was awful that Anne sided with, and lo, nearly the entire tech art team quit."
In response to the allegations Schlosser told the publication, "As a woman whose career has been negatively affected by the kind of toxic misogyny alleged by the source of this article, I would never tolerate or excuse the kinds of behaviors the source alleges..."
Following a contested team meeting in August 2021, she requested a morale review of the company by Microsoft. HR
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