Former Carbine Employees Blast WildStar Work Environment
Started on NeoGAF and summarized on Reddit, a few alleged former employees of Carbine Studios have opened up about some of the, er, "issues," that faced the game before and after its launch, while taking multiple shots at the competence of the studio's higher-ups and general direction.
Forum members NHL94, ScatheZombie, and GrandiaX all chip in with their horror stories of working at Carbine, including some truly egregious mismanagement of the coding environment:
There's plenty more talk of "egomaniacs," criticism of the "hardcores only" marketing push, and insanely long hours worked by the staff. There's virtually no criticism of NCSoft, throughout, though; blame falls squarely on Carbine's employees. While the posters don't identify themselves -- probably owing to the notion that they'd like to be employed in the gaming industry again someday -- over on Reddit, former Community Manager David "DoctorDake" Bass chips in to agree that
Most of this is in line with my experiences. They killed every desire I had to work in the industry anymore.
Harsh, but not out of line with what's been observed from Carbine and WildStar. You don't lose 94% of your income from launch without some serious mismanagement. I was fairly optimistic about WildStar's turnaround after free-to-play, but it may have had too many issues out of the gate and lost too many good people to recover. I still haven't tried it, and at this rate, I may never do so.
But hey, there's still time to get in your guess on how its Q4 revenue will be!
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About the Author

Jason Winter is a veteran gaming journalist, he brings a wide range of experience to MMOBomb, including two years with Beckett Media where he served as the editor of the leading gaming magazine Massive Online Gamer. He has also written professionally for several gaming websites.
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