Pros
As a studio that predominantly works on co-dev projects for many big names Flix has made a name for itself for delivering high quality for many years. Management strive to make sure there was a decent flow of work, always finding new projects to work on, an easier task thanks to Flix's award winning reputation in the co-dev circles. The staff are varied and Flix works closely with Universities to give fresh developers an opening into the industry, something that I greatly admired seeing how hard it can be to get into without prior experience. The teams were all hard working, and the studio adopted a remote work policy since Covid, and have managed to continue with the policy with great results even as the studio grew in size. As a fairly large studio of 100+ devs management made every effort to ensure staff were never laid off, new projects would be acquired, staff would move around to other projects as other finished, thanks to this, staff retention at Flix was very high, and again, their devotion to their staff was commendable. If work couldn't be found right away then some staff were put onto the studios in-house project, a studio exclusive, and the project I worked on for over a year. And that's where the problems started.
Kontras
The project I was brought onto was an internal project that had been in off and on development by an ever changing small group of devs for about 10 years, the project had released an early access version some years back but that was not taken further so it went back into development. I was hired to direct the new art direction, based on my own personal work, they felt the style was perfect for where they wanted to take the project. Initially I was working with the Art Director, the team was small and I was the only dedicated concept artist they had, and have had on the project for some years, and it showed. I got to work immediately, paint-overs and fresh concepts that drastically shifted the tone and style of the game from a very stylised (almost comical) look to something more realistic. Issues I picked up on fairly early was the distinct lack of pipelines, the way work was developed seems haphazard and would often mean stepping on other departments toes, I would spend a great deal of my time there working to fix this, with different levels of success. A few months later the Art Director was shifted to a co-dev project and I effectively became acting Art Director alongside some new hires that really helped with that transition. The relocation of the original AD highlighted a constant issue we had on the project, devs were constantly removed from the project to work on the higher priority co-dev projects, something we understood was necessary as they were the money makers and our project was self funded, but the constant removal of devs, sometimes with next to no notice, and the introduction of fresh devs with no experience on the project, meant the development was very disruptive and highlighted some glaring issues with he project itself. As the game had been a pet-project for over 10 years it was effectively used as a sort of sandbox, new hires were trained on the project before moving to co-dev projects, this meant the 10+ year project was a mountain of tech-debt, filled with broken systems, terribly optimised code, and layers of features that had been created mostly to circumnavigate other features that were no longer fit for use but couldn't be changed or removed as the original devs had moved on. The project was a hellscape of junk and colossal optimisation issues. Most of the development time was spent fixing these issues, for a project that was meant to be in preproduction this felt very backwards and the team would express their concerns regarding this method of development, sadly to no avail. Management would demand we have a highly polished Vertical Slice style demo at least every 3 months, the aim being this would be shown to potential investors to secure funding for the project. Sadly, this cycle and goal became the be-all-end-all of the development cycle, and ultimately its downfall. In the 14 months I was on project we ultimately achieved very little, 80% of the effort was put into fixed major and minor bugs raised by management, some being so minor that it was often confusing to us why time was being spent on that rather than the actual projects larger development. With each new demo we made minor progress, all the time struggling with a project so bloated with tech-debt that even trying to make minor changes such as changing the UI colour would take a single dev over a week, eventually meaning we had to constantly abandon plans to remove older content and replace it with newer, better stuff, instead we had to rely on quick fixes and smoke-and-mirrors to give the impression of progress, but under the hood it was a mess. The projects scale was huge, for a team of some 40-50 people management were after a project that needed a team 5 times that size, and their constant insistence on "AAA" quality only pushed team moral lower and lower. Many attempts by myself, other department Leads, and devs, we're made to effectively highlight the major issues we had with the project, it's colossal tech-debt, ancient systems and assets, and a total inability for it to scale due to very poor optimisation. This was mostly delivered in the form of department proposals for new systems, pipelines and features that we could take advantage of as the project was upgraded to UE5, a perfect opportunity to gut the project and remove much of the issues. Despite months of work, new pipeline developments, streamlined processes, better features, better code, and better expertise, the vast majority of our proposals would be denied, a crippling adherence to sunk-cost-fallacy had gripped management, so we had to work with what he had, but also implement the new fancy features. This resulted in painfully slow progress and a crippling of moral across the team. One major issue that had been prevelant throughout my time on the project was stakeholder micromanagement, despite a new Creative Director coming in a particular stakeholder would constantly undermine the CD, going over their heads and other Leads to demand the implementation or prototyping of insane new features that went nowhere, an issue I had discovered had been ongoing for much of the projects long development. As someone who despises design by committee I often put my foot down regarding the implementation of useless features that didn't fit with the project, but were demanded because "this other game has it" Whilst I was able to keep much of this at bay it meant my working relationship with said stakeholder became frayed. Strong personalities colliding. Occasionally management would distance themselves, for a bit, only to come sweeping in again to "right the ship". It slowly became apparent to me that stakeholders had no intention of listening to the experienced devs they had on the project, no intention for us to implement our unique art direction, and no intention to release anything but a generic game. Ultimately I was made redundant, alongside multiple others, due in part to recent UK National Insurance budget changes but more so because of crippling mismanagement and the obsessive micromanagement of the companies stakeholder. The project is a forever project, never to see the light of day, constantly shifting focus and style at the behest of someone who doesn't listen to those they hired to do a job they are good at. By the time I left moral was rock bottom, people felt like they were being ignored, constantly wasting their time of minor bugs and issues rather than actual work, private Discord channels meant many could discuss their issues and vent their frustration, but it was a constant issue, and one production/management either refused to address or was ignorant to. The developers I worked with were fantastic people, driven, skilled, and friendly, it always pained me to hear about their desires for how to improve the project only to then see those desires dismissed with little explanation, many afraid to speak up in meetings incase they contradicted stakeholders resulting in an often patronising and condescending speech about priorities. Constant retrospective meetings were held, constant issues raised, constantly ignored, then eventually people just stopped speaking up. The necessity to secure funding for the project was never in question, we knew our time was limited if funding was not secured, but decisions were made that meant funding was likely not going to be secured, the focus on demos that showed nothing but cliche gameplay and woefully bland art direction despite our best efforts. Nothing more could be done. The project scale was also far too big. With the aim of this project being an example that, when an experienced studio such as Flix pools it's collective talent, it can go beyond co-dev and create something great. Instead what we had was something that, if released, would embarrass the studio. Ultimately, as a co-dev studio management have it in the bag, a well oiled machine. But real, ground level, game development is not the same as co-dev, communication is key, and if those at the very top refuse to listen to those they hire, then development fails, and it is the devs that suffer, not the ones at the top. Sadly, this is a systemic, industry wide issue.