Undead Labs is currently facing serious allegations. The studio behind the zombie game State of Decay is currently working on the third part of its survival series and has been a Microsoft subsidiary since 2018. According to a report by Kotakuin which 12 former and current employees were interviewed, there have been cases and sexism and discrimination in the team again and again in recent years.
Undead Labs is accused of this
According to parent company Microsoft, Undead Labs hired numerous new employees in 2021, of whom 42 percent were female or diverse and 29 percent were from a minority ethnic group. However, team members interviewed by Kotaku report that this diverse team didn’t contribute enough to an inclusive company culture: “It’s improved over the past six months, but the studio hired a lot of diverse talent that it wasn’t adequately supporting.” another former employee says in an interview:
“When I had my interview, I was sold the idea of a transforming studio that made diversity, equality and inclusion its top priority. In fact, this is the picture painted by senior management for Microsoft, with women consistently being ignored, neglected, interrupted, and blamed.
Women’s opinions were totally rejected, even for extremely basic coding or gaming knowledge. Nobody listened to them, even women in leadership positions were ignored, interrupted and blamed for problems.«
A male co-worker is said to have made sexist comments during a meeting, such as “You don’t look as pretty today as you used to” and “I’m surprised a girl like you has this job.”
Special meeting rules are said to have been set up to prevent such behavior, but they didn’t help. Some of the interviewees also accuse studio boss Philip Holt of nepotism in the company, as he is said to have helped good friends to higher positions on several occasions. In addition, Holt is said to have pushed two female employees out of their managerial positions by hiring two men above them in the hierarchy, thus making their jobs obsolete.
Microsoft told Kotaku about the accusation of nepotism: “There is a strict and standardized hiring process at Undead Labs for all potential new hires, with visibility and review by several studio members.”
One respondent tells Kotaku, “There was no visible intervention or support from Microsoft. From my perspective nothing got better, things just kept getting worse.«
In the case of Ori makers Moon Studios, Microsoft recently decided to end the collaboration after the developer was accused of discrimination, sexism and racism.
If you want to delve deeper into this complex topic, we recommend our comprehensive report on sexism in the gaming industry:
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