Former SEGA of America Employees Voice Mistreatment, Greed, Racism

30 January, 2015 10 March, 2021

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Things continue to look worse for SEGA. And it looks like it’s been this way for a long time.

GlassDoor, a site that assists people with finding employment at companies, also has a feature that lets former or current employees of a company (they can remain anonymous if they so choose) review the company and offer advice to them.

As it turns out, things were not so pleasant. What was most important in the reviews has been bolded in case you are not in the mood to read them entirely.

16 reviews can be seen by former and current employees but only 9 can be seen in their entirety. Just about all of them agreed that they love how friendly and lively their coworkers were, saying that things weren’t all bad:

Great people to work with and a great atmosphere. Lots of variety in projects to work on, and many interesting challenges to overcome.

The people who work here are great for the most part. Everyone is happy to help each other, and not many try to dump work onto others. At least not at this branch.
Employees were awesome and friendly

Camaraderie. The staff and middle/upper-middle management all get along really well. When deep cuts occur, you can expect a director or senior director to open a tab at the bar.

But that is where the compliments end. The good is vastly overshadowed by the bad. Multiple people speak of horrible business decisions, favoritism, racism mistreatment, disrespect, and from one person, greed:

Bad business decisions, well above my pay grade. Money over quality was the general attitude there, and we missed out on some great opportunities.
Forecast doesn’t look great. There doesn’t seem to be much opportunity for growth.
Lots of disorganization and internal office politics conflicted the productivity level. Also lots of animosity across different departments. The anxiety of security also affected work on a negative level. As it was my first established publisher QA gig, I didn’t know what to expect. But coming from a background that is more varied now, I could see the weaknesses that were all around SEGA. SEGA Japan and Europe were more of focuses until the mass layoffs and it seems they still are focused on those other regions now.
Increased pressure. There is a new directive that everyone be 100% busy 100% of the time. It’s pressing people to invent busy work for themselves so they never appear to be dawdling, or risk getting the stink eye from the new VP as he helicopters around the office.
Deteriorating morale. The new oppressive environment, the constant fear that you’ll be the next to go. It’s poisoning the camaraderie that was always the saving facet of this company. Everyone is on edge, everyone is fearful. No amount of enthusiastic floor speeches are going to keep people happy when they’re constantly looking over their shoulder and waiting on the axe to fall.
– Treated like a number

– Suck ups get to stay longer than hard and dedicated workers

– No Benefits

– Low Pay for California
Management…its always the same. They manage thru fear and threats…why can’t we get good managers?
…the reset ran out of steam and the products didn’t sell. Some didn’t sell because they weren’t any good and that wasn’t addressed by many people involved, but there were plenty of products that were good too. While the market does play a role in this I have to say that it’s not fully to blame. Most problem products weren’t righted and the organization in general just didn’t collectively have its stuff together to change that. It wasn’t for lack of good people or even processes, it largely appears that the output from such things was ignored or people even covered problems up fearing their own failures would see them out the door. The big downside of working at Sega America is of course having to work with Sega of Japan and Sega Europe, in particular having to work under the management from SOE over the last several years…which let’s face it, hasn’t worked out and on reflection appears to have not been a good idea. Yes, I’m biased…but it’s also true isn’t it? There are some great people within those overseas places yes, but there are also many failures, politicians and ineffective managers (managers, directors and VP’s) too. SOJ typically falls in line with what you’d expect of any Japanese company, essentially an organization that looks down on anyone who is not Japanese. Racism. There, I said it. As for SOE. The management (particularly that which has been managing or overseeing the entire Sega West business) has run the entire thing into the ground. A lot of those same people appear to have been doing nothing but empire building for themselves and instead of trying to make the business work have been securing themselves. Better people were ousted unnecessarily in order to pave the way for such empire building. I’m happy for the recent change of guard at Sega West, but it hasn’t really gone far enough and we needed more directors, leadership and decision-making back at SOA if only to curb the lack of insightful direction, decision-making and interfering from overseas. Why? Those involved just didn’t understand the problems from afar, thus couldn’t fix them. Ultimately it’s been difficult to get any products, business or other efforts off of the ground because of the stalemate and lack of decision-making in place and we lost so many good people because of that. There’s a lot of reason to not work there nowadays. It’s a good gig to have if you don’t have anything else going on of course, but that’s as far as I’d recommend working there.
Poor performance on new and existing game titles. Reputation as a whole has been dropping like a rock. Many people do not even know they still exist.

Two of these reviews come from as late as 2012. One came from 2013. The rest? Within the past year. This indicates that things have not changed and suggests the complaints people are voicing may be still an issue today.

So what does this mean? There’s more than meets the eye when it comes to SEGA’s employees. And, with the developing news of the restructuring, it’s just salt rubbed into a wound.

This post was originally written by the author for TSSZ News.

Donnie

A chao that wears a news reporter hat, Donnie has been a part of LMC since 2012, LMC's main news writer Donnie is also a part of the Uncutting Crew commentary series.

17 Comments

Sega of America has been in shambles for years with poor management. The news that has broke today is a breath of fresh air,

L.A. has more opportunity.

Tomoki says:

31 January, 2015 at 3:58 AM

Keep telling yourself that.

It’s sad, horrible news like this that almost makes me feel okay that I’ve now turned by back on the Sonic franchise. I no longer have to be biting my fingernails over the future of the series. I’ve had very little interest in SEGA beyond Sonic, so now that that’s over, I can just understand that if SEGA fails, it will be its own fault.

It just saddens me when I hear of all of the talented, smart people who got caught in the crossfire.

These poor people… I wish them luck.

Lol we knew for years SEGA was racist. Nothing new here.

To the booted employees, here’s hoping for bigger and better things. To the remaining skeleton crew, good luck with the big changes coming your way!

I’m sorry, but instead of complaining about mistreatment why don’t they stand up for themselves? Do they not have a CEO of Sega of America? That person needs to take matters into their own hands and make sure they’re being treated fairly.

The Japanese have a “seniority” culture, where those who are older are expected to be treated with respect no matter what. Well, that is Japanese culture. In America, respect is given based on the individual and if they EARNED that respect. You don’t get respect if you’re a mean person, even if you are older. Sega of America needs to stand up, speak to Sega of Japan and get them to understand their differences and work to find some middle ground if they really want to succeed. If they refuse to understand, then it would’ve been better to separate yourselves as a branch. If you just sit back in your chairs and cry, then nothing will ever happen.

But 100Rings is right, this is absolutely nothing new. Tom Kalinske, CEO of Sega America back in the 90s, went through the same treatment even back then.

Sign the petition to save Stephen Frost’s job!
https://www.change.org/p/sega-keep-stephen-frost-at-sega-of-america

Fuck this is depressing.

Wow, well here we have the potential answers to the quality of our Sonic Games. Very sad.

We’re currently sitting on 30 signatures at the Stephen Frost petition. Please guys, you know how well and how much Frost has helped the community. His enthusiasm and undying dedication to the series helped us get where we are today. Without him being there, I know all the games, whether bad or good in your book, would have turned out much worse. Just take a moment to fill out the petition. While you’re at it, also share it from the same page. Consider it your good turn for the day, good karma or brownie points. Visit this link now and help make Frost’s day (and year):
https://www.change.org/p/sega-keep-stephen-frost-at-sega-of-america

Hifihedgehog says:

31 January, 2015 at 12:28 AM

Just as clarification to everyone here wondering about the Stephen Frost petition:
https://www.change.org/p/sega-keep-stephen-frost-at-sega-of-america

We are making a statement here: we, as their own customers, care for their own employees more than SEGA themselves. That is just to openly go out and prove how very insensitive and out of touch (the non-politically correct term others would use is “evil”) of a corporation SEGA truly is.

Yes, we are helping Steven Frost out which is the primary focus here, but the overall theme or lesson to be learned is that this should not be happening to begin with. To be quite frank, the more publicity and signatures this petition gets, the more greedy, racist and heartless we make SEGA out to be.

Accomplishing either goal is a win-win in my opinion. Besides, employees knowing we really do care for them in spite of their employer’s lack of competence makes those employees realize we are in it for more than a game alone–we value them and their hard work. In the end, we will earn their mutual friendship and trust as a result.
1. R3N says:
  
  31 January, 2015 at 10:36 AM
  
  He deserve to be fired. Just for this comment.
  https://twitter.com/frostman007/status/255523793580195840
  Every Shenmue fan don’t vote and don’t have compassion on this asshole.
  1. Goiki says:
    
    1 February, 2015 at 11:09 AM
    
    You know that is a quote from Neogaf, don’t you? Not Frost’s ideas. This guy is getting too much hate lately, it’s just nonsense from furious fanboys who think he killed their lovely and allmighty Sonic from their childhood.

The whole idea of GlassDoor sounds really suspicious, ESPECIALLY the facts that anyone can make an account on it and anyone can make an anyonomous review on something.

Yo, a few days late but can we get a ban/post removal over here? We don’t need this kind of filth here. The commenter or the comment.

Sega burned itself by pretending Sonic was the only title it owned. Miku is there only saving grace in the states. Pso could have single handedly saved this company for at least another two years here in the west. If it wasn’t for Miku I would say I could care less if the company burned right down to the ground. The only bad things there are good titles forever gone and good people now left scrambling for work. Its sad cause they were once great and I loved Sega but I merely hold on to that love for Hatsune Miku’s sake now.

Comments are closed.