They have over 100 full-time, paid “volunteers”, but 40 unpaid “supporters” working on it
Fntastic, the studio developing Steam’s most wishlisted gameThe Day Before, have issued a statement to RPS explaining their policy of using paid and unpaid volunteers to make up their dev team. Metaphorical alarm bells began ringingearlier this weekwhen it emerged that Fntastic are composed entirely of “volunteers” – although full-time volunteers, kindly dubbed “employees” in the statement, do receive salaries.
You and I might immediately question a company’s practices if they say they use voluntary work to make products people pay for. Fntastic founders Eduard and Aisen Gotovtsev, however, take a broader view:
“Volunteering at Fntastic means that a person works willingly for a common cause. We consider all team members, including employees, volunteers,” they said in the statement provided to RPS. “This idea comes from our own experience and aspiration. We, the founders of Fntastic, Eduard and Aisen, consider ourselves volunteers not only for Fntastic but in every sphere of life.”
The Gotovtsev brothers acknowledged that Fntastic is a “commercial organization” that aims to “create the best conditions” for team members, and that “as our organization grows in capacity, we intend to be more involved in improving the lives of people around the world”. You’d think a good place to start might be to pay all of their staff. The statement then went on to explain the structure of Fntastic’s team, including distinguishing between their paid staff and unpaid supporters:
Crucially, the Gotovtsev brothers’ gave more information on the work that unpaid supporters contribute to The Day Before and Fntastic’s other games, such as online survival horror Propnight. “In addition to tests, external volunteers (supporters) help localize products into different languages,” they said. However, then they mentioned this:
Surely when supporters step in to replace paid work then they should also be paid too? And not in “cool rewards, participation certificates, and free codes”, as detailed on theirwebsite. I’ve asked Fntastic for more details on that. The statement also went on to say that Fntastic does plan to recruit their “most active external volunteers (supporters) for full-time work”, and said one supporter based in the Netherlands has recently joined as a full-time employee. That’s a good sign, but you’d also hope to see remuneration for any supporters who step in to cover for contractors.
UPDATE:Fntastic have responded with a follow-up statement in answer to my query about their supporters' work on Propnight:
