Chucklefish, the British developer behind games like Wargroove, Starbound, and Witchbrook, is giving £4000 to every employee across the company, in the hopes that it will help them to deal with the cost of living crisis that is currently affecting many people living in the UK.
In a post on their personal Twitter account, communications manager Alexis Trust revealed the change to the public, saying that “Management at Chucklefish just announced a £4k pay increase across the company to help with horrid bill increases”. They also told readers that Chucklefish had made several other moves to make life better for its employees before now, including a no-crunch policy and a move to a four day work week with no drop in overall pay.
“I’ve seen it work, I know it’s possible, [and] I know we don’t need to grind ourselves into dust to create art,” said Trust.
It wasn’t long before the developer-publisher responded to the post with a tweet of their own. “Having this help combined with a no-crunch policy [and a] 4 day working week makes you feel like a true human being in the gaming industry,” said Chucklefish. “It’s really fulfilling to have it and we hope other studios could consider doing the same for their teams in a difficult moment like this.”
Inflation in the UK is currently at 10.1% according to the Office for National Statistics, and an upcoming price cap is set to increase the current price of energy by 80% in October for most households. Changes in the UK government are happening, however, and the latest Prime Minister Liz Truss is rumoured to be introducing an energy price freeze this Thursday that may stop prices from changing for around 18 months.