Cryptic Studios Reviews

3.5

66% would recommend to a friend

(78 total reviews)

Stephen D'Angelo

83% approve of CEO

43% positive business outlook

Cryptic Studios has an employee rating of 3.5 out of 5 stars, based on 78 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Cryptic Studios employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Media and communication industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

78 reviews
1.0
27 May 2015

Horridly arrogant management team

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

They make games but lets not kid ourselves.. cryptic isn't known for good games.. They have a few nice people (that aren't management).

Cons

Management are complete BS artists and liars. Jack gives great speeches and its really easy to fall for his rhetoric but believe me, its all smoke and mirrors. Their management team is a club of old buddies that really don't give a crap about anybody but themselves. A bunch of failed game designers that moved into management positions so they could do even less work while explaining to everybody else why their way is the right way. - Upper management is completely clueless but unbelievably arrogant. - They only make microtrans, free-to-play games. They simply want to trick their players into giving them money - Almost nobody at the company has any idea how their own engine works (none of the original devs have been at the company in years) - Did I mention how arrogant all of their management is? Just wow.. -They aren't afraid to lay people off creatively so there is little/no severance package I've literally heard their upper management team discussing putting out a piece of crap game just so they can recup costs and make a quick buck. its disgusting. If you're looking for a place to hide out for a while or boost your resume and you don't care what you work on its not a horrible place to be. If you're a passionate game dev, don't bother with this place.

1.0
27 Dec 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Being able to work on multiple games at one studio is a plus if they let you. Strong tech support.

Cons

Disrespectful upper management. Verbally abusive upper management. Very little care for art passion and artist growth. Deceitful tactics to keep employees underpaid and working long hours with no incentives or overtime pay. Jack Emmert is the most disrespectful CEO I have ever encountered.

3.0
23 Dec 2015

Not the worst place to work.

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

They're very aware of their place in the industry. Unlike other companies that are 10+ years old, no one at Cryptic walks around talking about unseating Blizzard or Bethesda. The people that aren't in leadership are generally very dedicated, talented, and pleasant to work with. Although the company is old, they still care greatly about their product, and will take the time to record new VO with known actors to make fans happy.

Cons

Quite frankly, the leadership here is pretty tribal-minded. Throughout my years with the company, I heard phrases like, "No dissension in the ranks," "We have to present a united front to the team," and "Negativity unwelcome." These are relatively standard ideas/sayings, but they were used to basically reinforce the idea of, "If you're not with us, you're against us." No one at the upper levels is actually held accountable for failures, and outside factors, like Christmas or a layoff, are NEVER allowed to play into why a failure happened. The blame rolls downhill across all disciplines at Cryptic. And, like most companies that have been around awhile, there's a fair amount of favoritism and politicking that goes on at the top levels.

Viewing 1 - 3 of 78 Reviews

Glassdoor has 82 Cryptic Studios reviews submitted anonymously by Cryptic Studios employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Cryptic Studios is right for you.