Well first of all, it is actually obvious that most of the 4 to 5 stars reviews are just the HR dogs and management to keep the overall rate good looking.
I am working in the Art Pool together with the concept art guys and the 3d artists, so this review is more art related, but same things are going on in the other departments. How do I know? Because friends and colleagues are talking to each other.
- First and important thing is, some of the art department leads are super unreliable, promising you what you wanna hear but never holding to his promises. If he does not like somebody because of personal reasons, he tries to ruin this persons career, a few cases are known among colleagues. This is unprofessional and incompetent. Our motivation now is lower then ever, because there are many immoral unsaid things going on.
- On our Xmas party one of the CEOs had a great speech, where he told us that Goodgame Studios is not a bubble, don't listen to all the gossips outside the company, we are great! But because of the unsuccessful projects they started to have some financial problems we believe and started to think where they can save money. Without warning they just rejected one of our colleagues and didn't want to extend his contract even though he did a good job, which is immoral too. This was not the only case. So, GGS is a bubble.
- They do not listen to the employees, doing their own thing and it turns out to be ..... not good. How can you copy one of your own games, changing the visual art direction and hope that it is also gonna be successful???
- Many good guys are leaving this company, because of all this cons.
- Low, very low salaries for art related jobs (can also be in other departments). Why are you thinking that if we like to do art, it is our hobby, and we are ready to do it for free?? No, we don't!!! Just because we love what we do, it does not mean that we are gonna paint pretty pictures or sculpt 3d characters for free!
- The management is not really competent, making strange decisions and hiring incompetent people and the guys who are competent are just used on low pay and low positions.
- Intransparent recruiting process.
- "You are just a number, anyone can be replaced" is the main politics of this company.
- boring tasks.
If you are gonna criticize something or gonna give some bad feedback, you can be fired, so it is like in a dystopian regime, where they have pretty trailers, advertising and fake smiles but underneath you are insecure and play fake politeness and happiness.
I would never recommend Goodgame Studios to a friend or someone else, because you are just getting abused for low pay and boring tasks.
