CCP Employee Review

Former Employee – worked at CCP

Pros – Free lunches are awesome! The cantina staff are second to none and are probably the most upbeat group of people in the studio. Why they don't run their own restaurant is beyond me. (They'd certainly make more money.)

Cons – The biggest issue at CCP is the distinct lack of true transparency from top management down to the employees who actually build the games. There are far too many secret back-room meetings that never get communicated out to the rest of us, even though they tell us that transparency is important. In a nutshell, top management are the type to tell you: do as we say, not as we do. Loving nonsensical pie charts, bar graphs, and point plots is a requirement to understand anything about the development of the game.

If you're not working on EVE, then no one really cares what you're doing. It's the religion of the studio and if you don't worship it, then you won't have much in common with a lot of the employees. If you're Icelandic, then you're cool! Life is great. make sure to slip into Icelandic tongue around your American colleagues so we have no idea what you're talking about. If you're American... that's nice. Go get some coffee and keep working.

True advancement, say from an artist position to discipline director or producer, is impossible. The studio hierarchy is engineered to place people into cubbies for the duration of your time at the studio. If you're brought on as a Senior Environment Artist, you will only ever be that. If you express an interest in exploring what it would be like to be the Art Director, for instance, you'll be given a pat on the back for communicating your interest, but nothing will ever happen. They say that there are plenty of opportunities for internal advancement, but I have yet to see it happen.

Last time I checked, many of us were being underpaid by $10,000 to $15,000 annually compared to other studios in the Atlanta area. That comes out to being underpaid 15-20% compared to industry averages. Over time, knowing you aren't being paid your true average worth begins to wear on you.

Advice to Senior Management – Adverbially obsessed CCP,

You might try looking around at the amazing talent you're wasting, and try not to waste it. People will eventually leave and find a studio at which their talents will be harnessed. You had to lay off industry-renowned veterans who pioneered many aspects of 3D art because of hubris and losing your vision for the future because you were blinded by the dollar signs when things were good.

Listen to your lowly artists and content developers, not just people with "Senior", "Producer", and "Director" in their titles. I have to see any of those big-titled people contribute much more than unnecessary meeting invites that interrupt production. With the amount of mid and high level management the studio has, you would think the products you're developing would be well managed, on-time, and under budget. Nothing is ever really on time, budgets aren't guaranteed, and quality can be lacking. You might want to examine the structure of the studio from the ground up to see how you can make it a true agile environment for talented people, and less of a rhetoric factory where brainwashing and false promises are the cattle prods of choice.

Stop with the meetings. Games would ship on time if not for the insane amount of meetings after meetings to discuss every single point to the point of exhaustion. At some point, you need to strap in and build something and just try it out. Less meetings, more doing. Action, not discussion.

Pay your employees industry averages. If you feel so honored to be hosting amazing industry talent, then paying them what they're worth shouldn't be a big deal. Time to put your money where your mouth is, CCP.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend