Gazillion Entertainment Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Gazillion Entertainment full-time

Pros – Gazillion is a great company to work for. David B is a great leader, and the company hosts regular fun gatherings (Giant's games, movies, etc) and encourages meeting goals and sharing across teams. The benefits package is solid for a startup and HR has an open door communication style and supports employees. Fun place to work and excited to be here!

Cons – They always have yummy snacks- sometimes I can't say no to the free goodies :)

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Gazillion Entertainment full-time for more than a year

Pros – The company backs their products to give them as much a chance at success as possible.

Cons – They reneged on multiple parts of their benefits package, including 401k's and full coverage for medical.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Gazillion Entertainment full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Fun atmosphere, nice offices, good location for commuters (in general).

Cons – At the time Gazillion was overambitious without the required experience to really make a AAA MMOG. So, after a long project, the one that the company was founded on, most people were let go. I can't speak to what was happened recently, and the management of the company has change greatly since I worked there (end of 2009).

Advice to Senior Management – Aggressively pursue the right people before starting a project in earnest. Keep any project in incubator mode until the vision for the game is solidified both technically and creatively. Keep the team as small as possible through preproduction because is a lot less expensive over time than ballooning up to a large team that doesn't really know what they are doing or are supposed to do. Don't reboot an entire project multiple times. Either cancel it early or take one design vision to its inevitable conclusion.

Or, in other words, learn from the mistakes made on Project Redwood, which hopefully you already have.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Gazillion Entertainment full-time for more than a year

Pros – Attracted a lot of great people.

Cons – Went through a lot of bad people to end up with a 'B' team that didn't have enough time and resources to truly succeed.

Advice to Senior Management – Fulfill the contracts you have before you sign new ones. Don't give key positions to friends and ignore poor results.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Gazillion Entertainment full-time for more than a year

Pros – Provided development with scrum training
Was above a K-Mart
The operations team was always helpful
The space post slipgate days was open and fun to work in.

Cons – The space was open so noise traveled.
The Exec staff didn't know what they where doing.
Turned into a buy and sell studio outfit
Changed focus of bussiness several times
Didn't care if they loss talent.
HR team was a joke or at least the exec staff focused them to be a joke because nothing of promises ever came up.

Advice to Senior Management – Close down shop your only going to sell the Marvel license

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Gazillion Entertainment full-time

Pros – There were (and continue to be) a number of quality people working there
Generally hard-working and dedicated employees
Casual atmosphere
Marvel license

Cons – Executive management is weak and ineffective
There is a complete lack of transparency between executive team and rest of staff
Company leaders speak with more authority than they have
Company culture is pretty sterile
Legal and HR inexplicably command more power than is healthy

Advice to Senior Management – Trust your staff
Communicate with your staff
Provide career growth and learning options

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Gazillion Entertainment full-time for more than a year

Pros – I met and worked with some truly great people there.

Cons – It was horribly run, terribly managed, and ultimately unable to deliver what it promised.

Advice to Senior Management – Management is now entirely different then when I was there.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Gazillion Entertainment

Pros – Making fun video games. open work atmosphere, inspiring and driven work place with decent benefits in great location. Lego bricks in the building. All departments are within the company, nothing is outsourced.

Cons – Upper management is unpredictable and do not always agree. Big decisions are made behind close doors and without warnings changes can take place.

Advice to Senior Management – Less secret meetings and more opportunities for the middle level management. Less project management and scram masters. Too many cooks in the kitchen.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Gazillion Entertainment full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – - Best place to learn how not to run a business
- John Romero, Founder (when he was there) - the guy is hilarious and insanely well versed in the gaming culture

Cons – - Founder/CEO who was all talk and no follow through
- Founder /"COO" with Biz dev background who knew nothing of how to run operations
- Run by lawyer, head of HR and CFO - enough said
- Original ideas come from other companies
- Could care less about work/life balance or paying people fairly for overtime
- Benefits are a joke and only get worse over time
- Amazing ability to kill studios (The Amazing Society, Smartycard, Slipgate Ironworks and NetDevil)
- Treat talent like second rate citizens

Advice to Senior Management – I hear The Cartel is hiring...

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Gazillion Entertainment full-time for more than a year

Pros – Apparently limitless funding.
The name is kinda cool.
They have some decent IP they stumbled into.

Cons – The executive team's ineptitude knows no bounds on every single facet aside from fund raising. HR, Legal, and Management are so completely dysfunctional that you'l run screaming as soon as you learn any details. Legal will threaten your very existence and HR will tell you to be grateful and not to speak up.

Advice to Senior Management – Give up, sell the company like you've been trying to do, so someone that has some possibility of success actually runs your company.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company