IGN Entertainment Reviews

Pros

Open culture that is generally pretty collaborative
Autonomy to get things done
Lots of cool personalities at the office tremendous talent on the editorial and video teams and they are passionate about games. I have to love this having worked at a technology company before.

Cons

Core executive team is smart and dedicated but there are some people that if compared to an outside Director of VP wouldn't even be close. Make VP a true VP ...

People are leaving in droves which is a bummer and hard on morale.

While the office in SF is in the best part of the city to work in, has games and the people are great, it generally feels like there isn't much thought put into the look and feel and layout/design.. Get experts in to design the place.

Advice to Senior Management

Training for everyone. Market competitive salaries and perks. Seems very cheap on even having snacks or lunch catered, etc.

Pros

The people are refreshingly down to earth and friendly. Even though people worked long hours, it was nice to get along with everyone.

Cons

Everything was a mess. With that mess came a heavy workload. With the heavy workload came long work hours. And there didn't seem to be the competence of management to realize how to make things better for everyone.

Advice to Senior Management

If you want quality work to be done, then you have to have employees that are happy. Spend time finding out how to make them happy. Spend resources to offer the proper training. Spend money in hiring enough people to distribute the workload. Invest and you will see the returns pay off.

Pros

Fun, fun, fun. You can do whatever you want, as long as you get your work done.

Cons

Small team, small team mentality. Pro or con depending on how you look at that.

Pros

- Fun, video-game themed workplace. Conference rooms are well themed and decorated, giant statues of characters adorn the walls and there is even a game room (though no one ever plays there).

Cons

- No communication, universally throughout the company
- They treat their employees like crap. Regularly string them along promising a permanent position for a year+, random-seeming firings, in hiring negotiations make low-ball offers and in general show a shocking lack of respect.
- Managers do not know their employees - neither level of experience nor capabilities, and set them up to fail with mismatched assignments.
- Long hours, no support

Pros

Nice environment, flexibility around family needs. IGN promotes a sense of fun with a game room and movies. Corporate allows casual dress and the engineering work attracts smart people.

Cons

Pay is not spectacular, (made up for by nice environment), teams can be a little exclusive, information sharing a little weak, sometimes fastest fix promoted...and not best fix, even when have time. Problem solving can be political.

Advice to Senior Management

Roy does a great job communicating and determining strategic direction. Find a way to get the teams to share information better, provide cross training to promote sharing and creative problem solving.

Pros

Strong leadership team that believes in giving everyone a voice. Management sets aggressive goals but gives individuals and teams the support to be successful. Performance is recognized and rewarded. Great group of people who not only love what they do but love to teach, share, and learn. Most importantly, IGN cares about its people including providing compensation and benefits that are competitive.

Cons

Cross team communication can always be improved. Something that is important to one team may not me important to someone else yet both need to work together to get stuff done.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep taking risks and using the latest technology and partners. Continue to create a culture of fast thinkers. Talent matters. Keep the A's, grow the B's, and replace the rest.

Pros

IGN is a great place to work with lots of emphasis on fun, people, and excellence. It's in a great industry - games and guy's lifestyle - and the office, culture, and work reflect it.

If you are a rockstar, management will do everything they can to make sure you propel forward in your career and development. If you aren't a rockstar, you won't experience those same advancements or rewards.

Cons

Communication sometimes lags from managers to employees.
Many projects and priorities can get overwhelming and create too much workload.
Tensions between various departments sometimes occurs - but don't they everywhere?

Advice to Senior Management

Find ways to cut back on the email overload that happens at IGN.
Focus on a few major priorities and attack them wholeheartedly vs. taking on too many new projects that don't return as much investment.
Keep on keeping on - IGN rocks!

Pros

Best coworkers that you're ever likely to get to work alongside in the trenches.

Cons

CEO Roy has little to no concept about what he's doing with the company. Anyone from the director level and above focuses only on what's above them and liberally abuses the heck out of the rank and file. most productive things get done in spite of management, not because of them. Poor compensation. Average to poor benefits relative to the bay area norm.

Advice to Senior Management

Honestly, we should desperately a serious cleaning of house at the upper levels of management. Send them out the door and get people who truly understand the audience and the business opportunities we have before it's far too late.

Pros

Everyone that works there (below management) is awesome. Everyone is really friendly and works hard for each other so their teammates don't have to stay any later.

Cons

Specifically for the accounting department:
- The whole department is falling apart. Notice the many openings at this time.
- Quantity of work you get done is far outweighed over quality. The management pushes you into the wee hours of the night when you can't think straight anymore, therefore the work performed is never the best.
- Working 11-15 hours has become the standard rather than a reason for praise. The whole department stays late.
- No appreciation will be shown and if you miss a deadline, you will have to have a meeting about it
- Everything is disorganized: no formal plan is ever made, random things will get thrown at the employees with no explanation, and meetings constantly get pushed back or don't even take place at all (so you can never plan for the day let alone an hour).
- The processes are manual and not automated to the tune of industry standards as the dept is so short staffed, no one has time to think about it.

Advice to Senior Management

- Thank you and small acts of appreciation can go a long way
- Get organized and come up with a plan and account for unexpected items.
- Look to make processes more automated
- Find money in the budget for the appropriate amount of staff and stop worrying about the bottom line!

Pros

The people are skilled at their trades and are rewarded for doing well. Employee happiness is regarded as an asset to the company, which gives the office a pleasant and productive atmosphere. The sounds floating around the office are symbiotic mixtures of high stakes decision-making, side-splitting laughter, and the orchestral melodies of Final Fantasy.

Cons

Short-term initiatives almost always trump the improvement of the overall system infrastructure, from an engineering and operational standpoint. This causes a lot of recklessly duct taping new ideas to the brand, and hacking new functionality to old code. IGN could be, and deserves to be, cleaner and classier than it currently is. This is known within the company, but progress in that direction is slow.

Advice to Senior Management

Don't allow anything less than really awesome to hit the users of IGN. Everything should be discussed all the way down to the pixel. And the coffee machine could be tastier.