Glu Mobile Employee Reviews about "gaming company"

Pros

• If you want to work in freemium mobile gaming, Glu is a company where you can do that. • At this time, the game development part of Glu is a collection of different studios who have a specific area of focus (Action, Simulation, Sports, Casual, etc) and different work cultures. • The San Francisco office is in a great location in downtown. • I've had the opportunity to travel and work with other Glu studios around the world because of my role in game development.

Cons

As of this moment, I work in game development in San Francisco under the Action category, so my review is mainly from that experience. Due to the fact several products failed recently, Glu has laid off a significant amount of its development teams. • For a company in the Bay Area that is global, it lacks diversity, especially in management. • Benefits package is average but below average compared to direct competitors. (No 401k matching, 16 days of PTO, no daily catered lunches to name a few). • You may get bored and feel unchallenged because of the lack of variety, creativity and innovation encouraged by management and over-aggressive monetization practices. • Most of Glu's games and outlook of products for the near future are going to be rehashes of out-dated technology and recycled game-engines with a celebrity's name attached to it. Some may do well, many games have not and management will continue to do this because of a past success, á la the Kim Kardashian Hollywood game. • The general philosophy for design here is "data rules everything." Management makes all creative, technical and product decisions purely on achieving metrics and driving revenue. • New ideas and game engines are considered risks and discouraged. • Product quality, the game's players, and game experience are not a priority. Glu product owners and managers knowingly ship unpolished and broken games with obvious bugs and lackluster quality. • Most Artists, Designers, and Engineers will hate and resent the fact that making a good game or software is not important because it is detrimental to one's profession.

Pros

The current GLU leadership seems to legitimacy care about transparency and building a strong foundation based on trust and respect.

Cons

GLU is a game company intent on making money more than making fun games. Though making money is understandable, even desirable - many goals place the bottom line over player satisfaction, game creativity.

Pros

game teams are given lots of autonomy to deliver results every game worked on is shipped -- even if metrics are lackluster

Cons

company takes big bets on 1-off wins (Kardashian) company leadership has no tolerance for the hit driven nature of the industry, expectation is that every game must be massive lack clear vision of how to make Glu competitive as mobile industry has moved away from easy to find organic installs