Goodgame Studios Employee Reviews about "nice colleagues"

Pros

Nice environment, cool offices. Colleagues atmosphere is really great and it seems like being in a permanent Erasmus with people from all around the world. Some office perks coffee, milk, cereals, fruit. Free soft drinksFree soft drinksFree soft drinks and beer in the evening is nice to spend more time with colleagues not talking about work. Events are nice and usually spectacular. The office is nice, modern installations, nice chairs, couches to chill out, but your overall experience will depend A LOT on where you finally are working. Teams are very heterogeneous The CEO seems a nice and smart guy when you talk with him and he has been open to chat with employees. Sadly with the increase of workforce this has become more and more difficult, in addition to the arising problems of the company and nowadays it is almost impossible. Maybe this is obscuring his understanding of what is going on actually in the company and maybe this lack of proper diagnoses is why he's somehow overwhelmed by the current events. Unfortunately for him, newcomers don't get to know him and this is playing against him.

Cons

Sometimes it looks like the chiefs don't know exactly what's happening in their own company or simply they don't care at all. Not sure. Currently a large amount of employees do not trust on the management. Especially after some mysterious dismissals of people supposedly because of poor performance, that their direct superiors had no idea about. Founded rumors say that the real reason was related with some try to create a Betriebsrat, but there was even a disabled person among the fired people that outraged the media and placed the board in the sight of all critics since it was a really wrong movement. Apart from that, salaries are below the average in the industry in general, especially for foreigners who don't know the salary standards in Germany. But the confidentiality clause that it's signed with the contract disallows them to talk with their German colleagues to compare. Less vacation days than others. By the way, many foreigners don't know they can negotiate their vacation days, and they are not informed, what is somehow an abuse on them. This, in combination with the fact that Hamburg is the most or one of the most expensive cities in Germany makes it somehow miserable. Additionally, the company is incredibly heterogeneous in the people management and you may be lucky and have a motivating boss who promotes you, or having the bad luck of falling in the wrong team with a technically unskilled boss with no people management abilities at all, who not only does not promote you but also cuts down any innovation and doesn't value ideas nor potential. But sadly it is not uncommon at all to find incredibly valuable and experienced senior professionals led by people with no experience and no criteria to make decisions. Career plan is almost non existent unless you're a trainee. There is apparently no effort whatsoever to retain talent and knowledge, since skilled people is let go leaving behind a hole of confusion. Even more, talented senior who bring ideas and initiatives are put aside to assign those merits to other inexperienced and unskilled people who, maybe never had heard about such topics in their life. There is an outrageous level of nepotism at some black spots of the company where long term colleagues protect and cover each other in detriment of others. Apparently no one cares about this. When people is let go the lack of self criticism and the rationalization talking bad about the leaving colleagues to the staying ones by the superiors just to justify why experts are let go is absolutely outrageous. The loudly announced core values (Honesty, Passion, Innovation, Communication, Focus and Collaboration) are only an empty shell. Dishonest behavior is accepted naturally, Innovation is cut down, Passion is considered too often a negative trait, Communication is almost non existent, Collaboration is contaminated by politics and personal egos, and Focus is very difficult in this scenario. All this creates an incredible atmosphere of frustration that has led many talented people to leave the company to find better career plan and opportunities. The dripping of seniors leaving and not being replaced or done at the most by juniors is scary. No one investigates why people literally flee from some departments/teams. The company internal toxic atmosphere, and the external perception of the brand as a customer-squeezer has destroyed totally the magic that the company once had in the past.

Pros

Friendly working environment. Great colleagues/leads who are always willing to help and cooperare with you as best as possible. Definitely recommended

Cons

Salary is low compared to other companies in Germany.

Pros

- GGS is unique in creating a laid back atmosphere and still having a very structured working routine - you see the impact your work has and they really want to grow this company sustainably. Colleagues are very friendly and people in different hierarchies speak to each other as equals. Love the feeling of coming to work to your team, feels a bit like family - the company tries to provide frame conditions for you to make the best of your job. You have to be pro-active to get tasks that are interesting for you and they support you if you have new ideas. Everything is very agile, things change fast, but decisions are made fast, as well - Nice offices, nice benefits

Cons

- they definitely have to work on better salaries - not everything is perfect but they don't oppress negative opinions, everybody is free to say if something is wrong. I feel like they try to make things good for their people :)

Pros

Friendly enviornment and colleagues from all around the world. Good facilities and conditions.

Cons

Salary is below industry average, especially in costumer relations departments (CS, CM) and QA.

Pros

- Colleagues are really nice - Company events (when management remember that they said they would do one every quarter) - Free beers and soft drinks after 6pm

Cons

- Makes only ATM games, if you are here to have fun with your products, go somewhere else - UX and GD have little to no power in the decision making of features, everything should go through a Product manager that, most of the time, has no idea of what he is doing here. - Low salaries - The "core values" of the company are more like challenges - No communication between departments - Totally disorganized (updates Friday 5pm, updates announced 30 minutes before it happens...) - It takes 6 months to have unfinished tools for your work although it should have been there in 2 - Management tries to hide every mistakes behind smiles and fake sentimental speech

Pros

The workingenvironment created through the years is optimal both for personal development and self motivation. Working with international and young colleagues makes it possible to keep an open mind on team goals. The employee's benefits system i sgreat for social interaction and gives many options of personal skills development.

Cons

The hierarchical systems gets sometimes too steady, creating some cross department communication flaws.

Pros

- colleagues are biggest plus - hamburg is a vivid town

Cons

- salary - vacation rules - strict hierarchy - "inner circle"

Pros

* Honest and positive communication between colleagues * My superiors are very committed and really make an effort * The company invests in its employees * Interesting - sometimes challenging - tasks * Nice office, lots of freebies, GREAT canteen!

Cons

IMHO the company should invest more into production quality. Some of the technical problems that annoy our customer could be avoided.

Pros

- good work life balance - good and talented colleagues - good working atmosphere

Cons

- bad management - company focuses on F2P "dead end" games - no flat hierarchies as they so much sell to employees before joining - no internal/external trainings or interest in skills related to actual game development - bad salaries and small pay raise per year