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King Reviews
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Riccardo Zacconi
148 Ratings
Pros
"Excellent work life balance (Stockholm)" (in 24 reviews)
"Great people and good cooperation between game and tech teams" (in 12 reviews)
Cons
"A bit of chaos in some teams and lack of vision" (in 5 reviews)
"And upper management is completely oblivious to this" (in 7 reviews)
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"A beautiful respite in the tumultuous game industry"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
RecommendsPositive OutlookApproves of CEOI have been working at King full-time (Less than a year)
Pros
- Games, Games, Games - surrounded by amazing like-minded nerds who come from some of the best companies around, having worked on some of the world's best IP
- Heavy focus on diversity and inclusion, it is not just a buzzword here
- Data-informed teams/transparency from leadership
- Benefit/Compensation
- Free noms
- Lots of international travel depending on role
- Lack of toxic masculinity that permeates other studio's cultures - everyone is heard here!
- Mission statement: Every day we look to create IP and content that makes people smile. We are inclusive, your aunt, mom and best friend have played at least one of our games!Cons
- If you're in North America, expect lots of early morning calls with folks across the pond. (If you're a morning person, move this bullet into the pro section.)
- Certain segments of the business occasionally have a hard time understanding issues based on region and is very EU centric, we're working on it!King 2018-07-24 13:55 PDTHelpful (9)
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"Candy Crush life support"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
Doesn't RecommendNegative OutlookDisapproves of CEOI worked at King full-time (More than a year)
Pros
People who want to work in games are generally nice.
Cons
- Management is toxic. The creative directors tend to be skilled and great people. Unfortunately, middle management and account manager types make this place toxic.
- The working culture is opposite of their values. Ironic because the values are posted in bold letters on the office entry way.
- Benefits decreased while I was there
- Promotions are political instead of merit basedKing 2019-02-20 15:28 PST![King Logo]()
"Information security"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
Positive OutlookApproves of CEOI worked at King full-time
Pros
Good company with nice employees
Cons
Location is too long for me
King 2018-07-16 21:53 PDT![King Logo]()
"King of employers"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
RecommendsPositive OutlookApproves of CEOI have been working at King full-time
Pros
Great workplace environment, best I've ever experienced, it's awesome to be right downtown in Seattle.
Insanely talented development team.Cons
Timezone difference with centralized services can be a challenge.
King leadership seems to be risk averse to a fault, making for a less diverse portfolio than the potential they have based on the talent.Advice to Management
Grow North America, Seattle is a great foothold, but the talent isn't being actualized, by limiting the number of potential shots on goal that the studio could actually be delivering.
King 2018-04-16 13:15 PDTHelpful (1)
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"Love King!"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
RecommendsPositive OutlookApproves of CEOI have been working at King full-time (Less than a year)
Pros
International company with a diverse workforce.
Great team/company culture/people.
Incredibly transparent
Lots of opportunities and challenges to grow
Great location in SOMA neighborhood of SF, good commuter benefit
and lot more.Cons
If you are non-gamer that it could be a difficult place to work
Advice to Management
Please keep doing great things!
King 2018-03-13 18:41 PDTHelpful (2)
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"If you want to work with great people"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
RecommendsPositive OutlookApproves of CEOI worked at King full-time
Pros
The people - Lots of really smart and super friendly people.
Great work life balance. Its strongly encouraged to get your work done in a 8hr workday and then turn off.
Great senior leadership. Very accessible. Many of them have been there for 10+ years and are still very passionate.
Great culture in general.Cons
Some politics as expected from a company of this size.
Advice to Management
Continue hiring people that are both smart & driven and also humble & friendly people. Its doing wonders for the culture and the teamwork efficiency.
King 2018-02-28 23:02 PSTHelpful (2)
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"King Seattle Studio (Z2)"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
RecommendsPositive OutlookNo opinion of CEOI have been working at King full-time (More than 3 years)
Pros
There's a lot of trust in the game teams to make decisions on product and timelines. Teams are collaborative, well structured and 'office politics' are not tolerated. Cool office space with lots of perks, but the main draw for me is the people.
Cons
Communication with the corporate office is often slow because of distance and time zones.
Advice to Management
Allow studios to be more independent so that we can move quickly with the market.
King 2018-02-23 13:37 PSTHelpful (3)
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"Junior Data Scientist"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Comp & Benefits
RecommendsNeutral OutlookNo opinion of CEOI have been working at King full-time (Less than a year)
Pros
Cultural fit is important. Friendly team environment.
Cons
None yet to speak of
King 2018-02-10 13:38 PSTHelpful (1)
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"Future is bright in North America"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
RecommendsPositive OutlookNo opinion of CEOI have been working at King full-time (More than 3 years)
Pros
Seems like King is really committed to investing in North America. New Senior leader of North American Games who sits in Seattle, seems genuinely interested in the people and what we are doing. We can finally see how the US ties into the rest of King. Also, it sounded like SF is going to grow a lot, excited to have more people in the US.
-New games in Seattle
-Good vibe
-Great location
-New teams in SF...we get updates from the studio heads in SF during a new North American call....which in itself is cool
-Travel...we all get to go to Stockholm this summer!!!!
-We have recently hired a bunch of new people, good to have more energy in Seattle.Cons
Wish we had more day to day communication in Seattle. My team runs independently which is great, but sometimes it feels like separate studios since we are all so busy.
Would be good to have clear studio goals that we can all understand. Saying we need to launch a game seems obvious, but is that really it? I saw the King goals at our CEO call but studio leadership has never spoken of them before or again.
What happens when local leaders go to London...can you tell us why you go or what you learned.Advice to Management
This is the first time I feel like I have a connection to the rest of King, mostly because of the the hiring of new leadership.
I wish Seattle leadership spoke more about about Europe and how we are part of King...seems like there is a lot of excitement about the games we are making but its rare to hear much other than team specific updates locally.
Please keep finding ways to have the new North American CEO call...maybe keep it to 45 mins
Please keep sharing its a nice changeKing 2018-02-04 11:00 PST![King Logo]()
"Ads BU feels like a start-up - in a good way"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
RecommendsPositive OutlookApproves of CEOI have been working at King full-time
Pros
King's Advertising business is a new, high-energy unit hosted within King (SF-NY-London), with plans to scale to Activision-Blizzard more broadly. Growth is high, hiring fast & accelerating, and there's a lot of breaking new grounds to it. It provides good careers prospects, that feeling of creating, and always doing something new. You don't get the painful political processes of a large empire, while being able to leverage their systems. And King's values are quite prevalent (from internal hires) and lived
Cons
There are definitely downsides to be a start-up within a larger company -- you need to invest more energy in shaping your role/market than you would in a comparable position elsewhere, and it can be a risky path too. Leadership is definitely aware of this and is doing a lot to keep people motivated
Advice to Management
Keep up the good work. Results are good, attrition low - talent is crucial at this stage and we can't afford to lose any
King 2018-01-17 10:54 PST
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