King Reviews

Pros

Fun games, global offices, smart & capable people

Cons

Constant put-downs, name-calling, belittling, stonewalling, gossipping of other colleagues, and extreme micro-managing, I mean into your nights, morning, and weekends. That was my experience with my manager. Years after, I still find myself talking about the experience with my therapist. Thinking back, not all feedback was bad, some were indeed helpful, but not at all communicated in a constructive manner. Inspire your employees, mentor them, if they are still not up to the job, letting them go before all these abusive behaviors. Unfortunately, there were more people who experienced the same under her, none spoke up for various reasons, but the last time I checked, she's been promoted multiple times.

Pros

Awesome Benefits, great people, yearly company get togethers are memorable and productive

Cons

Since the acquisition, King has lost some of the innovative streak that marked my time there. I hope that will change.

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

Pros

- Leadership has really paved the way for innovation on our next wave of titles. We have a lot of leeway to be creative and try things to create the next big thing for mobile. - Lunches and snacks are plentiful and the office location in Downtown Seattle is central and near a bunch of great stuff. - Leadership in the studio has given the game teams a lot of autonomy to build the games and features that they want. - We probably have the best culture and teamwork at the studio that we have had in years.

Cons

- Communication with central King Leadership is sometimes slow, which can hamper our ability to get stuff done quickly.

Pros

The Seattle studio (Z2) is firing on all cylinders - we have exciting new projects, talented co-workers and managers who are dialed in, but give us enough space and empower us to make cool stuff. Last year had lots of ups and downs, but the leadership team here has given us the green light to do what we need to do to make great games. 2017 is going to be a big year for us, excited to see how everything develops.

Cons

Seems like the office budget has gotten tighter, less team events/celebrations than in the past. It's fun to get together on a Friday and talk shop.

Pros

Seattle studio has an amazing culture of collaboration and innovation. Lou F has done a great job uniting the studio through informative sprint reviews and all hands meetings, while taking the time to work with all the development teams who are in the process of making the next great game. The studio's only live game, Paradise Bay continues to kick butt after its strong push through the holidays.

Cons

They recently stopped serving lunch on Fridays. Oh well, guess the breakfast, free snacks and drinks will have to do.

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.

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.