MZ Employee Reviews about "work environment"

Pros

very nice people to work with

Cons

rigid work environment too many rules

Pros

Innovative work environment that continually pushes the envelope to anticipate and deliver what the customer wants and needs. Its very exciting times here with executive management having a very strategic long term goal within this rapidly growing industry.

Cons

This company is not for everyone. Dedicated and passionate people who love video games and working are best suited to thrive in this environment.

Pros

Amazing art team. Loads of talent, regardless of said talent is put to use. Everyone is easy-going, at the very least. Most are hilarious, snarky, curmudgeonly, heavy drinkers, goofy, humble. There are a few people with their head stuck youknowwhere, but that's any team. As for the company itself, "perk laden" is the phrase. Massages, snacks-a-plenty, breakfast/lunch/dinner. Huge parties. New Cintiqs. Gnome that sneaks around giving surprise foot rubs. OK, maybe that was my job before I left. I MISS DEM FEET. Also, by the by, the CEO is insane. This is under pro because I like him. I've spent some time around him and find him just genuinely entertaining. He's quick witted, totally evil sense of humor, his favorite skate company is friggen Death! He had a goal (conquer the mobile gaming world) and it was insane and he did it. What did you do today?

Cons

Constant hiring from outside for middle-management positions, resulting in a line of dudes asking about TPS reports while the top end (decision makers) and bottom end (overworked grunts) are squeezed and routinely blamed for failures out of their control. Every task is ON FIRE despite the fact they are nearly all COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT. Meanwhile, the actual important artistic endeavors (game tone, style, coherence, any semblance of character or story) are marginalized or intentionally ignored. Studio randomly drops work to hastily clone some hot-new-thang then they discard everything when said hot-new-thang falls off the IOS top ten. Which makes no sense, since MZ makes the hottest thangs on the top ten. Art decisions are often left to game design, who are artistically beyond ignorant. Everything needs to be 'more awesome!' which means 'make it all gold all the time!' Their ignorance also leads them to wander by at 6pm like, 'oh hey, I like this illustration. can you just change the camera angle and MAKE EVERYTHING GOLD?' resulting in an entire day (week?) of work being voided based on nonsense whims with no bearing on success. I could go on forever, but you get it. If you enjoy art and demand an intelligent work environment, don't work here. If you don't mind making dumb stuff to get a paycheck and you like taking shots of top shelf booze, you'll be fine.

Pros

Very ambitious, and the company has the talent and resources to make it. Fast paced work environment. If you are willing to put in the effort and are proactive, there are opportunities for professional growth and you will be recognized for it. The people that I work with are intelligent and friendly. The problems are interesting and challenging. It's a great work environmenta great work environmenta great work environment to learn. The leadership team are approachable and they listen to feedback. They've always open to looking for ways to improve the work flow and processes.

Cons

Not necessarily a con, but I can see how the perceived work/life balance won't suit everyone's tastes. The pace that the company moves at is very quick and many on the team are highly committed.

Pros

They pay well, as an artist I probably will not be paid this amount again for the same title.

Cons

Work environment is rather unfortunate. Seems to me that lots of people end up in high positions whether or not they are qualified. Art team in general was never thanked or even discussed regardless of how hard they worked to meet demands. CEO insists on calling the company a tech company regardless of how important the games(and game team) are to the company. As an artist you will be told to photo-bash everything regardless of your talent otherwise. Overall not a place I would recommend for an artist looking to grow their portfolio or quality of life.

Pros

Compensation is pretty good. Decent bonus structure. If you're hourly, you'll reap the benefits. Ability to move up if you just put in the hours (not really about contribution or tangible impact). HR leaves very nice reviews of what the company could be. I think it's a positive because we can all strive to be better.

Cons

Place is great for people who like politics and maneuvering through the corporate ladder. I've seen junior associates get promoted leaps and bounds because they were willing to put in the hours. It's not really about impact, it's more about perception, and how many hours you're willing to clock. No one really even plays the games that work on the games or are even gamers. Designers only look at excel sheets and a person I worked with who ran an important team she barely even knew what the IP was about or games in general. The work environment is terrible because everyone just puts in hours versus works intelligently. This means working on weekends and a culture that promotes this. This literally means weekends at 1am. You can choose not to do this, but your chances of moving up regardless of your tangible impact will be close to nothing. They'll tell you things are getting better, but the leads here don't value it. Everyone on the team I worked on that were the leads pretty much worked all the time and super inefficiently. I've never seen so many people do things so inefficiently. Because everything is so inefficient everyone has job security which might be the intent. I've worked at other companies where three people could run a game. This company has about 30 people run a game because it breaks up all the pieces so everyone gets their tiny slice. They're also majorly possessive about their little piece so it's impossible to garner any more efficiency. Literally if you do something because it's more efficient, but someone else was supposed to do it you'll hear an earful about overstepping your role.

Pros

Exceptional minds and great staff at the non executive level.

Cons

Literally everything. MZ is a hostile work environment.

Pros

Super intelligent people People work hard and won't stop until the mission is accomplished People execute better than any other company I've ever worked at

Cons

No work life balance Little recognition and if there is recognition, it is poorly provided and not well received The culture is very execution driven. You gain the sense from leadership that your job is always on the line. It isn't a fun and positive place to be, but more like a sweat shop. Would never recommend this place to work at if you have a ton of working experience in the valley. This place is for young people that have no idea what a positive working environment is, what work-life balance is, or what it means to feel good about your job.

Pros

Cell phone reimbursement for all, SOME great people to work with, free snacks and drinks (I was super hydrated), benefits were nice, convenient location

Cons

Management thinks it's a family environment, but really only if you worked at Zappos. They're all hush hush about stuff, but who cares? You honestly have to be a favorite to get anywhere in this company. Don't even think about complaining about someone on your team not pulling their weight or you'll be told that you were accusatory and insulting. And that once you do it once, you've learned your lesson. There's no real room to grow unless you suck up from day 1 with a big fake smile on your face. It was good once but not now.