PerBlue reviews

4.3

86% would recommend to a friend

(53 total reviews)
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Justin Beck

79% approve of CEO

61% positive business outlook

PerBlue has an employee rating of 4.3 out of 5 stars, based on 53 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an excellent working experience there. The PerBlue employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Media & Communication industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

53 reviews
2.0
Aug 20, 2021

The executives are holding PerBlue back from success

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

When I started, PerBlue had an incredible office culture. Everyone I interacted with on a daily basis was an absolute pleasure to work with. My team and immediate supervisor was (and is still) amazing. The adjacent teams were an absolute pleasure to work with. I have formed so many close friendships with coworkers that I believe will last the rest of my life. Honestly, I have never worked in a more joyful place and I hope that I can work at a place so joyful again in the future. I am so grateful for my time at PerBlue.

Cons

It devastates me to say this, but the CEO, Justin Beck, is actively driving this company into the ground. He actively undermines his teams. He treats non-technical workers and teams horribly. He claims compensation is competitive. While I have no first-hand knowledge of the pay of other employees, I have heard generally that pay at PerBlue is roughly 2/3rds of market labor prices, which matched my experience. Beck's business ideas are, quite frankly, very bad. His business and game ideas are poorly researched, have no written business plan, are often unrelated to the company vision or goals, and fall apart quickly under any scrutiny or self-reflection. He seems incapable of incorporating any new information into his worldview, including the evaluation of his business ideas. He so resolutely refuses to listen to the experience of his extremely talented staff if any of their ideas or experience goes against his personal individual beliefs, interests, and fantasies. When he delegates the work of validating and implementing his ideas to PerBlue's extremely competent new product teams, he refuses to let them have the ownership necessary to kill his ideas and make something actually good, as they are fully capable of doing. This is completely demoralizing, wastes months and years of product development time, and ultimately leaves the company lurching from one bad idea to the next with no coherent vision or direction. The executives actively undermine the extremely talented women at all levels of the company. They actively refuse to do the personal work required to make the company more inclusive and undermine diversity and inclusion efforts by other employees at the company. The top leadership is a "Boys Club" and there is absolutely no indication that will change any time soon. The executives consistently undervalue any work that women do at the company and have a pattern of undermining women in leadership positions until they quit. And worst of all, they refuse to acknowledge or take any meaningful action to fix these issues at the company. And while I'm sure they will respond to this comment with some platitudes about how the company values diversity and is an inclusive place to work, I have heard so many stories from both current and former employees that actively contradicts that messaging; it's just more refusal to face the tough cultural issues facing the company. Perhaps someday they will change, but I've stopped holding my breath. As of now, you might notice that there are a lot of open positions at PerBlue. This is because people are leaving en-mass while the executive leadership team is actively refusing to acknowledge the grave retention problems facing the company. There is a widespread lack of trust in the direction of the company and specifically in the CEO and COO. Most (but certainly not all) of the employees that were cultural pillars of this company have left to have wildly successful careers elsewhere, no longer held back by the PerBlue's leadership. Tragically, none of this feedback is new to the executives. Other former colleagues have told me they have voiced similar concerns to the executives for years, both while they were employed and during exit interviews. This feedback is intentionally, systematically, and aggressively ignored. That complete refusal to even briefly consider the leadership issues at PerBlue leaves me with very little hope for the company. Will PerBlue still be a good place to launch a career in games of the back of a flailing company? Yeah, I think probably so. Would I recommend PerBlue as a place to work over someplace like Blizzard? Absolutely, every day. Can I, in good faith, currently recommend PerBlue as a good place to work? It absolutely breaks my heart, but I can not.

2.0
Jul 26, 2018

Inept Management That Got Lucky

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Decent benefits. Fairly fun environment. Nice offices. Some great people. Work-life balance was very good. Generally what you can do is very flexible. Senior leadership is friendly and open to suggestions. You can present ideas and take part in coming up with directions and decisions. Until I started to take part in senior / internal meetings, the work and environment was typically very enjoyable.

Cons

Management recycles poor content and plagiarizes FOTM games. Only one founder actually plays games. They are also not female-friendly in executive meetings--senior management regularly objectified women whenever it would benefit them monetarily, even when team members voiced disapproval or refused to participate. I was asked along with others to explore pornographic ads for games aimed at young teens. The CEO (Justin Beck) can be ridiculous to work with: his spelling can make internal communication impossible to understand, he's shockingly scattered, and he often arbitrarily changed direction without regard for what lost work did to team morale. Executive meetings can get heated because of poor abilities to communicate. I witnessed abusive interactions (childish arguments, screaming, and name-calling) more than once. Internal documents and documentation are scattered across multiple servers and personal folders. There are little to no standards for work quality. Few team leaders have quality experience. The work environment tries to be fun, but it often fails and feels forced and awkward. Many, many corners are cut.

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PerBlue Response
7y
While we're glad you enjoyed the "Pros" mentioned during your time with us, the remainder of this review is completely inaccurate. It's a disparaging portrayal of PerBlue, and is in no way representative of who we are or how we behave. We're proud of the welcoming, positive, and energetic environment that we've built. We have a humble and ego-free culture built on trust. And we have a team of passionate people who truly care about building great games and supporting each other.
1.0
Nov 9, 2016

Leadership Lacks Vision

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Some staff are very kind and great at their jobs.

Cons

The leadership at this company lack vision when it comes to the hiring process as well as game development (which is core to their business). They are not experts in hiring talented staff, and frequently allow ego in the way of sound decision-making. When they do hire good people, titles are often muddled, good ideas are squashed, and eventually this game industry talent is either pushed out or laid off, doomed to look for relevant work in Madison, an island in the industry.

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PerBlue Response
9y
We appreciate you taking the time to leave feedback. While we don't agree that parts of the portrayal described here are an accurate picture of us, we are always open to feedback. We truly believe we've built a great workplace, we know we're not perfect but we constantly strive to improve whenever possible.
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Glassdoor has 64 PerBlue reviews submitted anonymously by PerBlue employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if PerBlue is right for you.