Splash Damage Employee Reviews about "good benefits"

Pros

Good benefits, Career Progression & free football

Cons

In Bromley, a lot of stafff

Pros

Welcoming, sociable, good benefits, leadership development,

Cons

Salary could be bit higher

Pros

Staff are great, not the most talent people I have ever worked with but still up there. Management is solid, they listen to you and try to solve issues you have, HR are very nice and are willing to help even with things outside of work. Good benefits. Reasonable pay for London.

Cons

Lack of interesting projects as of writing this. Made some bad business calls in the past.

Pros

Undergoing an upheaval of projects in order to become self sufficient Core values ensure everyone you work with is amicable Insanely good benefits (Christmas off with pay and doesn't eat in to your salary. Gym membership, BUPA health insurance, Medicash, probably more that I'm forgetting about!) COMPANY PARTIES ARE EXCELLENT

Cons

Pay is pretty poor Hard to get promoted

Pros

Good benefits and really nice people

Cons

No major cons that I can think of

Pros

Get to work with some amazingly talented people. - Good benefits package, and extremely social team - Moved away from Work for Hire and working on their own titles - Working on some great projects - Regular 1-2-1's and team health checks - Takes mental health issues seriously

Cons

- No clear development/progression path for most disciplines - Finding it difficult with the transition from work for hire to our titles - Studio-wide communication issues from senior management and execs - Low wages compared to others and rare to see a raise unless pushed

Pros

-They really care about their employees. -A good benefits package. -Some serious talent (while they're still here) -Quick succession of projects and teams provides quick personal growth opportunity. -A social studio with lots of cool people to hang out with. -A fair pay (if you have the guts to go after it). -Generally, a fairly flat hierarchy that allows you to set yourself apart and have an impact on the project. If you're coming straight out of school and you need a place to get started, Splash is the place to be. You'll grow quickly, party hard if you want to and have a lot of fun along the way.

Cons

-Can't hold on to a good amount of it's star personnel (the wheat). -Has some 'chaff' that it's not getting rid off. -A (slightly) noticeable amount of jaded people. -Has gotten a bit too involved in world politics and virtue signalling when it should probably focus on making good games..lord knows, it's struggling. -Has confused being a fun studio with being an immature one. -The big projects will likely have you answering to an uncaring overlord outside of Splash. (The Coalition) After being here a couple years, the challenges dry up and you get frustrated with the lack of ambition and/or competence around you. That is generally the point where the talent takes their business to a studio more worth their time.

Pros

Most people that you work with are really nice and will answer all your questions. Most people are eager to help and it's very easy for you to learn new things. SD is a good place to start your game development journey. Good benefits. If you are lucky you get to work on amazing games with amazing tech but more on this in the cons.

Cons

Cons are plenty and one problem with Splash Damage is that your experience will be amazing or horrendous based solely on your project and who your lead is. Salary is low but not for all positions. Once you climb the ladder and get into the more senior roles it's fair, comparable to other companies. If you are on one of the internal projects focus on learning from the senior people and find another job. You will never progress at SD if you are on an internal project. You can be the best artist, programmer, tester, producer it won't matter. Even if you are not on an internal project and you do a very good job regardless of your position it won't be enough. You need your manager to be in "with the right people". Your manager will tell you that you are doing a good job but when promotion time comes you won't get it. If you are on the right project , do a very good job and your manager is "in with the right people" your experience with this company will be amazing. SD is a very, very top heavy company I think there's like 8 tiers of management between the top and the first employee that actually works and all the meaningful decision are made at tier 2(under the CEO). So basically between any decision regarding your personal development is your manager, your manager's manager, your manager's manager's manager... You get the point. All the leadership of the company will be strangers to you, you might see them once every 3-4 months and you might not think this is a big deal but remember, these people make all the decisions regarding your promotions, what project you work on and pay raises. All their decisions are based on 5 minute back briefs that people under them give them so don't expect them to actually know what you did. All the positions at SD are shifted one position to the left so the expectations of a junior at SD are the expectation of a mid level in another company. Mid level expectations are senior expectations and seniors are basically leads. If you are in a senior position expect to manage anything from 1 to 5 people. Most seniors are acting leads because the leads are actually in meetings all day every day. Any project that is run by SD becomes a dumpster fire mostly because there is no clear decision making at any level. Any decision will be done by comitee because remember, all decisions are done under the CEO so no one wants to take the responsibility of a decision that the people under the CEO won't like. No one has any real power to do anything at a project level. Any project that you work on will inevitably do overtime and quite a bit of it. Expect to work 50 hour weeks and all weekends at the minimum during the "OT phase" of the project. This is mostly because planning is done by people that don't actually do the work so everything is underestimated. SD is not very good at the game making part of making games. They talk the talk but don't walk the walk. Due to the company "culture", HR and the upper manangement are friends and should an issue arrise they will pick sides. They will side with the people they like regardless if they are right or not. The company used to have an amazing culture but recently(after CEO changed) it has been pushing political agendas more and more to the point that if you disagree with anything they say you can be fired. You are not allowed to discuss, much less disagree with what the company pushes through official channels. The culture now is censorship and fear. SD promotes itself as this very inclusive company but in reality if you don't fall in line with the agenda that is being pushed you will get in trouble. I suggest you never write anything not work related down. It can and will be used against you. It doesn't matter if you are right or not. Sharing a meme could get you in trouble. The company's political bias is very evident and I don't recommend you work here if you don't share their political views. It will not be fun for you at all. This is not going to get any better but it will get worse so proceed with caution.

Pros

Managers and studio leads have full trust in you and your ability to get the job done and thus are relatively hands off. Amazing culture and people. Flat hierarchy. Senior management and execs genuinely cares about you and your well being regardless of seniority. They will always make time to hear you out if needed. Relatively low crunch. Good company benefits. Don't do redundancies, but at the cost of lower than industry average salaries. Multiple projects at once, so tons of interesting things happening throughout the studio.

Cons

Studio is still trying to find its own identity. Unclear whether it wants to do its own games or work with others. It has built a reputation on doing a particular type of games but seems hesitant to go back to its roots. Pay is near identical for those in the same role so your performance and experience is mostly irrelevant. People can get away with barely doing any work at all and that's apparently fine. Each project have a few people that do the job of at least 5 others that the studio would not survive without. They spend a lot of time and money on initiatives that have nothing to do with making games, while its near impossible to get required hardware and software bought. Some support disciplines seems to be actively working against the dev teams and chasing their own agendas.

Pros

* Your peers on the dev team are likely to be some of the nicest people you're going to work with * Good benefits such as health and dental care

Cons

* It's difficult to be recognised by senior management unless you're part of the in-crowd * Pay is well below what should be expected for the work you're asked to do * 45 hour weeks are mandatory * Splash Damage cannot secure funding for own-IP games * Career development is subject to the project you happen to be on; if you're not on a big/successful project, expect your career to stagnate * Lack of communication and reasoning for decisions made, even seemingly minor queries go unanswered