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Storm8 Reviews
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Full-timePart-timeApprove of CEO
Perry Tam
61 Ratings
Pros
Good job perks (free lunch and dinner, movies, annual gifts) (in 25 reviews)
Work/life balance is generally fair to good (in 8 reviews)
Cons
Mentioned ad nauseum above, but very little concept of work/life balance (in 4 reviews)
Any non-live ops resources are put towards "safe bet" new games with no chance of being a breakout hit (in 6 reviews)
Helpful (1)
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"Artist"
StarStarStarStarStarI worked at Storm8 full-time
Pros
Great people to work with
Cons
Company lay-off hopefully will grow again
Storm8 2017-07-19 17:46 PDT![Storm8 Logo]()
"A Company in Slow Decline"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
Doesn't RecommendNegative OutlookNo opinion of CEOI worked at Storm8 full-time (More than 3 years)
Pros
- I had the opportunity to collaborate with very talented and hardworking people
- Decent pay and really excellent health/transportation/lifestyle benefits
- Flexible hours and fairly easy commute options
- Catered meals everyday and access to a nearby gym/fitness centerCons
-The company suffers from poor creative direction. They got lucky very early on with a few initial successes, but never knew what to do next and didn’t know how to adapt to a changing market. First they tried re-skinning their own games to replicate early hits. When that didn’t work, they fell into a cycle of “fast-follows” (clones) of competitor games, relying too much on metric data, but not really understanding the reasons why a particular game was successful. The heads of the company won’t take any meaningful creative risks; they won’t pursue any game concept that hasn’t already been proven out as a market success. If you want to make interesting or innovative games, this is not the place for you.
- Poor foresight / overall planning. Often times, the year would be closing out and the top leadership had no real idea of what the company roadmap was for the next year, or worse, preferred to keep it secret from their employees until the very last minute.
- Poor career advancement opportunities. It didn’t really matter how well you did on your performance reviews or if you consistently followed through on managerial goals/directives. You either had to be really chummy with your department head or threaten to quit before your desire for promotion would be taken seriously.Advice to Management
- Don't put so much weight behind metrics and analytics
- Stop bringing in so many middle managers
- Start exploring the how and why behind a game's success or popularity rather than just attempting to copy a successful game
- Throw your remaining resources at a really ambitious projectStorm8 2017-07-06 17:48 PDT![Storm8 Logo]()
"Good Times"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
RecommendsNegative OutlookApproves of CEOI worked at Storm8 full-time (More than 3 years)
Pros
I had the greatest time working here during my early years. Everyone was friendly, easy to talk to, and felt like family than simply co-workers. The perks and benefits were great. All kinds of snacks and drinks and FREE lunch and dinner.
As for career opportunities for growth, it depends on your manager. Thanks to mine, I was able to learn a lot and grow in my career. She was able to provide a lot of feedback on my work and what I could improve on in the future. If there were any issues or blockers getting in the way of my workflow, she was able to provide whatever I might need to get stuff done.Cons
Although I was able to grow in my field thanks to my manager. I felt it was hard to transfer into other positions that you might be interested in doing. This is based on what other folks expressed to me and I have to agree.
However, the biggest issue currently I believe is that they aren't making mobile games that are groundbreaking or new. A lot of it is a copycat of another game with some improvements or a reskin of one of our current games. I'm not saying copycats are a bad thing, but it would be nice if they made something completely different with some ideas inspired by other games.Advice to Management
Please listen to your team! Let them come up with some new ideas and trust them! This is what Supercell does and it works for them! I want you guys to bounce back and be one of the best mobile gaming companies once again.
Miss you all and best of luck.Storm8 2017-06-19 11:15 PDT![Storm8 Logo]()
"New/Fresh Start - Great Opportunity"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
RecommendsPositive OutlookApproves of CEOI have been working at Storm8 full-time
Pros
Lots of reliance on people and their autonomy. Management funds teams and then relies heavily on each individual to act in the best interest of the company. Great pay. Collegial atmosphere. Exceptionally talented people.
Cons
It's a tough market and the company's attempts to find a hit have been expensive. The company is now retooling and restructuring -- basically starting up again. The culture and products are all in transition. This is fantastic news for those inclined to build something new from the ground up.
Advice to Management
Continue to be transparent despite the difficulties and to put energy into those who are demonstrating their commitment to our recovery and beyond.
Storm8 2017-05-31 10:29 PDTHelpful (2)
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"Lead Engineer for several years"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
RecommendsNegative OutlookApproves of CEOI have been working at Storm8 full-time (More than 5 years)
Pros
Storm8 is an great company to work for. You really get a lot of flexibility to find the best solution to any problem, and the entire engineering team is amazing. Everyone is very supportive, and everyone helps everyone else to learn and grow. If at some point Storm8 begins hiring again, I would 100% recommend anyone and everyone apply. Your personal growth is only limited by your ambition and abilities. I went from engineer to lead very quickly simply because I wanted it and I really applied myself; and my efforts were recognized and awarded.
Also, when things were good. They were really good. They took the whole company to Hawaii! And bonus's are amazing. Like my first bonus ever was over 30% of total salary.Cons
Storm8 has been having trouble finding another hit success game since their initial success. We recently went through a massive set of layoffs and we're struggling to find something to really get behind and make amazing.
Advice to Management
Listen less to the product management team about new game ideas, and listen more to your engineering team about what we can accomplish easily and quickly. Going all in on ideas pitched by people who's entire career is about smooth talking the numbers is always a risky proposition.
Storm8 2017-04-23 19:52 PDT![Storm8 Logo]()
"Great place to work!"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
RecommendsNeutral OutlookApproves of CEOI worked at Storm8 full-time (More than a year)
Pros
Great people, great atmosphere. People for the most part genuinely like each other and the environment is one of a bunch of close friends working together. The senior management care about the employees and offer generous perks and a hefty profit share bonus.
Cons
Storm8 had a major reduction in force due to recent lack of new game successes.
Advice to Management
Keep the culture going and rebuild with even more creative products. I'd love another chance to work with you guys when the time is right!
Storm8 2017-04-13 14:05 PDT![Storm8 Logo]()
"Great times marred with difficult times"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
Doesn't RecommendNegative OutlookNo opinion of CEOI worked at Storm8 full-time (More than 3 years)
Pros
- Great set of people to work with, some of the smartest and nicest people
- Free lunch and dinner
- Flexible schedule
- Relatively easy parking
- Generalist role will allow you opportunities to gain knowledge about different parts of the code base (PHP and C#/Unity), giving you a good breadth of knowledge
- Architects, lead engineers, and staff engineers willing to educate and mentor and help engineering team succeed.Cons
- Fear of using new game ideas because of lack of metrics to prove said new game idea, new games ended up being combined ideas from existing games on market. How can you become a market leader if you are unwilling to take risk.
- Pressure and expectation to work hard and fast, and sometimes even ended up having to do overtime regularly.
- Overly rigid adherence to agile process became overburdening and at times hampered productivity of entire team, despite efforts to mitigate it.
- Was micromanaged to attempt to increase productivity.
- Too much reliance of product's adherence to data which ended up making decisions detrimental to new games' successes.
- Feedback from non-product not given enough weight.
- Lack of transparency from executive level and management. Decisions about projects and games made behind closed doors and then dropped suddenly on teams either without warning or without team able to give feedback. Teams had to obtain news sometimes from private conversations!
- Work from home approval difficult.Advice to Management
With the layoffs, I hope that the executive team will take this opportunity to be more bold to try out new game ideas outside of the mold of existing game ideas in order that they might have more success. It will be much more difficult to do so with such a small team, so I wish them the best.
Storm8 2017-04-25 01:19 PDT![Storm8 Logo]()
"Sucks to be laid off"
StarStarStarStarStarI worked at Storm8 full-time
Pros
• People/peers
• Catered food
• Fairly laid back culture
• Standing desks easy to requestCons
• Most people were laid off
• Middle management felt like a waste of resourcesStorm8 2017-04-10 14:13 PDTHelpful (2)
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"Good people but no innovation"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
Doesn't RecommendNegative OutlookDisapproves of CEOI worked at Storm8 full-time
Pros
The people are very friendly and the benefits are great.
Cons
Risk taking is extremely limited. Creativity is very limited. Culture of "fast follow" rather than shipping quality.
Advice to Management
Make sure your teams focus less on ROI (the result) and more on the why (what people want).
Storm8 2017-04-20 17:14 PDTHelpful (2)
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"The end is clear"
StarStarStarStarStar- Work/Life Balance
- Culture & Values
- Career Opportunities
- Comp & Benefits
- Senior Management
Doesn't RecommendNegative OutlookDisapproves of CEOI worked at Storm8 full-time (More than a year)
Pros
Nice people , good perks , good work/life balance
Cons
Lack of leadership
No new games in the last 3 years
Upper management is clueless ( from the CEO and down )Storm8 2017-04-24 18:44 PDT
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