Jagex Employee Review

I have been working at Jagex full-time

Pros – The people are great, all interesting, capable and all care about the finished product. Lots of them participate in extra-curricular activities and actively seek fresh blood and offer advice to interested parties.

Nice benefits : gym membership, pension arrangements, healthcare, subsidized canteen, good office building,

You're working for a company that makes games!

Despite all the cons below I do believe there are far worse places to work. Colleagues are very supportive when other teams are under unpleasant pressure and go out of their way to help when they can.

Cons – Unpaid overtime is expected, this is apparently industry standard but not exactly nice.Recently (last few weeks) shifted to mandatory overtime for several teams. This makes the unpaid aspect to the overtime downright unpleasant.

Limited promotion prospects; management and exec roles are mostly external hires.

History of unsuccessful attempts to branch out from the core game, each repeating some trends that could have been addressed, e.g. shifting direction frequently on key mechanics and ignoring early warning signs, such as testers and developers on the project admitting "This game isn't fun" and multiple changes in creative leads for the same product.

Communication between teams is often lacking, resulting in unnecessary, premature or wasted work.
Middle Management get panicky near milestones, resulting in sudden micromanagement and slightly raised tempers, but often appear disinterested (late for meetings discussing the project, slow to respond to questions) in the intervening periods.

No granularity on importance of decisions, every request is "critical" and "top priority" which has to be done "ASAP". Decisions may be later overruled subject to another manager or executive's whim.

Advice to Senior Management – Review projects regularly, especially before putting significant investment into them, and be prepared to cut projects that don't look worth it any more.

Pick some individuals you trust to have a complete and detailed vision for a given product. Back their decisions and make sure they have as much visibility as possible of what is going on in their given product.

The image you give to your workers is important, they currently seem to think you haven't a clue. Better-informed workers are better able to trust you, know what parts of their work are important and make decisions when unexpected problems arise which fulfil the spirit of the instructions they've been given .

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company