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Cold Iron Studios

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Cold Iron Studios Reviews

4.0

68% would recommend to a friend

(17 total reviews)

68% positive business outlook

Cold Iron Studios has an employee rating of 4.0 out of 5 stars, based on 17 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Cold Iron Studios employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Media and communication industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

17 reviews
1.0
3 Aug 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great snacks! No crunch... yet (it will come if they try to ship)

Cons

The studio is a flat hierarchy all under the CEO (google to find out who this is). I have never worked for/with such a micro managing, nervous knee jerk reactionary, distrusting management before. With such a small team you must trust your employees and let them do their jobs, this is not the case here. Steve Jobs said “It doesn't make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.” Well here they hire smart people and tell them exactly what to do. They meddle in every aspect of everyone’s daily activities and make doing everything needlessly complicated. They have successfully created a culture that breeds toxicity through mismanagement and distrust. They reward incompetent employees, and hold no one accountable for anything. If you are lacking or even failing at your job you will be rewarded for your mediocrity. They have a game jam mentality due to their lack of experience. Everything is an experiment even rudimentary known quantities. Management has a background making low quality MMO’s at a very large studio which they have never updated their mentality when making games or managing people. They simply are not suited for the big leagues or dealing with actual devs who can do good work. The studio suffers from too many cooks in the kitchen and no clear direction, management cannot decide or articulate to the staff what they want or let them create it. Every decision has to be made by the CEO or look like it came from his genius. There has been a large exodus so this should tell you the general state of the culture. My main gripe is not necessarily the out come of the product here but the way in which they treat people.

1.0
16 July 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

There are still a few great employees left. However most of the upper-class talent left due to management decisions and style of communication. Talent does not get an opportunity its potential in almost every department.

Cons

Failing, mismanaged: depending on your department you will either be A. lied to and misguided with a complete and total absence of logical direction or B. you will be micromanaged to the point of sheer frustration. Game is not fun, management refuses to implement even the small quantities of feedback that they rarely acknowledge. By the way they respond to suggestions and feedback, you'd think it was impossible to develop a game. Spend one full workday at any other studio and you will feel as though Cold Iron is a hobbyist organization. Upper management has no experience developing in the genre of game they're making right now--which is a fact that can be discovered through minimal research. Many valuable employees give honest feedback based on their tenured experience in the genre; they go unheard. Company culture is not driven by merit. Studio heads engage in gossip and any constructive criticism on the floor level is met with hostility, blame shifting, or excuse making. Very passive aggressive, very toxic. Leadership will tell you one on one that they won't stand for certain behaviors, then go on to reward those engaging in toxic behavior, not to mention sub-par performance. Once an artist got reprimanded for exceeding the overall quality bar of work and fidelity because said person risked exposing the incompetence of other artists/their lack of ability to hit a consistent quality bar. From talking to peers, you will find that the upper management arbitrarily doles out salary. Highly competent employees will be struggling to feed their families while other employees will be paid disproportionately solely to justify their titles. Studio space expanding as employees leave en masse. From what I've gathered, most people are leaving due to consistent criticism. Many candidates turn down offers regardless of pay simply due to the location chosen by upper management. Other candidates have turned down offers based on studio rumors (many of which are true). All of these cons are top-down issues. Poor leadership and the inability to shoot straight or display humility has poisoned Cold Iron's core functions and culture. Not to mention: MINIMAL VIABLE PRODUCT mentioned constantly referring to the launch target by leaders. Not a great way to inspire confidence.

5.0
22 July 2019

A fantastic place to work!

Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

I have loved my time here at Cold Iron studios. The company does a great job at being transparent and keeping everyone in the loop as much as they can. This is by far the most transparent company I have ever worked for, hands down. The talent here is staggering, in a good way. We have some of the best Artist, Coders, and Designers I have ever worked with. I know that we will band together to create something truly great. The game has A LOT of potential to do well. The culture here is great and only getting better- especially in the past few months. Cold Iron facilitates good culture by having lots of company activities and events. They also encourage socializing on Fridays and have catered lunch on these days. There are a lot of Aliens fans working here which makes working on an Aliens property a lot of fun! Not to mention the work life balance is fantastic- no crunch and no mandatory extra hours. You are trusted to get your work done and in return treated like an adult. Using Unreal Engine means that we have the tools and technology we need to build something great. The founders are VERY experienced with the kind of game we are all making as well as the strategies and methods that are proven to work in this space. They are extremely knowledgeable in general. Since we are a small team, everyone's opinions and feedback is heard in earnest. Anyone can comment on anything in the game and feel like what they say can have a positive effect on that thing. This is a huge deal, because even though we all have certain disciplines, we are all game developers at our core. We all have good ideas and all deserve to be heard. And at Cold Iron you will be heard! Overall, this has been a great experience and I am looking forward to continue to work with in such a wonderful team! Thanks Cold Iron! Other random pros: Competitive pay Great benefits Very generous amounts of PTO Fully stocked kitchen with drinks/snacks/food Empathetic founders Minimal politics

Cons

Flat structure doesn't work that well No other real cons to speak of

Viewing 1 - 3 of 17 Reviews

Glassdoor has 17 Cold Iron Studios reviews submitted anonymously by Cold Iron Studios employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Cold Iron Studios is right for you.