Pros
I am feeling very thankful of being at Compulsion Games as I definitely believe it to be a very good place to be working at. I am very fond of the team's culture and values and where it is aiming to be headed in the future. By that I mean, the studio strives to create games that are high quality and definitely not run-of-the-mill, which makes the projects very enticing to work on. The ambience at work is great and teamwork between departments is getting better and better everyday. Working with people that genuinely care about the project makes me want to go to work everyday. I have felt like I have been having a lot of creative freedom and control over what I am making. And as we're reworking our production workflow, this is getting better and better as time goes by. I have always felt like management is there for us if we have concerns and they have been going out of their way to make sure we have the resources that we want and require to do our work. They are making big efforts to be as resourceful as they can. The benefits are great. Simply. We have four weeks of vacation per year (including a week at Christmas). Vacation time is very flexible and we can even take additional (unpaid) vacation. Sick days are not a problem: and you don't have to go through the headache of "doctor notes". We have beer on Friday and have had the opportunity multiple times to go abroad to conventions, etc. The work-life balance also is perfect for me. Flexible hours, limited to non-existent overtime (and NEVER mandatory) I also feel that salaries and bonuses are very good and extremely fairly distributed among the team. TL;DR It is clear that the CEO Guillaume Provost believes that happy employees is how a team can perform at its best. This really helps the bottom line of everyone in the end. It's one of the many reasons that makes me want to keep working at Compulsion.
Cons
In all honesty, nothing that isn't currently being worked on. Examples: Problem: As we've been working on environment art, it has been difficult at times to get the job done because we have been lacking the support of a technical artist and programmers. The lack of tools has made some tasks repetitive and very time consuming. Management's response: Are actively looking at and hiring people to fill those positions, so that we get the resources that we need. Problem: In the past, production timeline and deadlines made it so the level artists and the level designers work would overlap in a not-so-gracious way. Management's response: Reaching out to art and level design to develop and test a new production workflow, to fix those issues. **Management is listening and actively trying their best to fix any major issue we are encountering.** Another "negative" point could be: Don't assume to have your hand held. Since we all have a lot of creative freedom and responsibility, everyone is responsible for keeping up to the changes in the industry and for doing their work. There is no room for "slacking around", and I do mean that in a good way. Support is there if you need it, everyone wants to help each other and it is a great collaborative environment. But everyone is also very autonomous.