Great Company - Anonymous employee Cooperative Innovations Employee Review

Its very Near the train station.

- Paid late (and when paid late you get told to 'manage your money better') - Lay off staff - they take staff on 'probation' on 6 month contracts, then end it once they have decided they are not good enough to work in game development or when they have exhausted their talents for design and no longer need them. - Management is terrible - interrogations on a regular basis. 1 on 1 with no warnings. There is no HR, you report directly to the directors of the company which so happen to be your managers too .. so if there is an issue, its pretty awkward. - You're not allowed to work with the lights on .. for real. - They state that you will be 'trained' or taught certain elements, but don't be fooled, if you don't already know it then you will likely be let go at some stage or your wage reduced because they feel they are 'giving you too much of their time' - Flexi time is a lie. They write down when you get there and when you leave and it is frowned upon if you leave an hour early without notice even though its flexi time. - The atmosphere is terrible, it is not at all what game development in the UK is like, the company itself is focused on creating tech for games, rather than creating games, hence why there is zero fun or creativity in the office. There is some serious bullying taking place here.

Many holidays. No crunch (although common now in 2022 after the negative press a few years ago).

Not much seemed to happen at my time here. Seems to not make it past the startup stage and it has been going a few years now. A couple of projects were done but nothing seemed to take off and go anywhere. The employee turnover rate is high. Most staff have left to jobs with better prospects and pay deserving of their talents where they are treated like adults, not patronised like children who know nothing. Certain members of staff were bullied by the CTO, which is never acceptable. Pay raises are hard to come by and lots of hot air / empty promises about things that never materialise to try keep staff. They like to talk about a positive, inclusive and welcoming environment, it is anything but (see above). Prey on people's naivety and keenness to get into the industry to keep pay low. Start juniors on very low salaries (around 17k), far below the average salary for a graduate in Leeds of 25k. Other games studios in the area do offer 25k for someone fresh out of university. Other negative reviews speak the truth and not much has changed. Positive ones were done by contractors after being asked to try counteract the negative ones, they are not representative.