Look elsewhere - 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.

The office is nice. There’s free tea and coffee. Non-management staff are lovely and are very good at what they do.

This is a VR company that has been operating for 3 years and yet has never made a VR game before. It shows. There’s no schedule or plan to any development. Delivery dates will change at random, for arbitrary reasons. The majority of the time management don’t know which VR platform they’re planning to release on. Staff turnover for the last year was 60%. The CEO is only interested in marketing the business so he is never in the office. This is a problem, because he leads on game design, and won’t let anyone make decisions without him. The CTO is a bully and a micro-manager. There’s no working project management here, which is why nothing ever gets finished. The managers refuse to accept this. You won’t know what you’re doing each day because of the lack of organisation. If you do know what you’re working on, you can expect the CTO to tell you you’ve been doing it wrong. Daily life at work is unpredictable - 1:1s and meetings happen at random and can last 3+ hours. Despite this, you are expected to tell management what you’re doing three times a day (daily report, stand up, and walk arounds). 1:1 reviews are a scary experience - only the CTO has input, and he won’t tell you in advance if there is an issue. His opinion about you will mostly be based on whether you agree with him or not. The CTO monopolises the company with his personal viewpoints on how to make games and how to behave, using ‘experience’ as his only justification. The CTO will pick on individual staff members and belittle everything they do. He will over-explain simple things and tell you that you’re not experienced enough to be making games. Probation periods will be extended or ended without any written record or plan to resolve any issues. This will come as a surprise to you, and you’ll be afraid for the first 6 months of the job. There's no career progression here because it's a small company. Pay rises will be inconsistent across departments and they'll probably forget to apply it to your pay cheque. Pay slips rarely arrive. The company’s finances are unpredictable. You won’t get paid on time unless you ask. The benefits listed on the website don’t apply in real life and you don’t get paid expenses back. Many good staff members have left here because of how they are treated, but management do not listen. People leave managers, not companies. If you manage to leave, you’ll be treated extraordinarily unprofessionally. Expect to be gaslit and to lose your mind.