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Only if you're desperate - Anonymous employee TinyCo Employee Review

1.0
1 June 2015
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

-Dinners, large snack kitchen, happy hours. -Genuinely fun talented people. -Business dev brings in high quality 3rd party IPs to develop into games. -High turnover means someone new to games can easily get an entry level job here. Word of caution: leave before you think the entire industry operates this way!

Cons

-Game development pipeline is a disaster. Half of the middle and upper management employees don't know how to make a game, nevertheless a quality one. -Since the pipeline is poorly managed, developers have to put in a lot of unnecessary crunch. Employees who work really hard and leave at a normal time are intimidated by management about their 'dedication' to the company. -Any original gameplay ideas are quickly thrown aside in favor of making the exact same FTP city builder over and over and over again. -Employees who try and suggest how to make things better, even if they come from a good-hearted place, are brow-beaten and treated with suspicion. -Employees who fall from favor are actively treated horribly until they quit. -Random individual layoffs happen very frequently, with little to no explanation why. Moral is very tense, and this is actively being used by management to pressure developers into doing extra hours and putting off raises. -Raises are non-existent, even to employees that have been there for years. There is no system in place to reward employees for investing themselves long term in TinyCo. -Developers, especially artists, are severely underpaid. Artists are being offered salaries at the rock bottom of their market value, then are openly mocked by HR when they object. -CEO doesn't trust the talent he hires to make good products, micromanages. -There is a peer bonus system in place, originally created to reward people who do exceptional work. Now it is strictly abused by upper management to be only used as a way to unfairly compensate people who are (sometimes forcibly) working unpaid overtime.

Explore other reviews about TinyCo

5.0
11 Nov 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

There’s catered lunch a few days a week and catered dinner. Work life balance is mostly good other than understandably right before a big game release. Best coworkers you will ever work with!

Cons

401k marching is non existent. No bonuses or equity or any other structure exists to make me feel like I have a stake in company success.

5.0
30 Sept 2015
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- I believe that TinyCo doesn't hire just experienced people, or "good" people, or "bad" people, I think they try to hire the right people to make F2P mobile games, and sometimes experience doesn't mean results, I like that the culture is results driven. - I've learned a ton, maybe I'd even say a crap load. - I feel like I matter here, and that people want me to actually give me opinions and thoughts directly and its not encumbered by red tape or dumb managers - The people are amazing here. Everyone is positive, bright, helpful and there are almost no politics. People have fun and like to spend time with one another and no one is left out. - Great pipeline of game projects that we are very excited about.

Cons

- I wish there was more of a management structure and that the company was organized in general, it's a bit of a mess and sometimes the lack of structure creates craziness. I guess its better that there isn't too much management like other companies, but more would help. - Projects are a bit unstructured as well, but I think they are getting much better. I think if we keep having hits and investing in teams and management the company could get there. - Management is a bit slow to act... Decisions feel like they take a lifetime to be made and trickle down even for simple things. - The office is kind of craptastic, but its not bad, just not... pretty.

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