Pros
- Work-from-home set-up - Gaming and Writing: You get to play and write guides for games and manage information databases for them in projects. - Front-end development: A good starting place when learning about SEO and website page structure. As a writer, you are largely responsible for the front-end development of the site. - Good Team Leads and friendly co-workers: Co-workers are friendly, professional, and supportive and team leads push for personal growth and promotions on your behalf. Working overtime is a good way to form bonds with co-workers. Co-workers will oftentimes be available and willing to teach you the tricks of the trade as a newbie. - Incredible HR team: HR will make you feel supported and work hard to ensure the comfort of employees. HR is quite diligent at sending out payrolls on time. - Company events: The company provides events like summer outings and a Christmas party. - OT and Holiday pay: The company will properly compensate you for work rendered overtime and during holidays. - Promotion metrics are clear and team leads and directors will guide you on how to reach them.
Cons
- Overtime work is frequent & there is little to no work-life balance: Working outside the regular 8 hours is commonplace during new release projects. Covering a new game will always prompt overtime work. While overtime is 'optional' it always felt like a sin to deny schedules with heavy overtime hours. This is the nature of the job as the gaming guide space is a competitive environment. You'll be expected to potentially work around 12-15 hours a day for a week straight sometimes. There are many game releases every month, so expect an OT hell week monthly! - Poor onboarding management for projects: There is very little communication from upper management about when you will be drafted to a new project. Some days you'll be working on one project and then suddenly you'll be informed that you'll be working on another game which you have very little experience with the next day. This causes a lot of stress on the employees as they'll have to adapt quickly to familiarize themselves with the game and the wiki. - Upper management has poor foresight on game coverage: Communication with the upper management is sort of scramble-y. Directors will draft multiple projects and drop them when page views are low. The cancellation of the project usually happens after teams have already rendered overtime and developed the wiki; these poor decisions heavily impact employee morale. After that, employees will be drafted to a more successful project with little to no familiarity. Upper management needs to commit to a potential project rather than drafting understaffed teams to many projects hoping they'll succeed. There is no accountability from upper management during these foresight blunders; you are expected to continue working on the next project ASAP. - Projects are oftentimes understaffed which prompts overtime work: Management will assemble teams for multiple games at a time. These projects tend to be understaffed which results in overtime for the employees. Instead of throwing darts blindfolded and hoping something hits, commit to a few projects with dedicated teams that have day and night shifts so there would be no need to render work overtime. Don't spread the teams too thin! - JP directors hold more sway in company decisions: There is a belief that the JP side of the company is more favored than its global employees. Global is merely a smaller branch that is directed by the main branch of JP. Global writers (and even global directors!) are often overlooked and underappreciated as a result. Promotions are handled by the JP side who will have the final say on these matters. Sometimes JP directors will jokingly berate Global and have them translate JP article content and formatting with the reasoning that 'the JP side does it better'. - Overtime is an evaluation metric: One of the most contentious points is that employee promotion is decided whether they are well-adjusted to adopting a constant overtime schedule. This is a glaring issue as overtime should and always be optional to preserve employee health and prevent burnout. It seems that denying the Japanese work culture will decrease your chances of climbing the corporate ladder. - Salary is not as competitive; promotional bonuses are negligent and career growth is foggy: In the current PH economy, the wage provided is not enough to comfortably sustain a living in this country. The promotional salary increases are not enough to justify the responsibilities expected of a team lead or even a director. However, you can expect a sizable salary increase if you can speak Japanese at an N1 or N2 level (which usually means studying in Japan for that accreditation). The company will not provide resources to attain this, so it'll have to come out of your pocket. Either way, you won't even have time to study Japanese because of all the overtime.
