Where Ambition Meets Exploitation
Pros
• Room for progression at junior to middle grades • Mostly Good people in the trenches • OK place to cut your teeth for the first 3–5 years of your career
Cons
• NOTORIOUSLY BAD at protecting against and supporting staff with burnout or illness. • They have “performance managed” workers out of the company because they have Autism, ADHD, Depression, Burnout, etc. • “Relocation support” is token level at best, they just won’t help beyond offering some money back on moving costs. • Advertising “Flexible Working” but if you try to exercise that, you’ll be treated poorly unless you’re “important.” • No bonus scheme, no game performance rewards, no stock or share options for the average workers. • SENIOR MANAGEMENT have access to: bonus scheme, game performance bonuses, and stock and share options. • Not all departments are treated equally or fairly. QA, for example, was forced back into offices while other departments still enjoy a semblance of WFH. • Company will intentionally try to get you to take on extra responsibilities without pay bumps, title changes, or genuine acknowledgment of your efforts. • Middle-tier career progression is often just management dangling the carrot with repeated phrases like “next project I promise” and “if you take this responsibility on first we’ll see.” • Will work against QA staff attempting to progress into other departments. This has been done by denying access to engine tools and training documentation. • Staff training is unorganized and just “on the job” unless you are in Code or Senior Management. • Pay rises (for many) have been frozen since late 2022. • Secretive pay banding. • People doing the same roles are on different rates of pay (regardless of experience). • Time in lieu rate is secretive and different per project. 100 hours of OT on one project might get you 3 days back and another might get you 5. • Unpaid overtime. You get time in lieu, and they will buy you UNHEALTHY overtime food. • Has a reputation of paying lower than market rate for role and experience. • Recruitment processes are opaque, sloppy, and “hiring managers” don’t have final say on you being hired. • Currently laying off staff and attempting to keep it secret from current staff. At my last count, they have laid staff off from IT, Web, Business Development, and Concept Art. • Erratic senior management decisions with no system to challenge, push back, or be given transparent reasoning. • Will make business decisions that risk staff livelihoods and then make promises to the staff that warned against those practices, only to stealthily lay them off. • Took investment from Tencent, a Chinese government-backed tech company linked to multiple human rights violations. Workers raised concerns at the time. Tencent has since pulled funding, leading to stealth layoffs. • Main office is based in the 5th most expensive place to live in the UK, Oxford. With an average monthly rent of £1659 PCM, they’ll ignore this information to give you a lower salary. • “Rebellion Liverpool” is falsely advertised as having good commuter routes, but once in Runcorn, the local bus from the Runcorn train station will take around 40-60 minutes to reach the office. • Games you’ll work on will be very safe creatively. • Senior management is still “the boys’ club.” • Summary: Secretive, Cheap, Discriminatory, Unsupportive, Profit-focused, and Dishonest. Not usually terms one would associate with people holding a CBE, which is a British award from an order of chivalry.