[EUobserverXeon]

http://www.glassdoor...ews-E509818.htm

“Good place to grow up and gain experience”
Current Employee in Karlsruhe, Baden-Wurttemberg (Germany) – Reviewed Sep 5, 2012
Pros – Excellent benefits such as free lunch and sandwiches, free drinks (including beer after work). Recreation area. Nice colleagues and much room to grow, especially in junior positions.
Cons – Some politics with people that have been in the company for a long time. But hey.
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“Honesty would be nice”
Current Senior Manager in Berlin, Berlin (Germany) – Reviewed 2 weeks ago
Pros – free drinks
nice working time
there is tea
Cons – management not always competent
they are immature
and lie
Advice to Senior Management – drop the lies, get more adult, respect your workers
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“Ok for a job, not for a career.”
Current Minion in Berlin, Berlin (Germany) – Reviewed Oct 10, 2012
Pros – - Free drinks
- Free fruit
- Pleasant offices in a central location
- Some inspiring colleagues who will do their best under poor circumstances
- Lower and middle management is very understanding of Life/Work balance
Cons – - Having acquired Frogster Online Gaming, a culture of separation exists between the core, provincial Gameforge environment and the defunct Frogster, with decisions being made by individuals who have nothing more than a statistical interest in Berlin rather than a desire to invest in maintaining quality, talent and passion.

- Despite the allure of a gaming company staffed by gamers, there is a distinct lack of understanding of player psychology by upper management, with an emphasis on spin rather than a commitment to fixing problems and improving games. In all fairness, this is a problem most publishers of Asian games have. However, there isn’t the realisation that investment must be made in well-staffed Quality Assurance, Game Improvement, Community Management, R&D and IT departments.

- Gameforge seems oblivious to the idea that a well-advertised and well-maintained game will attract paying players. It seems addicted to the malady of small “get rich quick” schemes that invest in poorly designed browser games and suck customers dry before they become aware of the ploy.

- Monetization is simply not taken seriously at Gameforge. Little to no innovative thought is put into creating good monetization business models and there exists a culture of creating Pay-To-Win games regardless of promises made. Most Cash Shops are simple rehashes of doomed predecessors and fail to be popular due to players’ unwillingness to accept certain monetization standards.

- Decisions are being made on a global level by upper management which are ill-suited in application to the Berlin office. This stems from a lack of understanding of the Berlin business culture, character and games.

- Despite claiming to be an international publisher for the video game industry, Gameforge remains provincial in practice and finds it difficult to cater to the European market. This is nowhere more obvious than in the insistence on using German in many of its corporate broadcasts, long delays in English announcements (or complete lack thereof) with regards to internal mails, and the continued use of German in staff/management meetings.

- After the failure of three games due to mismanagement and poorly established relations with the Developper , there is an unwillingness to provide Berlin with a fighting chance to prove itself. No new games are being provided, with all new projects being kept in Karlsruhe. With no time, effort or money granted to Berlin, conditions worsening and retention of talent at an all time low, one wonders whether Gameforge genuinely wishes to retain the Berlin office at all.

- Talent is not being retained and there is an overemphasis on the use (and abuse) of interns to provide cheap, disposable workers. Once an intern concludes his contracts, it is likely that he or she will be dismissed unless they take on another internship. Whilst internships are acceptable practice in the video games industry, the process should be one of education rather than of cheap labour. Similarly, rather than resolving structural issues and problems stemming forth from small-minded upper management decisions, staff has become an expendable commodity.

- Volunteers are crucial to the continued survival of Gameforge's communities, with mentors being given tasks normally assigned to full-time employees. Whilst the community should certainly be encouraged to invest itself in daily activities, they should not be considered a budget-saving, slave-labour substitute for experienced members of staff who may be bullied and pressured into doing long overtimes and tasks for which they are not trained.

- There is no Gameforge “team spirit”. Period. Despite successful attempts at integration on a technical level, there has been little to no actual dialogue between both offices.

- Whilst candidates for promotion are typically chosen internally, promotional prospects are limited. “Dead man’s boots” applies. Junior positions also seem to extend indefinitely, unless the company is faced with a lead’s departure.

- Indefinite contracts are not granted to long-serving members of staff. The maximum duration of a contract is 1 year. Few indefinite contracts holders remain within the company.

- In light of the present situation, it is understandable that most of the Berlin employees are unmotivated, gloomy and awaiting the worst from each upper management announcement. Rumours abound regarding a closure of the Berlin office, a relocation of operations to Karlsruhe or the closure of all Berlin remaining client-based games. These scenarios, whilst unsubstantiated, do appear very consistent with the evidence.

- Lastly, despite raising these issues time and time again and promises made by middle management, nothing is done about these grievances.
Advice to Senior Management – Like a kitten catching a mouse, Gameforge remains unsure what to do with Frogster now that it’s fallen between its paws. Lacking vision and proper management expertise, it was incapable of seeing the potential which had presumably driven it to acquire this company. Rather than investing and developing the Berlin office, Gameforge decided to simply milk it, sit back whilst investing as little of its resources into this important location and focus almost entirely on Karlsruhe. Following the failure of several of its Berlin games due to a lack of investment and poor management decisions (some of which, in all fairness, were made prior to the acquisition), Gameforge has set itself on a campaign to reduce means, budgets and recruitment potential. One wonders how this subsidiary is intended to make any profit when most of the talent from the former Frogster has left of its own accord or been fired, no new specialists are being recruited in the necessary departments, most of the budgets are cut or non-existent and no new games are being granted to the staff.
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“A rewarding job experience”
Current Employee – Reviewed Aug 21, 2012
Pros – I have the ability to control my work schedule. Autonomy to perform my job to the fullest.
Cons – The people who make decisions at this company are not always the best people for the job. Sometimes it feels like people are promoted based on their social connections rather than skills and qualifications.
Advice to Senior Management – Listen to your lower-level employees. They know what the games at the company need which it seems none of the management staff have any clue about.
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“Spiraling out of control”
Former Developer in Karlsruhe, Baden-Wurttemberg (Germany) – Reviewed Sep 6, 2012
Pros – + Management training for most employees in 2011
+ Free breakfast, lunch, beer, cake
Cons – - CEO makes and revokes decisions based on his gut feeling, buys advertising for tens of thousands of euros for landing sites that were not yet online or finished
- CEO tells you in private that he knows that his middle management is filled with idiots, but does nothing about it
- The management is a mess, everyone (even if not involved) is invited to project meetings
- Frustration everywhere, most talented people already left the company
- Internal reporting is filtered by multiple stages, you can basically lie that your project is 100% on track, even when its not
- Decision memos are prepared every few month and are being ignored by the management
- Internal Communication non-existant
- Lots of former employees of 1&1 which brought lots of negative vibes and management styles to the company
- Fired around 100 people in 2011 because they did not know how to end the internal struggles
- Company structure changes frequently, because the management does not get that they are the problem, not the company structure
- The free beer is of no use anymore, because there is no one motivated to stay to socialise
- Technical infrastructure very old and crappy, but its too late to replace it
- Limited carrer opportunities, you can be a team-leader or project manager, thats basically it
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“Best place to work!”
Current Employee – Reviewed Aug 30, 2012
Pros – nice colleagues, free drinks&food, a lot of trust and space to perform in your position as it suits yourself best
Cons – nothing I can say here
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“normal”
Current Employee – Reviewed Aug 9, 2012
Pros – free breakfast, lunch, dinner, fruits
Cons – too much work, very stressful
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“Left hand never knows what the right hand is doing, and brain is insane”
Former Game Designer in Karlsruhe, Baden-Wurttemberg (Germany) – Reviewed Jul 24, 2012
Pros – - Free beer
- Free breakfast
- Nice, pleasant offices
- Quarterly company events
- Many good employees, trying their very best
- They like hiring from within, so if you can get in good with the right people, you can move around internally
- They're very understanding of work-life balance, and can be quite flexible if you don't abuse the system
- Game room with awesome pinball machines, pool table, ping-pong
Cons – - The CEO, and I do not use this term lightly, is nuts. Makes sweeping decisions for the company based on whims, which then change every three to six months (often involving changes such as hirings/firings, company reorganization etc)
- The other biggest problem is rampant lack of internal communication. Departments that should be working together on similar projects don't; departments that are working on the same project don't talk; things get done twice, or not at all, or not according to spec. It's very frustrating.
- Too much middle management, while not enough artists, designers, and developers to get the work that they are already contracted to do done (let alone future work)
- Company policy often talks a big game about new directions and projects, but then doesn't follow through with the funding / personnel required to make those new projects successful
- Many higher-level employees have only ever worked for Gameforge and don't really understand how the gaming industry works in general
- There is a higher percentage of people at Gameforge than other game companies I've worked at who really don't seem to do their jobs well. I don't mean apathy or nepotism, I mean straight-up incompetence.
- You know what, I could go on for a while, but I won't. I don't recommend working here.
Advice to Senior Management – Ignore Alex, or get rid of him. But since you can't do that:
Work on making what you have better. Work on payment and web design. Work on examining management and figuring out if they're actually improving the company or just justifying their position's existence. And hire a new HR department... though the ladies there are very nice, they drop the ball all the time when it comes to actual paperwork and HR-type responsibilities.

They couldn't cover up the truth forever.

[Nobody]

You know, in my little NA world I only worked one job that had free consistent beer. It was out in the middle of a desert and the only other thing for miles around was a bowling alley. I have a feeling that's not the type of situation those people above are talking about...

[AleutiaSP]

Actually most of what I read matches my own experiences with willing and helpful staff on the frontlines being constantly frustrated by ignorant management upstairs calling the shots and making stupid decisions ... it always amazes me how German game companies survive past their first release!!

TBH I'm willing to cut the guys working on Aion some slack - they're probably trying to get things done on a shoestring budget, minimal resources and VERY limited management permission ...

... but still doesn't mean you should give Gameforge any money unless you absolutely need to ....

[Clumpsy]

I just hate Seven and now Makarov, they are such douches

[WSnow]

well it seem we know where there budget goes beers all round and food and nice playroom.
No wonder no work gets done ^^

This post has been edited by WSnow: 07 December 2012 - 11:44 AM

[ReCorrupt]

NCsoft - 2.3
Gameforge - 3.2

Hmmm.

[StingerX]

all hail Blade&Soul......NOT!