Fantastic development team, but not a great company to work for.
Pros
Most of the people at DPS Games are fantastically knowledgeable industry professionals. There is so much talent within the studio and I cannot fault the company for that. The equipment in the studio is well thought out from the audio rooms to the high spec PCs and standing desks. The subsidized deli is also great, with usually-good hot meals and sandwiches for just £1. The new office-space is a bit odd though, lots of the features have never been used and it seems like a waste of money (scrum areas). The studio location in the heart of Guildford is good as it is an industry hub. Shuttle busses to the business park are frequent from the train station. A good connection from London. Very flexible with hybrid and fully remote work.
Cons
The project has been in development for so long that the I feel executives have lost touch in the direction the game should be going. Feature creep and redesign after redesign is a massive problem and it feels like the project is stuck in a constant loop, and not always for the best outcome. Not to mention, direction from the creative director feels absolutely non-existent and they only have input on the game every few months, and then it goes through another redesign. Woes! At the current rate of development, all the tropes of the game will be out of date with current F2P titles that are actually reading the market. Due to the war in Ukraine and the effect it had on the company being part of all regions involved, massive restructuring in the company caused for huge layoffs across the board which was utterly demoralising. As it was not merit-based but seniority-based, good people lost their jobs; Some who were much better at their jobs than senior members of team. DPS games still hasn't really recovered from this, and everyone has had to pick up the slack for little to no more compensation, but definitely a lot more stress. Since starting work here I have seen several executives and leads get made redundant for seemingly no reason, they were seemingly doing a great job. Was it because there was disagreement in the exec-circle? Who knows. But it is disconcerting and causes headaches for the rest of the development team who will now have to be steered in a different direction by whoever picks up the slack. Despite what the company says, salary banding is relatively low for a AAA company. Some disciplines are leaving because other companies are offering more than what DPS games can match without giving other members of the discipline salary increases also. Employee retention is incredibly weak, stress levels are high, people are bored. Lots of turnover recently, independent of the redundancies.
