Review mainly related to the German Studio. Perhaps reasonable for Juniors/Interns. Otherwise, not wholly recommended.
Pros
- Ownership. You can work freely and autonomously. Generally, your expertise is trusted, but you are given direct support when needed. - Colleagues were fantastic. Although serious in terms of output, the social aspect of the company was excellent. A community feeling. - Quite a wholesome franchise, which presents unique challenges and experiences.
Cons
Wages: - Terribly misaligned with other game studios. Some departments even received minium wage. Only does a junior position make sense at Giants. Get in, get out. Experienced professionals would likely never accept the salaries offered within production/dev teams. - Awful and illogical pay structure for junior, senior, lead positions. In one instance, a new intermediate employee was given a higher salary than their own Lead. - There are very little studios in the area to compete with, so this is leveraged to exploit . Not happy with salary, even if it can clearly be benchmarked with other transparent game companies within EU? Oh well. Even if you excel. Stay or go. - No relocation support. Overtime exploitation: - Exploitative expectation towards overtime. In some disciplines there is an expectation to work unpaid overtime. - Renumeration for overtime is 'promised' as part of the end of year bonus which, for the most part, is laughable. - Overtime is not officially documented by the employer. Apparently, this goes against the regulations within Germany, but Giants is willing to pay the fine if spot-checked. Uneven working enviroments between company studio locations: - Swiss office (Headquarters) )has an in-house chef, on-site free gym, and better equipment (height adjustable desks). No substitues for these office benefits are available in their other studios. Tech: - You generally will not interact with industry standard game engines/tools. Always good to adapt to custom engines, but the scope is greatly reduced compared with leading engines. - Limited technical capacity means the gameplay development of the franchise goes very slowly. - Not comparable to AAA development. In many areas, the franchise falls very short in terms of technical achievements. If you are seeking to work on the frontier of gaming technology, this is not the place. Communication: - Good luck. Management & CEO: - German Studio Manager was great. - CEO has my complete dissaproval.
