Nov 28, 2012
Lots of great people, lots of ego, lots of issues for female employees
Anonymous employee
Big Fish Games reviews
3.5
66% would recommend to a friend
Larry Plotnick
75% approve of CEO
51% positive business outlook
Big Fish Games has an employee rating of 3.5 out of 5 stars, based on 313 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Big Fish Games employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Mídia e comunicação industry (3.7 stars).
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Reviews by job title
313 reviews
4.0
Nov 6, 2011
All the challenges of a successful startup, but loads of fun.
Anonymous employee
Current employee
Seattle, WA
Recommend
Business Outlook
Pros
Working at Big Fish Games has been a great ride. If you are a self-starter, there are many opportunities for personal advancement. The people who work for Big Fish are all kids at heart and it shows during the workday (and after hours!). I've enjoyed my time with every coworker I've ever had and have made some great friends over the years. As a startup, Big Fish has shown tremendous strategic savvy while navigating the challenging digital gaming waters. Most of their best games are exclusive to Big Fish. The company has grown and continues to grow by leaps and bounds.
Cons
There are two major challenges to working at Big Fish. Both are common among successful startups. First, engineering resources are stretched to the limit. With so much tech competition in Seattle, Big Fish struggles to land new engineers. This makes it challenging to secure resources for projects not deemed critical. Even the simplest updates to the site can sometimes take weeks or even months. Second, with a workforce of less than 500 (and many of them in Customer Support), there aren't a lot of opportunities for career advancement. Lastly, if you want to be successful at Big Fish, be prepared to 'play the game' (no pun intended). It is critical that you buddy up to everyone at the Director level or above. Learn the humor (dark and cynical), hone your persona, and get people to like you. It's a very buddy-buddy working environment and you don't want to end up on the outside looking in.
3.0
Dec 17, 2010
A fun place and exciting place to work, but limited career potential and long-term viability
Anonymous employee
Former employee
Seattle, WA
Recommend
Business Outlook
Pros
It's a casual place to work without some of the formalities that other businesses have. Working in the video game business is fun, and casual games is a growing market. I learned a lot when the company was in hypergrowth mode and some of the strategies it was pursuing. Although the company is sizeable now, I learned a lot about startup culture, software development, and online based content delivery business when it was a smaller organization. There are a lot of smart and very talented people who work there who are very dedicated at what they do.
Cons
I think the HR department is severely lacking and hurts the rest of the company as a result. I don't think these people understand talent or have any idea on how to find new talent and maintain them. Part of it revolves around salary, and part of it revolves around not being able to execute well on their day to day tasks. They are providing opinions to management that are not insightful to the long term viability of the company. HR/Management likes to hire from the outside instead of within. Pay is also a lot less .than you can get elsewhere with the same skillset and experience. The company tries to use the fun factor to reel you in, without compensating you properly for your labor. Little do people know, that they can earn 30-35% more in the same position elsewhere. There is a lot of red tape at the business these days and it is very group think orientated which doesn't necessarily lead to good results. The bureaucracy also makes it difficult to get important decisions to be made effectively. Many key people in the management staff don't really play or understand video games or understand their place in the industry except for the founder. Although you can make large amounts of revenue with MBA's in office, their lack of understanding a quality product leads to compromised and diminishing quality of the titles they distribute as well a lack of vision for innovation in the long run. The CEO hasn't played a single video game for more than 5 minutes in his life
Viewing 52 - 54 of 313 Reviews