Blizzard Entertainment reviews

*-ZERO- work/life balance - terrible work hours, terrible days off...often both at once. You can go months or even years without seeing your friends and family on a weekend day or weekday evening. *24/7 operation with blacked out major holidays (Christmas, Thanksgiving) - you will not get these off unless they fall on your regular day off, or you are lucky enough to get picked in the "lottery" (reserved only for mgmt and top 5% of performers only). *Constantly shifting (not to be confused with "evolving" which would suggest a positive) metric expectations means being left behind in Tier promotion multiple times per year *Punishment and penalization for using sick time (regardless of how much accrued sick time you have) *False expectations and promises - the idea that you can "move anywhere in the company from CS, including Development" is a pipe dream. *Hit or miss team management - many say they will help you on your career path goals, but will never lift a finger to assist.

Blizzard grew from a very small company of less than 300 people pre-WoW to a massive global team of over 3000 employees in a pretty short time span (8 years). Unfortunately, the management structure of the company has not evolved at the same pace, so the company is managed much like a smaller, do-it-yourself organization. This works OK at best when there's a single game release in a year, but in years when there are multiple releases, huge Cataclysm-size cracks appear at the seams. It also makes Blizzard a slow, ponderous player in an industry that is becoming more nimble and agile. Some of the small company management styles that lead to issues: - A very flat organizational structure that leads to a lack of promotional opportunities. - Old timers who are so well compensated that they aren't going anywhere any time soon, further reducing promotional opportunities. - Titles are depressed and not in line with what colleagues at other companies are doing. - Very small number of decision makers in the company. VPs regularly weighing in on minute business decisions that can/should be handled by Directors or Managers. As a result, middle managers don't feel very empowered. - Management by committee. Meetings take up a lot of time and end up with no clear resolution because no one is empowered to make a decision. - Would rather build than buy. Certain groups would rather create their own internal solutions to technical issues rather than adapt off-the-shelf technology. No stomach for using external developers to create games based on Blizzard IP (including mobile/iOS games), limiting the number of projects that can be supported. - Lack of communication between functional groups leads to confusion and mistakes. - Org structure on the business side set by old historical decisions (dev is sacred so the business guys shouldn't bother them; the web team should be a separate entity from PR/Community/Marketing). - Very insular view of the game industry as a whole- lack of corporate participation in key round tables, keynotes, etc. except by a very small number of Execs (Morhaime, Pierce, Pardo, Metzen)- does not bring new ideas into the company or encourage learning/sharing of best practices.