Great Place to Really Grow Your Career
Pros
Gameloft is filled with stellar talent and kind, fun people who are just great to work with. You will definitely learn from the talented people around you. They also have some particularly cool projects, like Asphalt, Order & Chaos, Modern Combat, N.O.V.A., Men in Black, and Dungeon Hunter plus a number of licensed titles (many from DC and Marvel) like Thor, Spider-Man, The Dark Knight, Iron Man, UNO, My Little Pony, Cars Despicable Me and Ice Age. If you are interested in a broader range of genres and styles, there is plenty in the Gameloft library to impress. The list is very long. The structure of Gameloft has major upsides. It's a very large company, but it's not very volatile, meaning that unlike most game companies it is in fact much rarer for Gameloft to have layoffs or to shut down studios. It's a very valuable aspect of the company, though it is not limitless. There is a lot of positive change in the company as it evolves and moves forward with the times, but growing pains are part of that. If you are a seasoned professional who has worked with growing companies, this will be nothing new to you. If you understand how to embrace change or have been an agent of change yourself in the past, this is an ideal situation to come in and help push things forward even more. Some of the studios have done very well, for example, with pushing for a very strong work/life balance, getting hours down to 40 per week while still meeting deadlines and producing high quality product. Because the company is ripe for change, it's a great place to make your mark! This is something that I think is sadly undervalued in many careers. Some people want to go to a company where everything is perfect and easy, and then say Look at everything I did there, even though it was handed to me! This is a place where things will not be handed to you, and you will feel that sense of accomplishment like no other when you are able to make things happen. It's like beating a boss fight that takes so many fails first, and then once it's done you are so proud and know that you have done something worthwhile. The quality bar is very high here. For the most part you will feel proud to have your name on the products and to be part of the company that makes the games Gameloft has. There is a near obsession within the company on art, which puts a lot of pressure on artists but certainly shows in finished products. There are a lot of very strong programmers and game designers as well. Again, the skill level of the staff is very high. Upward mobility is a key element of employment at Gameloft. If you are interested in moving up and simply approach your manager to ask how you can achieve this, you will receive clear goals to do so and the power is in your hands to learn or accomplish the necessary things to move up. There are always exceptions in such a big company, the occasional bad manager or politics getting in the way, but overall if you understand your job and are hitting the right targets, you can move forward using the same formula but for the next job up. This is a "show me" company. It's not uncommon here to have a chance to temporarily receive extra responsibilities and receive a promotion and a raise only after you are successful, not in advance. If you understand this way of working and are familiar with it, you can use it to your advantage. It is the same for an individual employee and for a whole studio. If you have a good manager (most are) and are proactive about feedback, you will enjoy successful annual performance reviews with a raise attached. If you have a really great manager, you may also have 6-month reviews for a check-in. Overall, it's an amazing place to work and the pros outweigh the cons. There is undoubtedly a feeling of "If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere", and many do. It is common for Gameloft alumni who were successful and committed to learning how things are done at Gameloft to move on to high-profile competitor companies and products in high positions. TL;DR - Demanding in a good way, top-notch colleagues, solid advancement opportunities, even better post-Gameloft opportunities, and mostly great products.
Cons
These days, it's not as easy to get into Gameloft as it was in the early days of flip phone games. The bar is set much higher. The problem is that there are many assets who were grandfathered in but who were not vetted as stringently as newer employees, creating something of an old-guard-versus-modern-development-practices tug of war. Unfortunately, some of the old guard are in the most influential positions of power, and have no qualms about doing everything they can to keep their underdeveloped methods alive as they rule from on high. Pride and condescension seem to rule this group, powered by an undercurrent of insecurity from feeling that they may have become under-qualified for their jobs and would not be hired here today. They have not proven successful in leading Gameloft against its competitors like Supercell. If change scares you or you are only able to talk a good game but not actually deliver and work within the politics of a large company, you will fail and become part of this problem. However no one will succeed as a bull in a China shop. Meaningful evolution has required and will continue to require patience, consistency, understanding, and compassion,especially when evolving top players. It's very hard to say No to those in positions of power, and even harder to know how to say it without angering someone important off. If you have that skill, you will be very valuable at Gameloft. A colleague of mine at Google once characterized that company as having grown too fast to keep up with its size, and not a good place for people who only work well in ideally structured corporate environments. She was trying to say elegantly, Google is kind of a mess. You'll find the same issue here at Gameloft. Not only is there a need for development practices to improve, there is a need for corporate structure to be implemented that really should have been in place for years. A series of bad HR hires further hampered the corporate structure at all levels until very recently. This expressed itself in a variety of ways, from not having basic policies and modern amenities available to employees (for example, an employee directory) to lacking a useful employee grievance pathway, or regular and meaningful performance reviews (also to be blamed on the managers). Another important structural problem, perhaps the most important, that was the result of Gameloft's rapid growth is the extensive and exhausting level of micromanagement from Headquarters. Their reach into even the most esoteric of development decisions is impressive, and they have no problem exercising this power. It can be deeply frustrating and demotivating to developers and rightfully so. Only with change at the top can this issue be corrected. This is the issue of distrust that is so often raised in these reviews. Developers may feel that their opinion, despite being vastly more qualified than those above them, is not valued. While most of the problem is at the highest levels on the game creation side of the company, not everything is due to HQ or the top management. Demotivated employees, regardless of how talented they may be, can sometimes be created and cause overtime for the rest of the team when they start missing deadlines and submitting poor work. This can happen at any company, but the point is that studios made up of employees who collectively take responsibility for what they can control and keep the quality of their work high are able to keep overtime at a minimum and are also rewarded for their work, while a few bad apples can spoil the bunch and destroy projects and studios if not dealt with. Gameloft is pretty stingy with paying developers, and Gameloft doesn't have a ton of money to throw at people or anything else for that matter, particularly on the game creation side. This is not Zynga. There are are few highly paid devs, but one does not join Gameloft for the lavish compensation. Benefits are another thing though, very solid. Finally, though as mentioned in the Pros there are many titles you will feel so proud to work on, some are not so exciting. Not surprising considering that this company has published more than 600 titles and continues to do R&D and create new titles every year, you will sometimes work for a while on a title that you think is lame, but again the good titles largely outweigh this and mobile development rarely keeps you on a title longer than 2 years. TL;DR - Micromanagement still a problem from the top, lower quality employees in power with little accountability, lots of change in progress which can be tough, messy structure, comp is meh.