Pros
-Free food. -Dog friendly. -Liked most of the people I worked with (except mgmt). -Great benefits -All the vacation you could ever ask for b/c no one cares.
Cons
If you're a student right of school this place might be great! That being said, for the most part, this place is terrible if you've been in the industry as an artist….at all, anywhere. Don't let the free food and adorable dogs cloud your perspective. Poor communication and management skills are probably the number one offender here. Oh, and don't forget the raging office politics. Forget being skilled at your job title, everyone must be a Jedi at office politics to survive at this place. -Art Directors are all checked out, not creative, and theres a 90% chance they are not as talented/skilled as you. At some point you will probably be doing their job for them. Don’t expect to learn anything from them. Most of them just pander to upper management to make it look like they know what they are talking about and contributing to the project. They are often out of touch with what is appealing in art and design. They can be really picky over minor issues and have no clue/knowledge about the major issues. -Limited job growth for creatives. There are ZERO creative projects to work for at this company. They are only focusing on live games (casino games, bad looking ones at that) and only buying other companies to add genres to their portfolio. They have no interest in creating new IP, it scares the bejesus out of them. Even if they wanted new IP, they have proven that they are incapable of doing it, purely based on the number of projects they have canceled internally. They have had many beautiful projects, created by really talented artists, that have never seen the light of day b/c it was destroyed by incompetent management, designers and PM’s. It’s never about the art when a game dies. -That brings me to Project Managers, a.k.a Gods of Zynga. Forget every other job title on a game team. These are the people who actually design the games and dictate how they are made, whats made and when its made. A 25 year old kid, out of college who ‘loves’ games and can read a spread sheet will destroy your soul as an artist. If you’re lucky and can get on the good graces of a PM and pass your ideas off onto them, you might have a chance of getting a say into what you make, but beware, you won’t get the credit for it, or the bigger bonus. - Massive Attrition. People get a job here and realize what they have gotten themselves into and quit, if they can make it through the regular lay-offs. Everyone is aware that they could be laid off at any time and are often just working to try and not get laid off, making it hard to focus on your actual job and to enjoy it. When I left, you didn’t really have to worry about that as an artist though, there are not enough of them left at Zynga, only a handful. Bottom line as an artist here, you are a service. Nothing more, Nothing less.