Pros
- Free drinks - Free fruit - Pleasant offices in a central location - Some inspiring colleagues who will do their best under poor circumstances - Lower and middle management is very understanding of Life/Work balance
Cons
- Having acquired Frogster Online Gaming, a culture of separation exists between the core, provincial Gameforge environment and the defunct Frogster, with decisions being made by individuals who have nothing more than a statistical interest in Berlin rather than a desire to invest in maintaining quality, talent and passion. - Despite the allure of a gaming company staffed by gamers, there is a distinct lack of understanding of player psychology by upper management, with an emphasis on spin rather than a commitment to fixing problems and improving games. In all fairness, this is a problem most publishers of Asian games have. However, there isn’t the realisation that investment must be made in well-staffed Quality Assurance, Game Improvement, Community Management, R&D and IT departments. - Gameforge seems oblivious to the idea that a well-advertised and well-maintained game will attract paying players. It seems addicted to the malady of small “get rich quick” schemes that invest in poorly designed browser games and suck customers dry before they become aware of the ploy. - Monetization is simply not taken seriously at Gameforge. Little to no innovative thought is put into creating good monetization business models and there exists a culture of creating Pay-To-Win games regardless of promises made. Most Cash Shops are simple rehashes of doomed predecessors and fail to be popular due to players’ unwillingness to accept certain monetization standards. - Decisions are being made on a global level by upper management which are ill-suited in application to the Berlin office. This stems from a lack of understanding of the Berlin business culture, character and games. - Despite claiming to be an international publisher for the video game industry, Gameforge remains provincial in practice and finds it difficult to cater to the European market. This is nowhere more obvious than in the insistence on using German in many of its corporate broadcasts, long delays in English announcements (or complete lack thereof) with regards to internal mails, and the continued use of German in staff/management meetings. - After the failure of three games due to mismanagement and poorly established relations with the Developper , there is an unwillingness to provide Berlin with a fighting chance to prove itself. No new games are being provided, with all new projects being kept in Karlsruhe. With no time, effort or money granted to Berlin, conditions worsening and retention of talent at an all time low, one wonders whether Gameforge genuinely wishes to retain the Berlin office at all. - Talent is not being retained and there is an overemphasis on the use (and abuse) of interns to provide cheap, disposable workers. Once an intern concludes his contracts, it is likely that he or she will be dismissed unless they take on another internship. Whilst internships are acceptable practice in the video games industry, the process should be one of education rather than of cheap labour. Similarly, rather than resolving structural issues and problems stemming forth from small-minded upper management decisions, staff has become an expendable commodity. - Volunteers are crucial to the continued survival of Gameforge's communities, with mentors being given tasks normally assigned to full-time employees. Whilst the community should certainly be encouraged to invest itself in daily activities, they should not be considered a budget-saving, slave-labour substitute for experienced members of staff who may be bullied and pressured into doing long overtimes and tasks for which they are not trained. - There is no Gameforge “team spirit”. Period. Despite successful attempts at integration on a technical level, there has been little to no actual dialogue between both offices. - Whilst candidates for promotion are typically chosen internally, promotional prospects are limited. “Dead man’s boots” applies. Junior positions also seem to extend indefinitely, unless the company is faced with a lead’s departure. - Indefinite contracts are not granted to long-serving members of staff. The maximum duration of a contract is 1 year. Few indefinite contracts holders remain within the company. - In light of the present situation, it is understandable that most of the Berlin employees are unmotivated, gloomy and awaiting the worst from each upper management announcement. Rumours abound regarding a closure of the Berlin office, a relocation of operations to Karlsruhe or the closure of all Berlin remaining client-based games. These scenarios, whilst unsubstantiated, do appear very consistent with the evidence. - Lastly, despite raising these issues time and time again and promises made by middle management, nothing is done about these grievances.
