King

Good work culture creating a fun environment to work in. Lots of talented employees, in particular those recruited in the heyday of the company (2003-2015). Truly cross-functional game teams and studios. Strong bonds between European studios.

It used to be a company where everything was possible and where management aspired to be a “best company to work for” alongside the likes of Google and Facebook, but nothing lasts forever.

— 5 stars until 2015 then downhill from there —

As the company grew and grew and grew, the culture started getting diluted. Bad hires were made as team leaders tried to build bigger and bigger teams and the hiring standards dropped. The middle management layer exploded in size, which was filled with political people and yes men. The top management started getting disconnected from the people doing the actual work and seemed to develop a form of pride that blindsided them from recognising that their strategy was flawed and prevented them from leveraging the collective intelligence of the organisation.

The centralisation of the creative and innovation strategy in Stockholm destroyed innovation, with the company trying to build what it knew worked with Candy Crush again and again and again. In the meantime, great concepts coming from the studios were repeatedly cancelled.

Career progression became a political game or required to be attached to Candy Crush to benefit from the all-powerful halo effect of the app’s success.

Finally, pay was significantly below market, unless you could be on a good equity deal, and some newcomers would often get a better deal than older employees.

Nowadays, the company is littered with a myriad of VPs of X and VPs of Y waiting to vest their equity.

What a pity King; you had it all and you let it go away.