ArenaNet Reviews

Chronic understaffing, unreasonably ambitious schedules and product development cycles. Steady increase in number and scope of projects, and in quality expectations, but no increase in staff. Low end of salary range compared to industry standard, even with profit sharing. Poor communication between executive management, production, and work teams.

ArenaNet has become a toxic environment where people are worked to their breaking points and then told to keep working. The number one problem that seems to be plaguing ArenaNet is burn out and fatigue. People are often asked to work 10 to 12 hours a day and often to come in over the weekends. Another factor leading to the constant burn out and fatigue is re-scoping of the releases. Teams will work for weeks and months on content for releases only to have everything change a month before the content is launched. This requires the teams to redo a majority of the work for the release while still trying to meet the original deadline. ArenaNet has also become a political cesspool. People are being locked into positions not because of a lack of skill or talent, but because they don't suck up to the right people. I have seen employee's with glowing recommendations from their teams get passed over for employee's who can barely do their job because of who they were friends with at the company. The people who actually do the work are too valuable to let them advance, but then the incompetent people make all the business decisions. Management is often ready to scapegoat their people as well. They make all the decisions, but take none of the blame when things go wrong. I also wanted to talk about is the talent. Like I mentioned above, the talent at ArenaNet is great and there are a ton of dedicated people. The downside of all of this is: The good people are leaving the company. The politics and overworked environment have caused quite a few people to leave. Almost everyone who helped make Guild Wars and helped launch Guild Wars 2 are gone. You now have a company that trusts analytics and data over people's intuition or that listened to their community. People feel like their complaints are not being heard and many feel frustrated in their lot at the company. Also be prepared to make way less money that almost any other studio in the area. This company was competitive for the games industry about a decade ago. Unless you are an Artist or a Programmer expect to be paid about 30% less than any other studio in the area.