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Certain Affinity

Is this your company?

Toxic leadership culture destroys morale and keeps company from reaching full potential - Senior Engineering Director Certain Affinity Employee Review

1.0
2 Feb 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Certain Affinity is first and foremost a codev studio. They work on other company's games and not their own. If you're cool with that then there's opportunity here for you. As a new game developer you'll get the chance to work on some big titles. You'll also get to work with some seriously skilled talent. You'll be surrounded by great coworkers with a deep passion for their craft. Feel free to join on, learn what you can, beef up your portfolio, and move on to a bigger adventure. 3 years is a good stint.

Cons

The biggest con of working at Certain Affinity is the toxic culture at the senior leadership level. This toxic culture destroys leader morale, encourages politics, rewards unproductivity, and allows incompetence to flourish. The more productive you are, the less successful you can be as a leader here. The source of this toxic culture are the founders, Max and Mojdeh (a deeply distrusting husband and wife team). Neither one understands game development, nor do they delegate decision-making to competent lieutenants. Their ignorance of the business of game development affects every decision they make. Contrary opinions be damned. The best you can hope for is some lip service as they continue full steam ahead implementing whatever their next hairbrained scheme is. They don't lead... they micromanage, belittle, and otherwise cajole their leaders into executing ill-conceived plans that keep the organization perpetually off balance. This results in the company careening from one leadership crisis to another. There's never quite enough bandwidth to actually solve the issues that leadership faces. It's just fire after fire after fire. It's exhausting but it also ensures that the founders are front and center in any crisis. And they love that! This perpetual fire fighting is the main reason why Certain Affinity hasn't been able to ship their own games for over a decade. And, if you want to ship your own games, this company is absolutely not for you.

Explore other reviews about Certain Affinity

5.0
5 May 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Everything, to be honest. People were caring and really were interested in my well-being.

Cons

I can't quite think of anything negative.

1.0
5 Mar 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Talented developers and artists working across the teams - Some interesting technical experience from co-development projects - Opportunity to work with experienced individual contributors

Cons

- Constant project pivots leading to years of work that never ships - Multiple projects started and abandoned with little to show for resume - Direction changes frequently with little long-term planning - Leadership structure that creates heavy middle management but little accountability - Poor pay tier with long term employees making considerably less than new hires -Staff reductions handled poorly and with limited transparency - Focus on safe, derivative co-development projects rather than building original IP

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