Pros
- Experience on shorter projects, covering a variety of genres and platforms. No getting bored while stuck on one project for 3-4 years. - Family-oriented company. Try to avoid crunch whenever possible. - Very talented and dedicated peers. Minor departmental dependency issues aside, there is generally a lot of camaraderie and respect for each other. - Challenging game designs, usually pushing the limits of the game engine. - Sometimes employees with multiple discipline interests can shift roles at the company. For example, move from Art to Design, etc. - Beer Social Fridays! Upper management tries to find ways to do team-building periodically.
Cons
- The "challenging game designs" can sometimes be a bad thing. Sometimes designs are too vague at the start, and with the high workload some designed features are not proven/playtested until very late in production. - Many times, employees are TOO good at delivering "the impossible", and so now it has become an expectation on most projects. Therefore design/production often over-promises and crunch is inevitable. - In spite of employees' talent and dedication, most over-scoped projects end up half-polished. This lowers morale somewhat. - Very little advancement in a department. Often it is more likely to be cross-promoted. - Sometimes employees end up doing the work of multiple people.