Pros
As an artist, Gaia began for me as an awesome place to work. Ideal, even. Casual atmosphere, plenty of creative freedom, respect for the art team and our work, lots of like-minded coworkers who shared similar tastes and culture. Unfortunately over the course of my time there everything that made it so good was slowly drained. I feel like its demise ultimately was a result of growing too big too fast. When I first came on board we were an agile, pioneering team in web gaming, full of talent, skill, and ambition. As the tide rapidly shifted toward social and ultimately mobile gaming, we took way too long to catch up and ultimately paid the price of multiple rounds of layoffs, losing a lot of talent due to frustrated workers leaving from the lack of direction and sluggish pace. So ultimately, not many pros left. Though I fondly remember my early years there, I unfortunately now share many sentiments with the other negative reviews here. * Health insurance covered almost everything when I was there, though the process to get things paid for was slow and convoluted. Before I left there was talk of reduced coverage. * Catered lunches, but the same 5 or 6 places eventually get dull
Cons
* New corporate management completely out of touch with the culture upon which Gaia was founded, much less how to maintain basic employee morale * Dismal atmosphere. * Too much management, not enough focus on merit or actual productivity. * Original fanbase upon which the site was based leaving in droves * Bad communication between departments - I would often complete work, send it off to complete silence and see it implemented incorrectly weeks later. * No room for advancement. Despite my time there, I never had an official position change, only token raises. * Strict core hours policy is terrible for creativity