Guild Wars 2

Behellagh.1468:

Except ArenaNet is wholly owned by a holding company that is wholly owned by a publicly traded company. I’m sure they got a really good deal from the point of view of control and retained IP ownership when they sold themselves to NCSOFT in 2002 but they are assuredly NOT privately owned.

Oh, right. kitten . I don’t know why I forgot that they were bought out fully; I even read the NCSoft financials to see how the company is doing.

The spirit of it remains though, and whatever acquisition deal A.Net made with NCSoft had them maintain an enormous amount of power and control – I’m not sure that NCSoft has much influence at all beyond cashing the checks, and we really have no way of knowing under what circumstances they could get involved – and to what extent they have power to.

I’m sure NCSoft is a fine place to work at in terms of environment and management.

It’s clear though they in terms of the direction of the game, the company seems to be up a river without a paddle.

Its a site where disgruntled workers vent. Are you happy with your job? I’m not. And i have an easy, work at home job. Point being, is that we know that ANet is not perfect. There are TONS of things they could improve on, but listening to ex-employees who didn’t like working there is no ‘company-health indicator’.

That being said, if you are digging for reasons why to dislike this game or company, be aware that since Colin has left, there have been ALOT of MAJOR improvements with how the company is handling player feedback. Its a really good time to be a fan of this game, and believe me…i could write a book on all the things ANet has done to irk me, in the past.

slamfunction.7462:

Its a site where disgruntled workers vent. Are you happy with your job?

I’m pretty happy, and yes I do write reviews for the places I have worked. Most of them are positive.

However, there seems to be a theme among the reviews, both good and bad, that there is a disconnect with the upper management, which could be NCsoft, that they only look at the numbers and metrics. Now, as the case were, Anet might be a tight little company of great artists and designers, where everyone had a grand time, but they have a parent company, and when the marching orders come down the line, it’s pretty easy to believe that the higher-ups don’t care about anyone’s feelings or artistic expression, at the end of the day, they want a product that sells.