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Hiring Experienced Game Designers

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Mamba1 ?? Junior Member
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03-08-2013

@Zileas or any other Rioter.

Good afternoon. As it seems you are entertaining questions relating to the job hunt as well as the particular job being advertised, I am curious on how often you and/or your team provide feedback to previous applicants who attempted to join the Riot team. I have thrown my name and resume into the mix (1/10/2013) for your entry-level design positions previously but have not received any feedback at all.

I recently finished with the military after 9 years. Essentially, I have spent my entire adult life thus far leading, troubleshooting, and fixing complex avionics issues (Avionics Technician) as well as working with numerous people with all sorts of backgrounds from all over the world to accomplish the same goals. I am self-motivated to the nth degree as I managed to balance deploying to the middle-east several times while simultaneously attaining my associates degree as well as becoming Lean Six Sigma (green belt) certified. Since achieving that I have moved on to a bachelor's program to pursue my life goals as a game designer. I feel I have the intangibles and life experiences necessary to excel in your entry-level positions but have not received any feedback on my previous application attempts. I would love to speak with you on a more private basis to go over my qualifications, upsides, and downsides to help better myself for you or any other future employment opportunities. Any way we can do this?

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ItemsGuy ?? Senior Member
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03-08-2013

Quote:
Originally Posted by Zileas View Post
SCAD is a great school. You will certainly learn useful things there.

That being said, I would have a high degree of confidence that they can teach you art effectively. They may or may not be as strong as game mechanics, game systems, and other topics you would traditionally consider game design. I took a look at their web page, and it seems like they are trying to educate in these areas. That being said, I've yet to meet a SCAD graduate who was awesome at these things, while I've met many that are awesome at art. But, this may be a recent program change, and thus, I've been unable to meet graduates.I certainly would consider someone with this sort of degree from SCAD who applied here to an entry level design role, in terms of checking out their CL in detail, and if it looks aligned to our needs, possibly giving them a first round set of tests.

In general, I would take any game design degree's ability to teach you game design with a grain of salt. Software engineering and art and UI design are areas where you can more reliably get good training from good schools. It is of course possible to get a good game design background, but, again, I've not seen a lot of this yet. Developing great critical thinking skills, and building games, are the most reliable ways to become a good game designer that have been demonstrated consistently. There may eventually be programs that do this very reliably. They may exist now. I don't know.

What I do know is that top schools with these sorts of programs, like SCAD, USC, etc will give you a solid education regardless of if you have a game design degree program or not.
Mildly off-topic (sorry!), but out of curiosity, what kind of stuff do the entry level Game Design/Content Design dudes do? I've never really been able to get a straight answer out of any reds, and you're probably the best dude to ask about this stuff.

(Mostly asking this stuff because most of my design experience is in documentation and design theory--going to spend the next few months or so getting acquainted with the SC2 mod system and then branch off into other engines once I've got my bearings, to better round myself off and provide a more practical asset to my repertoire, but I'm not sure if this is enough. I have no real experience with coding languages outside of a summer course in HTML, and I'm not sure how code-heavy the Associate Game/Content Designer position is.)

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TheFinalAeon ?? Senior Member
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03-08-2013

Is self-made experience applicable? I've done plenty of design work for my own games, but I've never worked in a studio with others before (not for lack of trying).

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Gewcebawcks ?? Senior Member
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03-08-2013

Quote:
Originally Posted by Zileas View Post
SCAD is a great school. You will certainly learn useful things there.

That being said, I would have a high degree of confidence that they can teach you art effectively. They may or may not be as strong as game mechanics, game systems, and other topics you would traditionally consider game design. I took a look at their web page, and it seems like they are trying to educate in these areas. That being said, I've yet to meet a SCAD graduate who was awesome at these things, while I've met many that are awesome at art. But, this may be a recent program change, and thus, I've been unable to meet graduates.I certainly would consider someone with this sort of degree from SCAD who applied here to an entry level design role, in terms of checking out their CL in detail, and if it looks aligned to our needs, possibly giving them a first round set of tests.

In general, I would take any game design degree's ability to teach you game design with a grain of salt. Software engineering and art and UI design are areas where you can more reliably get good training from good schools. It is of course possible to get a good game design background, but, again, I've not seen a lot of this yet. Developing great critical thinking skills, and building games, are the most reliable ways to become a good game designer that have been demonstrated consistently. There may eventually be programs that do this very reliably. They may exist now. I don't know.

What I do know is that top schools with these sorts of programs, like SCAD, USC, etc will give you a solid education regardless of if you have a game design degree program or not.
I know for a fact Riot has employees that have completed the game design program at USC. Adventures of P.B. Winterbottom anyone?

PIE THROWING CHAMPION WHERe?

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exKonvict ?? Senior Member
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03-08-2013

To receive a Job at Riot games, does the individual have to be living in the United States?

I am from Canada and I am interested in working for Riot.

Thanks

-Konvict

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JooMancer ?? Senior Member
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03-08-2013

Quote:
Originally Posted by Zileas View Post
SCAD is a great school. You will certainly learn useful things there.

I went to scad for a different department.

completely disagree with what you just said.

Probably not the place for that discussion though.

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Zileas Zileas's Avatar ?? VP of Game Design
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31 of 53 Riot Posts
03-08-2013

Quote:
Originally Posted by TheFinalAeon View Post
Is self-made experience applicable? I've done plenty of design work for my own games, but I've never worked in a studio with others before (not for lack of trying).
Yes, though likely not enough for us to be excited about you in a lead designer/senior designer role unless those projects were extremely successful.

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Zileas Zileas's Avatar ?? VP of Game Design
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32 of 53 Riot Posts
03-08-2013

Quote:
Originally Posted by exKonvict View Post
To receive a Job at Riot games, does the individual have to be living in the United States?

I am from Canada and I am interested in working for Riot.

Thanks

-Konvict
Yes, but Canada is not a huge immigration problem here for many of the jobs you'd want.

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Zileas Zileas's Avatar ?? VP of Game Design
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33 of 53 Riot Posts
03-08-2013

Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcus567 View Post
Zileas,

What about someone with software experience that also has extensive exposure to non-computer games? Specifically, designer board games like Power Grid, Puerto Rico, etc. How much does the give and take in modern board games translate to computer game design? I am thinking about balance here; the trade off to power the most plant in Power Grid versus the downside of being last to buy resources and last to build into cities? I know you guys play Euro / designer board games, I would be curious how valuable you find that experience.
It's relevant, but more relevant would be if you've built good board games.

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Zileas Zileas's Avatar ?? VP of Game Design
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34 of 53 Riot Posts
03-08-2013

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mamba1 View Post
@Zileas or any other Rioter.

Good afternoon. As it seems you are entertaining questions relating to the job hunt as well as the particular job being advertised, I am curious on how often you and/or your team provide feedback to previous applicants who attempted to join the Riot team. I have thrown my name and resume into the mix (1/10/2013) for your entry-level design positions previously but have not received any feedback at all.

I recently finished with the military after 9 years. Essentially, I have spent my entire adult life thus far leading, troubleshooting, and fixing complex avionics issues (Avionics Technician) as well as working with numerous people with all sorts of backgrounds from all over the world to accomplish the same goals. I am self-motivated to the nth degree as I managed to balance deploying to the middle-east several times while simultaneously attaining my associates degree as well as becoming Lean Six Sigma (green belt) certified. Since achieving that I have moved on to a bachelor's program to pursue my life goals as a game designer. I feel I have the intangibles and life experiences necessary to excel in your entry-level positions but have not received any feedback on my previous application attempts. I would love to speak with you on a more private basis to go over my qualifications, upsides, and downsides to help better myself for you or any other future employment opportunities. Any way we can do this?
You need to demonstrate some extracurricular interest in some of these fields. You have an obvious path though from what you've done to some sorts of QA and QA management roles. To do design, you will need to have designed some things or had other noteworthy achievements related to games -- like being pro level or whatever. You need your cover letter to differentiate you, and having made some games or mods that are good, or at least completed, really helps do that.

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