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@RIOT Community Positions at Riot

webhippo·10/30/2014, 5:55:28 PM·3 votes·803 views

So I'll begin by introducing myself. I'm currently a Senior studying Applied Mathematics with an emphasis in CS and a minor in Philosophy. I love the technical precise feel of the Math and CS fields but I realized during my time in college that I love creating and growing communities. During my sophomore year I was an RA and learned the basics of making wide eyed freshman comfortable and happy to be in college. Afterwards I became one of the Building Wide Community Managers at the campus owned apartment complex and absolutely love managing a staff that provides great experiences for the residents that live here. Over this past year I have been torn between finding a career that has the "technical" feel of mathematics and programming, and finding a career that allows me to interact and build a community. I then had the crazy thought of checking the Riot Games job postings and was excited to see Community Positions.

Now my true reason for posting: What is it like to be a part of the Community Team? What things make being a part of the Community Team a great experience and where has it challenged you? Also what skills do you feel are most important and what advice (if any) do you have for individuals interested in Community Positions who are coming right out of college?

I feel that being on the Community Team for Riot Games has the right amounts of technical demand and community engagement that I have been looking for and am just curious to hear more about it. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this and double thanks if you respond below! Also I will be more than happy to respond to any questions :)

3 Comments

EMOFRATPARTY11/5/2014, 1:17:37 AM2 votes

As someone who has worked in a community position before (although not necessarily at Riot), I figure I can at least chime in.

What is it like to be a part of the Community Team? What things make being a part of the Community Team a great experience and where has it challenged you?

The biggest thing in working with a community is understanding: 1. What that community wants, 2. Why they want what they want, and 3. How to think like your customer and serve them as directly and personally as possible.

EXPLANATION

There are a lot of challenges in trying to curate a community. You'll find difference of taste, opinion, culture...you will never make everyone happy. But that doesn't mean you can't try. When you are starting a community of any kind, you'll want to try to address any and all problems early on with as much frequency as possible (in addition to creating whatever kick-ass content you are building a group of people around). If you do so, people will rally behind you and get like-minded people involved with what you are creating.

Also what skills do you feel are most important and what advice (if any) do you have for individuals interested in Community Positions who are coming right out of college?

Getting a community position at any studio is an incredibly difficult task. Most small studios will rely on themselves to do community work (even with middle-man and turnkey solutions available for that kind of thing), while many AAA studios will have a staff comprised of experienced community managers. In short, it's not easy. So my best recommendation for you is this: start building any kind of community.

Building a community, of course, is easier said than done. I started off doing small events -- charity drives, fundraisers, campus initiatives, Greek Life, etc. -- and that eventually turned into being relied on more and more for both internal and external communications. Building the two sets of skills in conjunction with one another allowed me to do things like organize talks and even host a comedy show for my entire campus. From there, I started work at a small studio in game design, later turning to community management out of need more than anything else. It helped our studio create some exposure with press...not huge splashes, but enough to get our game some sales and help our clients reach out to their users. I was also able to build a game conference from the ground up using nothing more than networking and problem solving.

Bottom line: Work hard enough and start creating now and not later. Eventually, you'll find a way to create success for yourself even if it isn't at a typical AAA studio, an indie studio, or a non-traditional AAA studio like Riot.

Hope this helps, and best of luck with everything! Feel free to get a hold of me if you ever need some advice getting started.