Riot Games reviews

Hi, and thank you for sharing your thoughts. The Riot Manifesto is something we believe in deeply, which is why we invest and share stories that make the values real. We know that there’s many areas where we can improve, and we appreciate and act on Rioter feedback. In partnership with Rioters, we work together to find root causes of issues, brainstorm actions that could be taken, and support Rioters in reaching the best possible solutions without fear of retaliation or unfair treatment. The flow of feedback allows us to gain insight into areas where Rioters perceive we are less effective, and to use that information to help us level up. The ability to give timely and constructive feedback for improvement, however, can often be just as challenging as receiving feedback. We want to hear when we are failing in either our communication or our receptivity so that we can take action. If you’re comfortable, please do reach out to me (cmoore@riotgames.com) or any member of the Talent team, as our goal is to ensure that Rioters are positioned for success. Thanks again for taking the time to review us, and to give us feedback. Christa Moore

Thanks for your review. Two years elapsed between the time you posted the review and today's date, so we thought it might be helpful to address your concerns and talk about how things have changed thanks to helpful critical feedback like this. (1) Communication issues... Still somewhat true. We're not out of the weeds yet on growth-related issues. We're trying, but admit that we're not great at it. (2) Hard work valued but rarely rewarded [+cost of living issues]. We had two largeish teams that were undercomp'd when you wrote this. Big raises were given to these teams when this was discovered. We're now more vigilant about making sure compensation dislocations are proactively monitored. (3) perks available and only applicable to particular demographics You may be referring to perks and internal events that only single people, married people, people with kids, or athletic people will find interesting. We've made lots of progress in the last two years constructing an event and perk portfolio that addresses the full range of Rioter demographics. If we're failing at this, email lburke@ and skoh@ to let them know what sorts of perks and events we should be doing. (4) Poor time-off/holiday plans In addition to ample holidays throughout the year, we've traditionally taken off between Xmas and New Years, in addition to a unique annual trip called We Riot. We moved to open PTO in the last two years as well. The first We Riot was a trip to Vegas in 2011. In 2012 we took a cruise to Mexico. In 2012 we went to Vegas again. In 2013 we traveled to the Dominican Republic where Rioters (and their SOs) spent three days relaxing on the beach, enjoying 100% free access to all of the food, and sun they wanted. This most recent trip included a total of more than 1,800 Rioters, their partners/significant others, and children. (5) Lack of 401k, performance bonuses, and profit sharing This might have been the case at the time your review was posted. No longer. Riot's got a 401k, with matching. We don't do performance bonuses, but we do grant equity. In addition to competitive compensation, the vast majority of full-time Rioters receive equity grants and/or stock options. We want Rioters to be owners of the company, to make decisions as owners, and to share in our success now and in the future. (6) Extreme lack of employee mentoring and growth opportunities To the extent that this is happening, it's not by design, and not okay. Feel free to reach out to your manager's manager, or to Marc and Brandon to alert them to this situation and to get some help fixing it. (7) Broken systems lead to constant short term fixes. Sometimes it feels like we're changing the plane's engine mid-air. We'd love to take that engine off the plane and fix absolutely everything that's broken, but the plane still needs to fly (we're running a live service with 24/7 uptime expectations), so long-term fixes sometimes need to wait. Increasingly, we're getting a lot of those long-term fixes in as well. (8) sacrifices made to get early senior management and now you're left with very inexperienced people in senior rolls which stifles employee growth. We try to provide people who have demonstrated readiness, interest, and aptitude for management the opportunity to take on that responsibility. When we do that, we try to ensure that new managers are well supported and that their teams are happy. That said, each of us is fundamentally inexperienced because there may not be another company in the world that's had to serve (at the time of this writing) so many play hours to more so many monthly active players. Scaling to that challenge is our problem at every level, not just the management level. (9) Poor hiring decisions brought in talented people with narcissistic personalities. Please escalate this to your manager, manager's manager, or Marc and/or Brandon. We want to fix such issues quickly. (10) Huge disparity between the way teams are treated. Merit-based disparity is appropriate. Most of us would agree that different pay for different jobs makes sense. Senior engineers have valuable experience and are more difficult to find than entry-level coordinators. However, some disparity isn't appropriate, especially when it isn't tied to business need (some teams, for example, need to work night shift) or merit differentials. If you see an inappropriate disparity, please escalate. (11) Constant fear of losing your job because of inexperienced and impersonal managers. Nobody likes working for pompous people. To the extent that you had this sort of manager, I hope that he/she has received the coaching needed. Please escalate internally if that's not the case. (12) No progress has been made since my 2 years here to make the employees want to work at Riot except our rapid growth. How do you feel the most recent two years have gone? Have we gotten better? How about another review?