Inexperienced managers, tribal politics weigh down decent bones
Pros
If you love League, you'll probably have the time of your life at Riot. The employees there eat, live and breathe the game, and it'll offset some of the rougher parts of working there. Some of the departments are killing it, and, if you work in one of these, then Riot lives up to being a Great Place to Work. You'll be surrounded by some of the most talented people in the field, many of who embody "work hard, play hard." Land in one of the weaker departments and you'll probably default to coasting, realizing it's not a bad choice for a consistent pay check. Many Rioters are there for the right reasons and want to do what's best for Riot, even if the working environment doesn't always make it clear what that is. The perks are standard tech company, including open PTO, fully-subsidized meals, and flexible work hours. If you work in Los Angeles, you've got an amazing campus to roam.
Cons
Riot hasn't done a great job scaling, and a lot of how it does business comes from tribal customs and values from when the company was a lot smaller. Some of these values get skewed and weaponized in unsavory ways. You'll hear that the company has a feedback culture, but that often means the loudest voices are seen as the bravest or the most passionate. Being data-informed means that sometimes people in leadership roles ignore facts and rely on gut feelings instead, sometimes swayed by those loud voices. This gets exacerbated by the fact that many early, junior Rioters get promoted into leadership positions, because Rioters conflate people management with prestige. A layer of inexperienced managers has led to the company having a high school-like culture where the personal and professional get mixed up too often. Career opportunities vary greatly across departments, and sometimes opportunities that are great for the company get derailed because they are great for the department or team. These criticisms can get ignored or reasoned away because of the overwhelming success of the company, and instead Rioters will hear that anyone who disagrees either wasn't a "culture fit" or couldn't "align" with the company or couldn't hack it at Riot. It's hard to gauge how detrimental these factors are, because many Rioters seem happy (or comfortable) with how things are. What sucks is that there's a Riot inside the current company that could be everything it wants to be. It could be kicking down doors and shaking things up, but first it needs to have a serious conversation about some of its problems.