Riot Games reviews

Riot is truly a place that struggles because it scaled too quickly and never figured out its leadership layer correctly. So, all the successes of the company are found in the part of the company that is valuable: GAMES. The current CEO, Nicolo is a good person, who ultimately cares a lot about the company and the employees, but doesn't have what it takes to lead. It's just a sad reality. He doesn't know how to create games (he never has done this), he doesn't know how to hold his publishing team accountable (he built it, it's pretty much all he's done in his career and so he doesn't know how truly terrible it is), he doesn't know how to prioritize or focus (his approach is always the biggest bets, not necessarily the smartest bets and he's been unwilling to change anything materially--it sounds big at first, but it ends in status quo), he doesn't know how to delegate (he holds his decisions close to himself and doesn't even delegate to his leadership team). He doesn't know how to set strategy (he just talks big talks about things that have nothing to do with the historic success of the company and are not even necessarily valuable moves--I'm being vague for Glassdoor... but basically distractions). He's also not your inspiration type leader either--that's ok. but he's very low empathy and pretty arrogant, which makes him gaffe-prone. Under his leadership he has further eroded accountability and has not furthered "rewards" for "risk"--people internally ask themselves "why should I bust-ass for Riot? why don't I just go somewhere else to gain more upside or grow?". Now, the truth of this is: this really mostly matters if you're director level up. If you're an incredible IC or Senior, that wants to make games and you've got a dream job on League, well then take it. It'll make you very happy, you should get paid well, and the game teams are legitimate. It matters for directors up because you're the ones who have to deal with this level of top-level incompetence. Riot refuses to get a handle on their social media and that blows up? Boom, you're now stuck in 1:1 with annoyed sometimes entitled employees. You drive impact and are successful? Well, too bad: there's no real growth for you, or maybe it's all going to be decided behind closed doors anyway. There are no plans to have growth, no true mentorship, no skip-level investment. You only advance when someone else leaves or by luck of the constant incompetent org shuffles. Of course, if you've got a great manager you're in great shape. But basically it's all local, be in a great situation, you're in great shape. This all feels like maybe it's getting better... but it's way too slow and poorly executed and just a failure of the top leadership team. They don't know how to empower or raise. They're mostly working hard and well meaning, but this is literally what happens when people are stretched into roles that they are not equipped to do and rise to their level of incompetence. And it's hurting the company--because the great talent is leaving. The thing is there is no true top-leadership team, it's just a collection of some mostly great leaders that don't have empowerment, it's just the Nicolo show. Here's the deal: - Game teams and R&D: The true magic of Riot. These work well. - Publishing: led by a truly bad leader who doesn't know what he's doing; no accountability. Ridiculously over-funded to the detriment of other parts of the company that need the resources--with not much to show for it (I know, Riot can do pretty awesome marketing, but that STARTS on the game team, or succeeds despite this organization because of a few heroes) - Central Tech/Riot GO/Central Platform: Really concerning implementation of an idea that could work, but because of bad tech choices, or leadership decisions and the way they are placed is a bit of a mess. Getting better, but concerning. - HR&Finance, etc.: Both hilariously over-funded and under-funded at the same time. These teams were historically dis-empowered at Riot and so have so much org/tech debt. They struggle to pay it off with their team staff sizes and meanwhile were over-funded historically, but mismanaged, so it's a weird game here. Also, company culture wants to ignore this stuff. It sucks. - IP/Creative: IP is important, but under-funded; focus should be on games, but is instead getting pulled into other things that are distractions. Can't mandate, always has to partner. Historically was a very weak team with struggling leadership, now doing significantly better.

I'm echoing everything else that has been said in other negative reviews. It's a sad and sobering fact that none of them are overly dramatic. This place is extremely toxic. - "Bro culture" and harassment run rampant and pervades leadership. You know those Uber stories going around recently? Riot is a half-step down from those experiences. Your clout and stability are directly proportional to the state of your abs (I'm only somewhat kidding about this). Leadership is filled with privileged men who do not recognize their own privilege and destructively wield their lack of awareness. - In order to be successful at Riot you have to do one of two things: 1) deal with an absurd amount of nonsense (this is the majority of Rioters) or 2) play the political game of backstabbing, befriending the right people, and focusing on presentation rather than results or expertise. Nepotism is your friend. It is incredible how many incompetent, unproven people have risen their ways through the ranks just from smooth talking and agreeing with the people around them. - Senior leadership is the layer of cancer that infects the rest of the company. More and more "mercenaries" are being hired who are looking to not do much and take a lot of credit. There's an obliviousness/naivety to these kinds of mercenaries from leadership (yet obvious to everyone else), and they're always surprised when one leaves the company for more money somewhere else. Some have stayed long-term since they've discovered there isn't a lot of hard work to be done. All they have to do is ask some "powerful questions" to cast the illusion that they're adding value. - As progressive as Riot is in its employee policies, HR remains the same as every other company out there. They will not help you. They will only help the company. Do not bother bringing to their attention the problems you've experienced; they'll just run you around conducting interviews and not actually address the issue, especially if you have a grievance towards one specific person and that person has a powerful manager. - Practicing what you preach is not followed at Riot. Leadership loves to say that it's on you to call out bad people, experiences, people who are "misaligned", etc, but god forbid you challenge a leader when they're being hypocritical or doing a bad job. Your career at Riot will end if you rock the boat, even when it's clearly coming from a good place (like being player-focused). If you're perceived as "complaining" about an issue, you're done (doubly so if you're a woman). Leadership is void of empathy and loves to spin everything so that you're part of the problem when you bring something up. Phrases like, "Why don't you do something about it?" "Is this the appropriate way to bring it up?" are thrown at Rioters when they appropriately call out red flags, ignoring the facts that they have already taken the right steps or them calling it out IS doing something because they don't realistically have the power to affect it. This also relates to the privilege part I wrote out above: leadership sings about merit and disregards any real struggles people have when the odds are stacked against them. They fail to recognize that people don't "rise to the challenge" in their eyes because they have made it a hostile, unsafe environment to do so, or that issues like sexism make it impossible for people to tackle problems. - "Misaligned" is a word thrown around by leadership to easily fire people, which really just translates to: "They hurt my fragile ego and I have more power than them so I'll abuse it right now." - Diversity is not taken seriously. There is a diversity initiative, but the truth is leadership is not empathetic of diversity and doesn't fully internalize the positives of hiring minorities. They fall into the misguided attitudes of, "More minorities should just apply" without, again, recognizing that maybe minorities don't want to for good reason. - If you're a woman who is looking to succeed, you're expected to act like a type-A man yet you cannot be TOO loud. The line is extremely fuzzy, so it's easier to err on the side of a female "yes man." It was commonplace to find that feedback included gender-based slurs for women, but not for men. - An open feedback culture is encouraged but you cannot give negative feedback to certain people or you will be shown the door. They will ignore the fact that the negative feedback you give is actually constructive and intending to improve the company, but you will be painted as a negative person yourself. It's a very simple, easy defense tactic from higher-ups, and it's employed frequently. Fragile egos, again. Witch hunts are common. Prepare to be called "difficult to work with" if you give constructive feedback to the wrong people. - It takes forever to get anything done. Trust is not widely available and there are too many stakeholders at any given point, so don't expect to come out of this job with a resume with tangible deliverables. - You'll be brainwashed to ignore all of these issues. If you can give into that, I envy you to a small degree.