Riot Games Reviews

Cons

Dont have any significant downside

Cons

Elitist vibe/standards can make getting a job (and building a team) here unnecessarily difficult, and can lead to people experiencing a persistent "outsider syndrome" (e.g. assuming they're the least smart/talented person in the room, and worrying about their future employment).

Giving individuals ultimate responsibility (without rigid rules to guide + protect them) has downsides if you're not confident enough to fight for everything you want. For example, there's no real guide to when you can use your "unlimited" PTO, and asking leads to a sort of cryptic "I don't know, do YOU think you should go on PTO?" attitude from management. That can be pretty anxiety-inducing if you're a newer employee and don't know exactly where you stand (the same is true of work/life balance more generally).

Recent negative publicity has highlighted [cultural] growing pains that the company has historically been slow to lean into as it's transitioned into a much larger/multi-game studio. They essentially need to tame the "Wild West" of their early startup days, and put stronger rules and processes in place that protect the small number of individuals who might be unintentional "victims" of that small town culture, and that punish the small number of individuals that exploit it.

That's all well and good, and the vast majority of folks seem to be in support of these changes. Unfortunately, there are pockets of resistance (leaders and old guard who don't want to let go of their "kingdoms"), and pockets of activists (who are using this as an excuse to start a witch hunt/power-grab and transform the culture of the company entirely from one that is united by a love of games into one that is divided by resentful identity politics). The outlook remains hopeful though, as senior leadership has remained largely transparent, mature, and clear-headed throughout the changes.

Cons

The CEO is incompetent. It's clear that employees don't take him seriously.

Cons

Riot hires talented individuals and fails to let them do their jobs. They discriminate against women and damage careers.

Riot also terminates people when they speak out against incompetent management, and they have a track record of using the latter against employees by calling out “performance issues” with no documentation.

If employees communicate feeling unsafe to HR (“Talent”), Talent will do whatever they can to out you. No one is “safe” and they’ll work hard to push you out.

Cons

Widespread and institutionalized sexism. Poor treatment of mothers and expectant mothers, as well as women in general. This is a company that would rather have a free smoothie bar and a PC cafe where people can slack off during work hours than a daycare center. On a campus of over 1000 people, there is literally one small closet for women to pump breast milk in.

 A friend of mine told me recently that HR set up a meeting with her specifically to tell her that because she didn't have a note specifying a medical restriction from her doctor during her pregnancy, that if her performance dropped, she could be fired and would have no legal recourse. This person is clearly very productive and well regarded those she works with. She said it added to her already high level of anxiety about her pregnancy.

In addition to that, all you have to do is look at the ratio of women in leadership positions to realize that there is institutionalized bias against promoting women. This doesn't seem to be improving with time, despite all the lip service management pays toward an effort to have greater diversity in leadership.

Cons

Player focus can sometimes be an unclear goal and takes priority over clear metrics at other companies like budgets or spend

Cons

sometimes there would be no direction towards game play

Cons

- Leadership. It goes beyond the sexism expressed recently in press and various blogs. They are well entrenched and have effective mechanisms to quell dissent and prevent shifts in culture that would compromise their power and influence.
- Inability to ship product on all levels, from simple web experiences to new games.
- The League team is only a small portion of Riot, what is everyone else doing?
- Executive leadership now in place is absolutely not capable of inspiring and leading the amazing talent at Riot.
- Variable compensation structure is comically inadequate for all but the most sr. Employees.

Cons

First, some quick thoughts on the current diversity discussion: the recent articles on Kotaku were painful to read. We've been discussing these articles as a company for over a month now (and we've been discussing the problem for years) and I think we're making some great strides. It's horrible that anyone at Riot ever felt like they weren't valued or treated fairly - we need create a better environment and solve this problem at Riot, in the industry, and on planet Earth if we hope to reach equilibrium, and that's a tall order. The reason I'm still here and still writing a five star review is that I'm 100% confident that Riot has the people and tools to solve this problem, and we're seeing the progress right now. There's plenty more to unpack here, but I actually think Riot is in a much better place in regards to diversity and inclusion than any company I've worked at in the past.

-Ambiguity - all the autonomy comes with ambiguity. Rioters own their products and decisions, and that can be daunting. It takes some getting used to but it means you'll have a broader scope and more room to grow
-Lifecycle - Riot grew incredibly fast and that means we've got some tech and organizational debt to clean up. We're still very much in startup mode but we're learning how to create healthy processes and standards to become more efficient and mature

Cons

It's a bro culture revolved around group think. In their minds you have to be an enthusiast of the game to get hired and thus a lot of departments are staffed with like minded sexist bros who think nothing of making rape jokes. If you call it out as a woman, you are a (insert explicative here) and guys who make efforts to stand up for them make them the target. Women learn to sit back and just not give their ideas. The only reason they are giving lip service to this is because they got busted, but the bad practices are only being turned down a notch rather than going away.

Otherwise it is a company without direction. Rather than focus on becoming a serious game publisher, they rather keep up with League even as it is diminishing with time (it's why other publishers have more than one game) and a lot of e-sports are past their peak. However, this would require a corporate mindset that is looking forward, something that doesn't tend to happen when you only hire within your own fanbase.

It's a company in search of renewed relevance now that there are multiple real competitors making a more interesting game experience for an audience who isn't angry boys exercising frustrations on everyone else.