Riot Games put a post up on LinkedIn detailing what kind of candidates they’re looking for when applying to work for the League of Legends developers. Apparently, the most important characteristic is that you’re a “core gamer”.
Thinking of applying? Time to smash your way through our list of the best MOBAs.
At least, this is what Benjamin Pommeraud, general manager for Riot Games Singapore and Malaysia believes.
The post begins with: “I’ll keep this short and this is just my perspective and my words on what we look at when you apply to Riot. Especially, I’d like to focus on the ‘being a gamer’ thing. I receive some questions about the recruitment philosophy so I thought it could be useful.”
He says the best way to resonate with the company is the be a gamer, just like the rest of the people who work there. This stems from the company’s founders, Marc Merrill and Brandon Beck, who created Riot without a prior career in the industry, the company growing simply from a passion for gaming.
“The fact that League of Legends has become so successful is for us a sign that you don’t need to come from gaming to be good at making games,” says Pommeraud. “Having a passion for the product is even more important.”
Just enjoying games isn’t enough, however. You have to enjoy certain games. Or not solely enjoy one type of game: casual games.
“At Riot, we make games for what we call ‘core gamers’. Not that we don’t think that anybody who plays games is a gamer, but we build a specific type of games,” he explains.
“League is a multiplayer game, hard to master, competitive. It is not for everyone. If you just play Candy Crush, you are a gamer, for sure. And Candy Crush is a well designed, immensely successful game. It is just not the type of game we do.
“So NO, you don’t need to be a LoL player, but we are looking for people with an affinity for MMOs, competitive shooters, or MOBAs in general, etc.”
One bit that makes a bit more sense is that you have to know a bit about LoL, which isn’t all that different from researching a company you want to work for prior to an interview. Just make sure you’re not playing Candy Crush in the waiting room if you get that far.
Read the full post over on LinkedIn.