Review from a veteran in the publishing group
Pros
The best part of Riot is that despite the massive growth, the company has remained as a place for ambitious high-performers who are passionate gamers and want to make great things for other gamers. There are some seriously gifted people here who work very hard, and it's frankly inspiring. The company does a very good job at letting those who seek it tackle greater responsibility. Player focused is not just a mantra; there are often heated debates about what that means, but it's very rare to encounter anyone who is apathetic to player concerns. They are usually shown the door very quickly. The culture has been maintained despite scaling up. In publishing in particular, the team is very strong. We've generally done an excellent job at hiring both experienced people with a passion for knowledge sharing and people just starting their careers but with a high aptitude for learning and execution. Despite the game now approaching 5 years of age, the product still has tons of opportunity for marketers and community managers to re-imagine how we do things and go bigger. The IP is super fun, the game is compelling, and the fans, of which you have unparalleled access to, are the best in gaming. There's other perks: very competitive salary, free dinners, classes, great equipment, playing games at work, but at the end of the day, the best part about working at Riot is that you'll be working with great people and you'll be rewarded if you're willing to take risks.
Cons
One fact you need to understand should you happen to work in the publishing group and potentially any other group in the company: this is a production driven company. Producers, Product Owners, and Project Managers are the deciders. This in itself is not a con, as it's one of the reasons Riot has been so successful, but like any organizational structure, it presents some issues. Good producers have a great impact, but inept ones are very frustrating to deal with and have a disproportionate amount of power. When a producer and someone from publishing are able to get along, to understand and listen to each other, and to make decisions together, Riot is unmatched in our ability to deliver product experiences that players love. This is often the case, but unfortunately it's not always. There are two major challenges to working in a production driven environment: Release dates for features are constantly in flux. The added struggle for someone in publishing is that it's not just a "when it's done" attitude (which is a good attitude to have), it's that as soon as it's done, producers want to ship immediately. And since the various feature teams don't coordinate their releases, you'll have situations where a period of time will go by with no content, and then all of a sudden you have to make a stack rank of feature promotion and some things will just not get the attention they should. There's rarely a desire for production to ever wait once it's "ready", and because of that, players miss out. Missed opportunities come from SOME (not the majority) producers, mostly at the associate level, that either don't know the expertise of the publishing group, or don't see the value in marketing or community. Their are a lot of meetings or talks that these producers will set up that at first appear like they are interested in what publishing thinks about a feature, when really they just want to hear themselves talk and have publishing act as "yes men". Disagreeing in these meetings will usually be dismissed. If you are coming from a place where you are used to marketing or business development calling the shots, and you liked that sort of environment, this is not the place for you.
