Senior Researcher, China Studio

Riot Games was established in 2006 by entrepreneurial gamers who believe that player-focused game development can result in great games. In 2009, Riot released its debut title League of Legends to critical and player acclaim. As the most played video game in the world, over 100 million play every month. Players form the foundation of our community and it’s for them that we continue to evolve and improve the League of Legends experience.

We’re looking for humble but ambitious, razor-sharp professionals who can teach us a thing or two. We promise to return the favor. Like us, you take play seriously; you’re passionate about games. We embrace those who see things differently, aren’t afraid to experiment, and who have a healthy disregard for constraints.

That's where you come in.

As a Senior Researcher, China Studio on the China studio Insight team, you will report to the head of China Studio Insights team. You will be part of the strategic research team, partnering with leaders on games in the early stages of development as well as live games within the China studio. You will conduct studies and analysis to inform the direction, experience, systems, and features of Riot’s new games. You will also contribute to the vision for how playtesting will be used and performed for new games. Your scientific skill set coupled with your audience insight will ensure that we have a deep understanding of global players, how to best understand them, leveraging user research, and ultimately make games in a player focused way.

As a member of China studio, you’ll partner with many teams within China studio to execute playtests and audience research across many products, with a focus on early stage games. You’ll use your research background, understanding of the market, audience, and familiarity with game development to contribute to the success of our teams. You are a master at building research activities and will support from initial game direction all the way through post-implementation evaluation.

Responsibilities:

• Drive user research efforts on game teams in partnership with production & design
• Leadership on high complexity, ambiguous problem spaces to help direct the experience of our new games, systems, and features.
• Contribute at the China studio level on strategy and operations as part of the China studio insight team
• Construct and perform labs, studies, and surveys - sometimes with novel or complex methodologies - designed to answer business, design, development, and usability questions
• Share the results with game and China studio leadership in clear, illustrative presentations that drive meaningful change
• Mentor other researchers, helping them learn from your experiences

Required Qualifications:

• Education background in ONE of the following categories:
• Advanced degree in Psychology, Anthropology, Human-Computer Interaction, Cognitive Science, Human Factors or a related discipline plus 2 years of relevant research experience in game development
• Bachelor's degree in Psychology, Anthropology, Human-Computer Interaction, or a related discipline plus 4 years of relevant research experience in game development
• Experience running playtest and usability tests in a variety of paradigms, including and not limited to moderated testing, unmoderated testing, focused feature-specific testing, holistic and longitudinal testing, and more complex or constrained testing paradigms
• Trusted to operate independently regardless of structure, owns larger problems/projects/workstreams
• Ability to work collaboratively with others
• Familiarity with qualitative methods and analysis
• Experience synthesizing and presenting data for maximum impact and understanding
• Experience designing and performing basic survey research

Desired Qualifications:

• Experience conducting games user research during the early stages of the development life cycle particularly incubation, prototype, and pre-production
• Familiarity with audience research including methods for identification and definition
• Familiarity with basic statistical methods for data analysis (regressions, correlations,
• factor analyses)
• Experience leading complex projects with multiple collaborators and work streams
• Experience managing vendors
• Experience working with leadership at the “team of teams” level on strategic and operational problems
• Fluent in Chinese and English, and can promote collaboration across different languages and cultures