If you are a Director-level employee don't do this to yourself... Otherwise, it's great. - Director Riot Games Employee Review

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.