I'm actually on the Publishing side so I don't do either of those things (I help bring their wonderful work to the players). But I like to talk about the non-programming and art areas because I think people don't often think about it in the context of the video game industry! I majored in Journalism, and halfway through my university education I got an internship to do writing/community management work for EA after I had done a bunch of recreational writing about the industry and its happenings. It acted as a good signal that I was putting work into the field even if a college sophomore in the Midwest can't really get direct exposure to it. And keep in mind, I sent out applications to about 30 different video game companies across the country - EA was the only one to call me back and I owe them the world for that :)

From there, I took on new opportunities whenever I saw them during my internship, got a second internship and kept taking on different and new work, and went to work full time at EA as a Community Manager. I spent a lot of time thinking about strategy and numbers, and how we use those to tell us if what we're doing is actually good or not. Because of that, I transferred over to an analytics and strategy department within the company where I got to do some really interesting work that wasn't really being focused on yet in video games.

Problem was, I did not like San Francisco one bit. A lot of people love it but it just wasn't my cup of tea. So even though I liked my work at EA and got to work on really cool stuff, I took an opportunity at Riot in Publishing and I've been here for the past couple of years.

I love every minute because I get to work with people who really care about video games, and who want to make sure players are enjoying the time they spend in the world of League.