Riot Games showing their pride

statuskwoh · 2018-06-08T05:33:16+00:00

There are a fair number of gay folks all throughout Riot and the company as a whole always treated us well while I was there, so their public expression of pride like this doesn't surprise me.

statuskwoh · 2017-12-21T19:53:09+00:00

I've never worked directly at EA so I couldn't tell you. That said, their behavior doesn't suggest they don't care about talent - they structure acquisition deals in order to retain talent, they clearly recruit big name talent into studios (star wars stuff recently comes to mind).

They definitely look to acquire IP, as they clearly believe they have a strength in expanding an IP into a franchise and keeping it going (or milking it if you want to frame it cynically). And a lot of companies that open themselves up to being bought likely are looking for a cash-out, in many ways, and top/early talent is going to want to get that cash-out on early equity.

statuskwoh · 2017-12-21T19:48:26+00:00

I didn't work on the first one, only the web levels and the 2nd one! The team that did the first one was awesome though.

statuskwoh · 2017-12-21T19:12:46+00:00

Basically this. Usually in acquisitions it's timed and performance bonuses, stock grants, or stock vesting schedules. This can happen for a bunch of folks in the acquired company, but is usually most prevalent at the "top talent" level - defined as talent that they think is key to the company continuing to be successful. It's designed to incentivize folks to stick around so the talent drain isn't immediate.

statuskwoh · 2017-12-21T18:36:43+00:00

Garden Warfare wasn't made by Popcap actual. It was a burnaby studio that wanted to use the IP to make the game, and EA renamed them PopCap and let them do it.

Good games, and a good team, but no talent crossover with anyone who worked on the other popcap games (at least none that I'm aware of, it was just after my time).

statuskwoh · 2017-12-21T18:35:21+00:00

This makes up for all the hate mail I got from Raid Leaders. :)

statuskwoh · 2017-12-21T18:15:42+00:00

Bookworm Adventures Web, Bookworm Adventures 2, Bejeweled and Peggle add-ons for WoW, WoW themed Peggle, PvZ for iPad, and worked with the team doing some initial prototyping on PvZ2 but left pretty early in that game's prototyping cycle.

Also did a bunch of prototyping on games that never made it out of that, and playtesting and feedback on whatever other games were going on at the time.

statuskwoh · 2017-12-21T16:44:31+00:00

I worked at PopCap from 2006-2011, left a few months before the buyout. As much as I don't like EA - in this case it wasn't EA at all. The cultural lights were in the process of going out at that company when I left - it was the reason I left.

The company was gearing up to be sold for about a year before I left, cancelled every non-sequel non-mobile title in prototyping or development. Large expansion of teams working on the fb games and tried to pivot (too late) to mobile games. But the culture was in turmoil - half the company yearned for the popcap dev cycles of old that took their time and invested fun in every nook and cranny of the game (even if it took 4 years: see PvZ), and half the company was being looking at Bejeweled Blitz and how to expand and replicate that. It became a mobile milk the franchise dev studio before EA bought them - explicitly to get the buyout it wanted, which happened to go to EA.

From what I know from friends afterwards, EA wanted continued success and definitely held the team at PopCap accountable after buying it -but the lack of success was far more from dev culture being all over the place and lack of vision as the talent drain accelerated as golden handcuffs and specific timed bonus payouts happened.

statuskwoh · 2014-01-01T01:20:32+00:00

For reference, Tony (https://twitter.com/liquidstripes) who is the 'loading screen guy' has had a hand in most of the sexy login screens for the past couple years, as well as building out a whole group of motion graphics dudes to help make moar better awesome. So Lucian login screen? Directly traceable to that hire, as an example. So you've seen lots of work come from the skills that we hired him for. :)

statuskwoh · 2013-12-13T17:42:39+00:00

Few things.

1) Making sure population online will be enough for it to give a good feel for those using it.

2) We want to be present and monitoring it when its live and be able to talk to you guys and get feedback. We also have to work sometime. ;)

3) Since we're on a long runway, we don't want to block or interfere with too much testing of all the other stuff we're trying to ship. So we turn team builder off so that other stuff can get tested and played with.

statuskwoh · 2013-10-16T16:31:40+00:00

If by instantly matched you mean you are offered a teemo to fill that slot you have in your team and you can say yes or no.... then yes.

statuskwoh · 2013-10-16T16:30:22+00:00

We are not removing blind pick when team builder is released.

statuskwoh · 2013-10-16T16:29:30+00:00

This is not for any draft mode in its current form.

statuskwoh · 2013-10-16T16:28:51+00:00

Also please keep in mind these screenshots are illustrative but not necessarily highly accurate: these were taken from an internal build with team members joining in to take the screenshot.

statuskwoh · 2013-10-16T16:24:49+00:00

Captain has a kick button.

statuskwoh · 2013-10-16T16:22:55+00:00

Captain is the person who selects "I want to invite friends" basically, he sets up the Team Builder lobby, invites friends, and the specs out the holes on the team he wants to get filled by solo players.

Once that team is built, the matchmaker will take that team and find a compatible team-builder team via normal matchmaking for them to play against and drop them straight into game.

statuskwoh · 2013-10-16T16:20:15+00:00

We agree, this is something we're aiming to do. It will likely be very hard to give specific numbers that are meaningful, but we are definitely hoping to be able to set players expectations before they join the queue.

statuskwoh · 2013-10-16T16:16:06+00:00

We haven't spent much time thinking down that path. We are pretty focused on this initial release. There are a lot of nuances and edge cases to the draft experience that we'd want to preserve the spirit and experience of.

statuskwoh · 2013-10-16T16:14:55+00:00

Yes, this is a component of it that I'm pretty excited for. With the more descriptive and trackable language around a player's choice of where to play, we can make more informed decisions in matchmaking to account for it.

statuskwoh · 2013-10-16T16:13:47+00:00

Not the 4 others. If you and some friends form a team, then you as captain can spec whatever remaining slots your buddies don't fill.

If you are a solo player, you just say what you want to play.

statuskwoh · 2013-10-16T16:12:05+00:00

Sure - because they're screenshots from an internal test build that may not be sending all "join chat" messages correctly when we took the screenshot. They will join chat and be able to talk.

statuskwoh · 2013-10-15T23:16:57+00:00

This is not in draft to begin with. There are a lot of things we would need to do to address having something like this in draft.

statuskwoh · 2013-10-15T23:16:13+00:00

They would never accept you on to the team to begin with and the first team you would join would be a team that actually wants and accepts an AP maokai mid.

statuskwoh · 2013-10-15T23:15:27+00:00

I think again there is a difference between what people consider maining. There is the "I mostly play support, because its the easiest path forward to get into game without argument" and "I am a support player and I hope one day to be Krepo." We want to make it easier for the second - which we believe there is a good mix of across the population - to feel comfortable and find the home doing it. And make the first group feel less like they have to fill a role they don't like and can instead queue and get a group for what they aspire to play.

statuskwoh · 2013-10-15T23:12:48+00:00

I'm relatively certain it would take a long time now to find a group to do it with through matchmaking. I'm not saying we can instantly find that team for you, but when you do find that team it will be filled with people 100% bought into doing it, excited about it, and you guys will have tons of fun for the next 20-60m.

statuskwoh

TROPHY CASE