Lead Game Designer

Who We Are

Founded in 2005, 2K Games is a global video game company, publishing titles developed by some of the most influential game development studios in the world. 2K publishes titles in today’s most popular gaming genres, including sports, shooters, action, role-playing, strategy, casual, and family entertainment. Our studios responsible for developing 2K’s portfolio of world-class games across multiple platforms include Visual Concepts, Firaxis, Hangar 13, CatDaddy, Cloud Chamber, and HB Studios. Our portfolio of titles is expanding due to our global strategic plan, building and acquiring exciting studios whose content continues to inspire all of us! 

Located in Vancouver, BC, 2K Sports Lab is a small collective being formed within 2K Games that is driving the research and development of future sports interactive entertainment programs. Within this group, speculative work will be done on future sports games with an eye towards taking the magic of 2K’s publishing and development expertise and applying them to future opportunities. 

Our team of engineers, marketers, artists, writers, data scientists, producers, thinkers and doers, are the professional publishing stewards of our growing library of critically-acclaimed franchises such as NBA 2K, 2K PGA, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, Lego Drive, BioShock, Borderlands, The Quarry, Mafia, Sid Meier’s Civilization, Marvel’s Midnight Suns, WWE 2K, and XCOM.

At 2K, we pride ourselves on creating an inclusive work environment, which means encouraging our teams to Come as You Are and do your best work! We encourage ALL applicants to explore our global positions, even if they don’t meet every requirement for the role.  If you're interested in the job and think you have what it takes to work at 2K, we encourage you to apply.

What We Need

Our studio is looking for an experienced Lead Game Designer who has a high quality bar and a passion for creating memorable and authentic sporting player journeys. The Lead Game Designer will produce feature designs for our hour-to-hour play and partner with other designers and disciplines to champion the production of said features. The Lead Game Designer will report to the Design Director (Core Fantasy).

What You’ll Do

• Be the ‘Product Owner’ for large features of the ‘hour-to-hour’ play (our Core Fantasy)

  • Acquire an intimate knowledge of our target player and our product goals

  • Acquire an intimate knowledge of the competitive landscape

  • Work with the ‘Design Director’ to to translate the ‘Core Fantasy’ vision into feature designs

  • Partner with producer, tech, and art peers on feature development

  • Own the tuning of features and the economy

  • Collaborate with the QA team to drive testing of the game experience

  • Evaluate progress and game quality and work with the design and production team on execution plans

• ‘Champion the vision’ and ‘craft the design’ of your game area

  • Help craft the vision for your game area together with creative studio leadership

  • Collaborate with your team to create designs that execute on the agreed upon feature visions

  • Live our creative process and create necessary documentation

  • Manage the timely generation of design documentation

  • Work with the design team to define and execute our Core Fantasy

• ‘Steer the Implementation’ of your gameplay vision

  • Lead the vision for your game area

  • Collaborate with Engineers and Animators to steer the execution of your vision

  • Collaborate with your Project Management and Technical partners to lead your feature team (5-10 developers)

  • Champion the player experience, bringing the players perspective to all decision making

  • Be constantly analyzing the software, adding to, grooming and prioritizing the backlog

• Align the Studio on your designs for the ‘Core Fantasy’

  • Passionately and clearly present designs to the team

  • Share design material in asynchronous ways to aid visibility

• Mentor junior design team members

  • Champion our framework for designer responsibilities a 2KSL

  • Be a source of knowledge and experience for other team members

  • Contribute to positive morale and a healthy team culture

• Prototyping and Iteration

  • Work with the engineering team on prototypes to prove the ‘Core Fantasy’ vision

  • Iterate on prototypes to ensure the best possible feature set for the game 

What Will Make You A Great Fit

• Passion for Sports and Sports Video Games

• Experience designing and owning large features for AAA games

• Experience as a lead systems designer (5+)

• Experience in mentoring other designers

• Appetite for taking on  ‘Game Area Owner’ responsibilities (front-to-back development partner)

• Passion for and knowledge of how to create ‘player driven/emergent narrative’ and systemic design

• Positive, ‘can do’, proactive attitude 

Beneficial Qualifications

• Experience working on sports games

The pay range for this position in British Columbia at the start of employment is expected to be between CAD $90,400 and CAD $133,780 per Year. However, actual pay offered is based on market location and may vary further depending on individualized factors for job candidates, such as job-related knowledge, skills, experience, and other objective business considerations. If hired, the company reserves the right to modify base pay (as well as any other discretionary payment or compensation or benefit program) at any time, including for reasons related to individual performance, company or individual department/team performance, and market factors.

As an equal opportunity employer, we are committed to ensuring that qualified individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform their essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us if you need reasonable accommodation.

Please note that 2K Games and its studios never uses instant messaging apps or personal email accounts to contact prospective employees or conduct interviews and when emailing, only use 2K.com accounts.

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