Pros
Even already established since late 2013, the Hong Kong Studio still breathes Start-Up. It is small scale, we shifted away from being a China Publishing Office to become and build the first International Studio 2 years ago. If you like to work in a Start-up environment where we need to find out things on our way, this will be the right environment for you. We slowly start to improve on/work on processes and prepare to scale for the future. This transition is interesting, as that also means a mindset change for the long term HK Rioters who are used to a certain way of working. From the surface it can look like more control and process to get the same thing done, but is is more about being deliberate about what and why we do stuff as it is easy to fall into habits we created before without thinking about whether it is the right thing to do. Being here more than 3 years feels on the one hand shorter as going to work is still a fresh experience with many new faces and working on our studio mission. On the other hand it feels longer as we have gone through quite some big strategic changes over the years. So if you like to work in a start up environment this is the right place for you. Pro of working at the Hong Kong Studio is the autonomy and space given as we are still small scale. If you are ambitious and know what and how is the right thing to do for Riot, you will flourish here. If you are someone who needs more guidance and told what and how to do something, you will be better off in a bigger office. Autonomy and space also lies in making decisions, which can be small but also big. Where I was used to making decisions before, I always still presented my decision to my MD for final approval or blessing. At Riot you really own your own decisions and you won't get the comfort of a manager blessing your decision. If you screw up, you face the consequences directly and need to solve this. This sounds bad, but is not really in real life, you will learn a lot how to make the right judgement call and how to trust your own judgement. And if you judge wrongly, you surely will learn quickly as you will need to clean up your own mess. If you like direct feedback, you are at the right place here. We are not shy providing direct feedback and this is something we are proud of and put efforts in maintaining this culture.
Cons
We are still partly dependent on the Central product teams at the moment wrt the products we are working on in Hong Kong. We are part of Central, so much time and effort is put into alignment about what is the right thing to do. We are still building our muscles, so some products we work(ed) on might not be the most exciting ones. So if you have big ambitions (e.g. building our own game from the HK Studio) and want to realize these fast (like this year), this might be the wrong place for you at the moment. A much heard of complaint internally is the lack of hunger. Something I believe we should solve. I do see some teams being hungry and set themselves ambitious goals, but that is not for every team. I think where we can improve on is to hold each other more accountable for things we commit to, this will also help in the hunger issue we face. Riot takes very good care of the Rioters, but this sometimes leads to Rioters feeling entitled and not appreciative of the things we do have in place.