Senior Systems & Economy Designer

Senior Systems & Economy Designer

Niantic Labs, creator of hit games including Pokémon GO, Monster Hunter Now, and Pikmin Bloom is seeking a Senior Systems & Economy Designer to help shape the future of Monster Hunter Now by designing high quality game experiences that delight and engage our avid players. We're a fast paced, multi-disciplinary team of game makers, software developers and creative professionals based in Tokyo, San Francisco, and Seattle. You will be responsible for running the game economy and ensuring new features and game events deliver a well balanced and integrated game loop that improves both KPIs and player experience; living up to the bold vision for Monster Hunter Now, helping merge the virtual with the real world and inspiring people to explore together!

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with Product, Production, Data, and Feature Designers to drive systems design across the feature roadmap and live ops calendar.
• Thoughtfully run the game economy, balancing resource sources, sinks, and progression across the entire player lifecycle.
• Plan out the long term progression strategy for the game, integrating new progression systems, content releases, and balancing for both mature and early game players.
• Partner with Product, Live Ops and Data to find high impact optimization opportunities across the live game experience.
• Take accountability for driving KPI impact via ownership of key gameplay metrics directly tied to economy design.
• Promote understanding of key game systems from market comps to influence roadmap and design decisions, driving more effective decision making.
• Collaborate with Live Ops leadership to ensure every event is contemplated and accretive to the overall game economy.
• Collaborate with Feature Designers to ensure every feature release is deeply integrated and accretive to the core progression loops.
• Collaborate with cross-functional team members and stakeholders, including regular and reliable attendance and participation in key meetings.
• Act as a driver of culture on the team, fostering learning, collaboration, player centricity, and excellence with an outcome oriented approach.
• Required in-office 3 days per week on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

Qualifications

• 5+ years experience in free to play game systems and economy design.
• Track record of leading game economies in successful free to play mobile games post-launch.
• Experience positively impacting KPIs via systems design for new game features.
• Deep understanding of game economy and live operations in midcore games.
• Expertise with analyzing and interpreting data to make data informed decisions.
• Excellent verbal and written communication in both English and Japanese.
• Ability to mentor, and lead by example to develop team members.
• Flexibility in a demanding team environment.
• Passion for video games; an avid gamer with a proven understanding of mobile games.
• Have worked on a high profile game with a significant amount of daily active users.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced hybrid environment and handle stress appropriately and ability to solve practical problems and be sufficiently adaptable to handle dynamic situations with little advance notice.
• Experience working on cross-functional teams with ability to communicate effectively through written and verbal communications, including asynchronous interactions with others.
• Belief in the value of bringing people together through games to explore in the real world.
• Based in Japan.

Plus If...

• Deep understanding and/or fandom of the Monster Hunter franchise
• Familiarity as a player with Monster Hunter Now, Pikmin Bloom, and/or Pokemon Go
• Experience, interest, and excitement around AR games or features
• Experience in other related fields such as UX Design, Engineering, Data, Production or Product