Game Designer

The Major League Baseball Games and VR Group designs, develops, and manages a portfolio of high-quality products including console and mobile games, real-time data visualization, VR/AR experiences, and more.

A Game Designer for the MLB Games and VR department is responsible for owning, documenting, and conveying the creative vision of our games' mechanics, progression, and monetization strategies throughout development and live-ops support. The ideal candidate has a proven track record of producing high quality game designs and collaborating with developers to ensure their successful implementation. They have a strong understanding of current game trends, in particular within the freemium and mobile game market. The ideal candidate is also intimately familiar with the rules and culture of baseball, and will leverage that knowledge to delight MLB fans.

Essential Functions

• Help teams synthesize their ideas into successful products
• Create design documents, including specs, economy spreadsheets, and wireframes
• Design game systems that produce deeper engagement with the MLB brand
• Establish key player progression and game economy targets and balance the game towards them
• Devise creative solutions to gameplay and balancing issues
• Work closely with developers to ensure quality implementation of designs
• Deconstruct mechanics and systems in successful titles across the gaming spectrum (mobile, consoles, PC, VR)
• Recognize and stay abreast of game design trends, play patterns, and consumer preferences
• Pitch your innovative ideas to shape MLB's gaming strategy

Qualifications and Skills

• 5 years of experience in mobile and/or game development
• 3 years of experience in freemium game design, economies, live ops, and retention strategies
• Strong understanding of the rules and culture of baseball
• You're passionate about games. You are knowledgeable about games and game culture. You play games.
• Ability to design game features and concepts clearly and effectively communicate that vision throughout implementation
• Experience on teams that have delivered multiple titles to market
• Experience launching new products, from concept development to initial release
• Experience supporting products through live ops
• Understanding of the freemium market and emergent trends in adjacent markets
• Deep monetization intuition and understanding
• Experience designing and tuning difficulty curves, long-term progression, and freemium economies
• Experience working with UX & UI designs
• Previous experience in Jira or other issue tracking software
• Goal and deadline oriented - you have attention to detail
• Strong organizational skills
• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills