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Game Designer - The Sims

At Maxis , we thrive on outrageous thinking.

It’s the fuel that inspires the best games in the world. We’re creators and great storytellers. Our mission is not just about amazing our peers – it’s about amazing our fans. Taking risks, collaborating with each other and daring to dream big. Together, we can improve the way millions play every day.

As a Designer on The Sims, you’ll work with a team of enthusiastic industry craftspeople from all walks of life. You will use your passion and knowledge to design and implement player-first experiences that surprise, delight, and invite millions of Simmers around the world to Play with Life .

Responsibilities

• Design and own features from concept to completion.
• Establish player experience goals for designs, implement and tune features to meet those goals.
• Improve designs based on play test feedback, game metrics, team input and community feedback.
• Think creatively using the tools and time available to build unique and fun experiences for players.
• Think about the future when implementing content, resulting in smartly scripted scalable systems and good design patterns and practices.
• Collaborate with all team disciplines, including artists, animators, modelers, engineers, quality assurance, and producers to get support from the team and guide a project from initial design to final production.
• Advocate for the design vision and get the team excited to work on it.
• Balance your design vision with input from your peers to find practical solutions that achieve the intended player experience.
• Become an expert on the game and our community, drawing from our large, varied player base and our past games to make and defend intelligent design choices going forward.
• Help establish best practices for the team and improve process and efficiency.
• Adopt and become proficient in new or proprietary development tools to implement and debug your work.
• Provide feedback to other designers.

Recommended Experience

• Live Services experience highly recommended.

• Excellent creative skills with experience creating detailed design documentation and maintaining it throughout a project life cycle
• Excellent iterative design approach and thinking..
• Design and implementation experience with game features that focus on open-ended player creativity.
• Experience with games in The Sims PC franchise and other simulation games.
• Effective at working both autonomously and in groups of different profiles.
• Knowledge of and enthusiasm for gaming: playing, deconstructing and creating.

Desirable Skills

• Shipped a AAA HD title or has worked in Live Services.
• Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent.
• Comfortable with Visio, JIRA, online collaboration suites such as Confluence