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Game Director

WHO WE ARE

We’re ArenaNet. We make the games we want to play and infuse them with innovation, hand-crafted detail, and creative passion. As developer and publisher of the award-winning Guild Wars game series, we’re proud to share our passion for the online worlds we’ve created with over 11 million players worldwide.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

As the Game Director, you are responsible for leading the strategic and creative vision. You will forge all creative aspects of the project into a unified experience that delight the vast global Guild Wars audience. Not only will you partner with the directors and leads of all disciplines on the game to deliver an experience consistent with the Guild Wars quality bar, but also oversee seamlessly blending development of live games as a service and expansion features and content to surprise and delight our players for years to come. You are ultimately responsible for ensuring the the game is beloved by the Guild Wars community, continues to be viewed as innovative in a crowded marketplace, and sustainable for years to come.

What else you ask? You will work closely with the leaders on the team to coordinate team culture, development tenets, ensuring a growth mindset and driving the studio always towards a process of constant improvement. Additionally, you are responsible for determining product goals and pillars and ensuring every developer on the team is aware of the goals of the product, the pillars and innovations the team is focusing on, and how they as a developer fit into achieving that goal.

You hold discipline directors and leads accountable for the quality and accuracy of work their group produces. You work with your Leadership team to ensure all disciplines are aligned and bringing all necessary resources to bear on each new game release. As a lead who succeeds by delegating, you understand the core of this role is to set overall creative goals and vision, and then trust the Discipline Leads and their teams to execute on that vision while trusting but verifying to ensure consistent alignment. You seek out the best ideas and swap out lesser ideas for better ones, regardless of the source.

Finally, you will partner with the community team to ensure our players understand the teams development goals, see a roadmap for the games future that makes their investment feel worthwhile, and when things go wrong you’re one of the first lines of communication to own our failures and our learnings.

WHAT YOU'LL NEED TO BE SUCCESSFUL

• You are fearless in setting a compelling and innovative vision, sharing that vision with excitement and confidence, and getting a large team of developers rapidly on board with a direction.
• You are not afraid to fail and recognize taking risks sometimes comes with failure.
• You are willing to stand up in front of the team and own failures as they are learning opportunities that help us grow.
• You set the bar for the entire development team.
• You have significant experience working with the directors/leads of all disciplines in a game development environment, can speak enough of the “lingo” of each of their departments to successfully work across all disciplines and fields.
• You have experience constantly evaluating and updating your creative vision based on market changes, learnings from development, feedback from community, and feedback from your own development team.
• You have experience setting core product pillars that provide the box for developers to play in and can clearly communicate when development projects or ideas stray outside of that core product vision.
• You value transparency in communication and are not afraid to be open and honest with your development team, to treat them like adults and trust them with information, even when it’s hard.
• You have significant experience in moments where product quality, timelines, or cost are all risks and understand managing the trade-off’s while still delivering experiences that delight customers.
• You have experience working closely with an executive producer or production director responsible for overseeing the product’s cost and schedule. You understand that the two of you work as partners and neither of you can succeed without the other.
• You have experience shipping multiple releases as a Game Director, Creative Director, Product Manager, or Lead Designer.
• You have significant experience in a leadership role on a live service game model product post-release.
• You love mentoring, training, and leading people and have a deep passion for helping your direct reports grow and excel in their roles.