Job Description

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

Why MLB?

Major League Baseball (MLB) is the most historic of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada. Employees love working at MLB because of the culture of growth, teamwork, and professionalism. Employees who are most successful at MLB take initiative, know how to identify problems and provide solutions, and always put the Team first. For those ready to step up to the plate and join the Major Leagues, MLB takes the same approach as teams do with their players: empowering our “workforce athletes” to be at their best by engineering experiences that put employees in the best position to succeed. Major League Baseball is looking for candidates who are passionate about growing America’s pastime to best serve its fans for decades to come.

MLB’s vision is to be the global sport of choice for youth to play, fans of all backgrounds to enjoy and a desired destination for employment. With a belief that the journey to growth and greatness is ongoing, MLB gives employees the opportunity to continue learning and honing their skills with programs such as: tuition reimbursement; mentorship programs; lunch and learns; online course subscriptions; paid industry certifications; business resource groups; and more.

MLB provides its employees with exceptional medical, dental, and vision coverage. Premiums are 100% employer covered to help employees focus on being their best!

Major League Baseball is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.

Are you ready to Step Up to the Plate? Apply below!

Per the NYC pay transparency law, the hiring range for this position is $100,000 to $125,000.

As a candidate for this position, your salary and related elements of compensation will be contingent upon your work experience, education, skills and any other factors Major League Baseball (MLB) considers relevant to the hiring decision. In addition to your salary, MLB believes in providing a competitive compensation and benefits package for its employees. MLB offers employees a full range of best in class benefits with no employee contributions towards medical, dental, and vision coverage premiums, as well as incentive and recognition programs, life insurance and automatic employer 401k contributions. All benefits are subject to eligibility requirements and the terms of official plan documents which may be modified or amended from time to time.