Associate Balance Designer

Kabam • Vancouver, BC

44d • $64,160 - $72,000 • Onsite

About The Position

At Kabam, we’re constantly raising the bar of excellence in free-to-play gaming. We hire for passion and diversity so that we can triumph in our collective skill. Our teams are made up of a fusion of personalities and interests bound together by a collaborative nature, fun-loving culture, and a drive to do what it takes to make great games. And this is where you come in…
The key function of the Associate Balance Designer role is in supporting the fine-tuning and optimisation of the gameplay experience to ensure that the game’s mechanics, systems, and content are well-balanced, providing players with engaging and enjoyable gameplay while maintaining fairness and competitive integrity.
This role is a full-time, on-site position based 5 days a week at our Downtown Vancouver studio.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent experience with an emphasis on game design.
• 1+ years of game design experience on commercially successful properties.
• Familiarity with RPG, BCG, and action genres on mobile, PC, console, and pen-and-paper platforms.
• Considerable experience with Marvel Contest of Champions’ economy, gameplay and social features is a must! (aka, play the game!).
• Rock-solid organizational skills with the ability to juggle multiple priorities.
• Excellent communication skills, including documentation and presentation.
• Familiarity with Microsoft Excel and related spreadsheet software.
• A strong desire to make the best games in the world alongside others that share your motivation.

Responsibilities

• Analyze and Evaluate gameplay balancing mechanics
• Collaborate with senior designers to analyze and evaluate various gameplay elements, such as character abilities, item stats, level difficulty, and economy mechanics, to ensure a well-balanced and fair experience for players.
• Collaborate with the development team to adjust and fine-tune gameplay parameters based on player feedback and data analysis.
• Conduct Playtesting and Document Feedback
• Conduct playtesting sessions and gather feedback to identify potential balance issues.
• Create and maintain documentation detailing balance changes and reasoning for future reference.
• Collaborate with the data team for performance evaluation and tuning
• Utilize gameplay data and player behavior analysis to identify trends, imbalances, and areas for improvement.
• Collaborate with data analysts to draw insights and implement data-driven balance changes.
• Collaborate with game designers to develop new gameplay content with balance in mind
• Partner with various team members, such as systems, quest, RPG, and economy design team to contribute to balancing across all areas during development of new systems or features.
• Leverage the skills and expertise of the entire team to ensure balanced game experience for players.
• Ensure balance updates are communicated and executed
• Collaborate with the live operations team to plan and execute regular balance updates, events, and patches.
• Address and resolve urgent balance issues that may arise during live operations.
• Effectively communicate balance changes and reasoning to the development team, stakeholders, and the player community.

Benefits

• Extended Health Coverage: effective day one, no waiting period! Our benefits cover health, dental, life, disability, and extended paramedical services such as vision care, mental health practitioners, massage, physiotherapy, acupuncture, and much more.
• DEIB Benefits: DEIB is important to us and to our people - that’s why our benefits include gender-affirming care, fertility care, and other hormonal treatments and drugs.
• Flexible Spending Accounts: our benefits are built on a flex credit model, so you’re able to choose the coverage levels that are right for you, and allocate the rest to a group RRSP/TFSA, Health Spending account, and/or Personal Spending Account.
• RRSP Matching: everyone retires eventually, and we help our people save for their futures with a contribution matching program once you reach 90 days with us.
• Commuter Benefit: we believe in the power of in-person collaboration, and want to support you in making it work for you! We provide a flexible, monthly cash allowance to help cover the costs of transit, parking, or even personal logistics like childcare and pet care.
• PTO and Parental Leave: we offer paid parental leave, flexible paid time off, paid time off for volunteering, sick leave, and holiday closures.
• Employee and Family Assistance Program: this program provides crisis management support, immediate mental health care, and generalized support for emotional, mental, and financial well-being.
• Telus Virtual Health: we provide increased access to remote healthcare providers for prescription refills or referrals from the comfort of your home.
• Learning and growth: We encourage people to grow both personally and professionally, and support this through regular lunch & learns and an education stipend.
• Pay transparency: We share with employees the pay range their role falls within and clear career maps to determine how they can grow within their role or level-up to a promotion.
• Cool spaces: Our offices are in Vancouver, Montreal, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Whether it’s summers on the rooftop patio in Downtown Vancouver, or watching the fireworks in Montreal’s South Shore - we want our people to feel like their time spent in office is worthwhile!
• Giving back: Kabammers have a dedicated paid day off every year to volunteer to a cause close to their hearts. Some teams even band together for group volunteer days off-site!

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Entry Level