Meet the Player Support Team!
Ashleigh, Bryce and Jess are our wonderful support team, working hard to help our dedicated Flutter, Starlight and Splash player base! Lisa sat down and had a chat with them about what what they love about their jobs, problems they face every day and what it’s like working at Runaway.
Introduce yourselves!
Ash: I started working at Runaway 367 days ago as Player Support. I like cats and tattoos and in my spare time i’m a professional photographer.
Bryce: Let’s see, I was born in South Africa. I lived in Los Angeles for 17 years. I have a film and design background. I’m a massive Star Wars fan. I did my thesis on Star Wars, I like Star Wars a lot. I’m also the QA Lead here at Runaway.
Jess: I started at Runaway in June last year. I travel a lot, I’ve been to 19 countries. I have a dog called Boo who is a fluffy ball of lint. I have a bit of a zoo right now actually, I have a possum, 4 chickens, a dog and a cat.
What are you playing right now?
Ash: Right now I’m playing Neko Atsume, it’s basically the only game I play. I used to play Kleptocats but got over it pretty quickly. Also our games too of course!
Bryce: I play Warcraft pretty much every day and I just started replaying Diablo 3. The mobile games I have on my phone, I’ve just started playing Stream World Heist, Warlords and of course, our games at Runaway.
Jess: Flutter, Starlight and Splash, obviously. I also play Fallout Shelter occasionally.
What are you having for lunch?
Ash: Chicken and chips with Bryce!
Bryce: Chicken and chips! With Ashleigh!
Jess: Because I’m part time, I don’t often have lunch at work. One time I did bring in a wheel of Brie Cheese.
What’s on your desk?
Ash: I have a Maneki-neko which is a little waving cat, three giant cat plushies and I am waiting on a shipment of Cardcaptor figurines to cram on there too.
Bryce: I have lots of lego figures that I don’t want my kids to play with.
Jess: I’ve got some of the work plushies on my desk and a weird sock cat.
Support can involve a lot of problem solving, what are some of the challenges you face every day?
Ash: When it gets very busy, the biggest challenge can be making sure that everyone feels valued and is replied to as quickly as possible. Sometimes it can be frustrating because we can’t sit there with the player and their device and see what’s going on. But people do often give really great information which is really helpful.
We work closely with the development team too. We gather as much information as we can and we pass it onto Bryce and the Bryce tests and tries to replicate the issues and then we pass that onto the developers.
Bryce: Yeah I agree. Replying to people quickly is a big one and getting their problems solved as quickly as possible is really important to us. The biggest challenges for QA and the developers too, is when problems in the games don’t show up in testing, but do in the live game. That happens all the time, just because when you go live, it’s on so many more devices than we can possibly test with. That can be frustrating.
Ash: Because our games are live, breathing and constantly changing things, it can be a challenge to keep track of. But I think we’re doing pretty good!
What is the most satisfying part of player support?
Ash: We get a lot of positive feedback about game related content and how our games help people through a lot of tough times.
Jess: Yeah, definitely people’s gratitude when you help solve their problems is really nice.
Ash: Resolving people’s issues, definitely. Resolve is my favourite word.
Jess: Also getting to zero new issues is a great feeling.
Bryce, you are head of QA, how does working in support help you in both responsibilities?
Bryce: First of all I get to see what player support is actually dealing with, so you get a realistic view of how the players and community are responding to particular things. Player support also sends me issues that can potentially be a bigger problem. Then I test them and pass them on to the development team. I like it because it keeps me to close to our players and how to keep them happy. Also you can get an idea of how players play our games quite differently.
What is your favourite part about working at Runaway?
Ash: For me it’s the culture. Everyone is so nice and is really honest and straight up. When things need to get done, they get done really quickly.
Jess: I also really like the nature aspect, it makes us stand out.
Bryce: I like the geek culture.
Ash: Yeah, you can completely be yourself and not get called a nerdburger
Bryce: We talk about geeky stuff a lot.
Ash: I’ve also learned so much about the gaming industry. And Warcraft, from Bryce.
Bryce: You’ve learned nothing about Warcraft! You just say “ooooh what a pretty horse!”
Ash: Yeah, it’s cool! Also everyone knows how to have a good laugh. But also everyone is really hard working and respectful of each other.
How important is player support and live ops for the health of games?
Ash: We often see things in the games before the developers do. Because we’re constantly monitoring player feedback.
Bryce: It’s really great when we can show say Dave (Flutter Product Owner), an issue that’s popped up and that then lines up with a lot of things they can see on the game code side of things. We also want to keep our players happy and keep the community healthy. When a new feature or event goes live, the developers are sitting there watching the code logs, and we’re sitting and watching Helpshift and Facebook, monitoring comments and feedback and any possible issues. Often we spot something first, thanks to our community who send us support tickets, and we tell the developers, and they find the code error, and they fix it within 10 mins or half an hour. Sometimes it’s a nastier, trickier issue that we can’t find easily in error logs and can’t replicate — and then we can spend days or sometimes weeks trying to replicate and solve it. Most important to all of us is to keep our players happy and the community healthy — that drives everything we do.
There are many pathways people can take to get into the gaming industry, what advice would you give to people looking to find a career in games without any art or programming experience?
Bryce: Internships are great.
Ash: Yeah and also just being passionate about what you’re doing and genuinely caring about games. If you’re not willing to learn and listen then you’re not going to get very far. You need to be constantly willing to problem solve.
Bryce: Paying attention and just getting any foot in the door. Even if it’s not the job that you wanted immediately, it’s still a job that will help you significantly in the future. Every intern we’ve had, we’ve hired. Live ops is a really good way for companies to bring in new and enthusiastic people who start off and then can move into other positions. At Blizzard, it’s a requirement, you have to spend time in live ops, it’s compulsory. Also, none of us have a background in gaming prior to joining Runaway. So passion really is the most important thing.
You all work with each individual game very closely, what’s your favourite!
Ash: Flutter
Jess: Starlight
Bryce: Splash
Ash: Flutter was my original favourite, then I moved onto Splash, and then Starlight came along. I’m all about the art, so it kind of fluctuates. I love the Valentine’s decorations in Starlight but most of the time I love Flutter because it’s green and I can change all of my decorations to suit.
Bryce: I really like testing Splash because it’s very calming. 6 hours of testing my brain just switches off and it’s so relaxing that I almost fall asleep.
Finally, what is your favourite fish, moth and butterfly?
Ash: All right I have mine written down. So for Splash it’s the Clearfin Lionfish, which is the purple Lionfish. In Flutter, it’s the Queen Alexandra’s Birdwing it’s really pretty. And at the moment in Starlight I really love the Small Elephant Hawkmoth which is part of the Rosa set.
Bryce: For Splash, I love the Flowerhat Hydromedusa, I really liked that event set. Flutter the Red-washed Satyr is my favourite mainly because I use it’s ability every time I go into my forest. For Starlight it’s a tie between the Death’s Head Hawkmoth and the Clearwing Tussock Moth.
Ash: You’re such a goth.
Bryce: I’m a closet goth.
Jess: My favourite fish in Splash is probably also the Flowerhat Hydromedusa but I also love the Coleman’s Pygmy Seahorse. My favourite Moth is the Vampire Moth from the Yokai set and my favorite butterfly is a toss up between the Vuelo set Hewitson’s Agrias or the Mother of Pearl.
Thank you all for your time! Anything else you want to add?
Bryce: I like chocolate a lot.
