Product Manager - Xbox Game Studios- Rare Ltd.

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Rare is an Xbox Game Studio creating the kind of games the world doesn’t have. Our values – explorers, evolving, together – are fundamental to the games we make and how we make them. Rare offers rewarding and fulfilling careers for exceptional people, supporting you to learn and grow. Our studio is a welcoming campus in the heart of the Midlands, where the majority of our team work in a flexible hybrid work pattern.

The team are looking for a Product Manager to play a vital role in developing the continuing adventures of Sea of Thieves. We’re looking for an individual to unite both our creative strategy and business objectives to ensure that our development priorities have the maximum impact for both our players and the studio.

You must have a great understanding of how live service games work, including familiarity with Sea of Thieves and what makes it unique in the market. This role requires a free-thinker, unconstrained by established product management orthodoxies to create original solutions for a highly differentiated game.

The ability to create strong partnerships across the studio is essential. You will work closely with multiple studio teams including Player Insights, Design, Production and senior leadership to grow our understanding of how players engage with Sea of Thieves and share these insights to inform the game’s development priorities.

Required Skills and Experience

• A strong experience of working within a product management role for a successful live service game on PC and console.
• Passion and deep interest in the potential of shared world games like Sea of Thieves.
• Excellent communication skills – written, verbal and presentational, and the ability to convey your ideas and plans to a multi-disciplinary team in a way that informs and tells a story with data, while also exciting the team around possibilities in a way that persuades key stakeholders and drives improved performance.
• An ability to think laterally, encouraging the team to explore broader solutions to turn opportunities into improved performance.
• A solid grasp on player psychology and gamer motivations and the impact this has on the overall player experience.
• Strongly data literate, able to analyse data across all aspects of the business (acquisition, engagement, retention, monetisation) to provide actionable insights.
• A demonstrable ability to build strong working relationships with a diverse range of different teams including data scientists, analysts, design, production, community and marketing.
• An ability to think outside-of-the-box to deliver original insights that do not rely on product management orthodoxies. Rare’s games are unlike any others – our approaches to product management and strategy must be too.

• Analyse and understand our player base and how they engage with Sea of Thieves, using multiple inputs (data, sentiment, UR) to build segmentation models and create insights that can inform development.
• Be an expert on the game and how it works. Dive into the game experience and understand the end-to-end player journey across different player segments.
• Combine your knowledge of the game and its audience to identify opportunities to improve engagement and retention while benefitting the player experience. Ground these opportunities in business KPIs, establishing clear and measurable goals.
• Partner with the design and production teams in the development of new features and content, ensuring that the creative vision delivers against player requirements and broader business goals.
• Be a champion for live service within the studio, helping to deliver an optimal game rhythm and live service calendar that maximises player enjoyment, engagement and retention.
• Partner with the Player Insights team to use data effectively, providing game teams with a range of different inputs and perspectives that can aid decision-making.
• Lead the reporting and analysis of game performance so that the impact, value and ROI of development investments can be better assessed and understood.
• Analyse competitor titles and follow both established and emerging trends within the gaming industry. Learn from the successes of other live-service games and provide insights into how these learnings can be applied to Sea of Thieves.