( - SOE) - Roles People Play in SOE - 04-22-2011 02:16 PM

Roles People Play in SOE
By Eric “Piestro” Cleaver
Community Relations Manager – EverQuest

Whether you’re looking to break into the game industry or you simply want to know who you are talking to at Fan Faire actually does for the game, it can be handy to know the different roles of the people who work here at Sony Online Entertainment. Had I known years ago that working in Community Relations was a viable career path, I would have applied much sooner! While we can’t cover every position in the company in this article, we’ll do our best to outline just a few of the roles people fill here at SOE. Who knows, you just might see something that catches your eye!



One of the most popular and revered roles at SOE is working in Development. I think it’s reasonable to say that most players have considered what it would be like to work directly on one of our favorite games. Whether it’s working as an engineer writing code, or as a designer creating brand new lore, items, systems, abilities quests, encounters or raids, many people have daydreamed what life on a game team is like. Let’s not forget the artists either, who create the astounding environments as well as the design and animations for the wide range of imaginative characters and creatures we encounter in our digital travels. The role of managing all these folks falls to the Producers, who help with strategic direction and scheduling for the game, as well as liaising with all the other departments within SOE.

Actual, real Devs. Alan Vancouvering and Norm Freeman from our EQ team. Unretouched photo.


Producing an MMO isn’t just about making the game itself. Next, we’ll look at the Marketing Department. Marketing can be broadly separated into Public Relations, Brand Management, the Events Team and Community Relations. Public Relations creates and schedules press releases, responds to information inquiries, arranges media tours and interviews. *Brand Management is probably what most people think of when they think “Marketing.” They are assigned to particular products and devise various promotional programs, advertising buys, winbacks, and schedule out all aspects of promotion for the game, especially for launches, expansions and major updates. The Marketing Services Team includes our artists, audio-visual crew and the Events Team. Together they create the assets to promote our games, including videos, advertisements and banners, and also arrange SOE’s presence at conventions and tradeshows, covering everything from booth design to shipping all our promotional materials (and staff) to these events. Community Relations is the branch of Marketing where I reside. Community Managers create articles and website content (like this blog) for players, as well as managing social media and the forums. Community converses with the player base and takes feedback directly to all of our internal partners.

Linda Carlson (Director of Community) and Jen Belfield (Sr. Marketing Services Manager); you’ll see these two a lot at Fan Faire!


SOE can’t succeed without a host of supporting players though, and they make up the bulk of our personnel: from Desktop Support (to make sure our computers are running), to Operations (to make sure our servers are running) to the Finance, Human Resources and Legal teams that keep us on the right path and in compliance with a dizzying number of laws and regulations around the world. We certainly can’t forget the Quality Assurance Testers and Customer Support Staff (including your beloved GM’s) who work incredibly hard to provide SOE gamers with the best experience possible.

Scott Riddell, a.k.a. “The Miracle Worker,” one of our technical support staff, who can resolve buggy computer issues in a single bound.


As you can see, there are many more paths within the industry than you might immediately think. One thing unites everyone at SOE: a love of games. This is the core of what makes us a successful gaming company; our passion for the gaming experience ensures that we were delivering the best gaming experience for our players. At the end of the day, no matter what our role within SOE, that at the forefront of all our minds.

Gamers making games!




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