Riot Games

Riot Games is a developer and publisher.

Riot Games Webpage, Facebook

An American video game developer and publisher. Established in 2006, the company has been under the full ownership of Tencent, a Chinese conglomerate, since December 2015. Riot Games is headquartered in Los Angeles and maintains over 20 offices worldwide. The team's biggest hit is the MOBA game League of Legends, released in 2009.

Riot Games as a game producer

Riot Games produces video games for both PC and mobile platforms. The studio's biggest hit is the MOBA League of Legends, released in 2009. Its portfolio also includes titles such as Valorant, Legends of Runeterra, and Teamfight Tactics, which was released in 2020.

Riot Games as a game publisher

Since its founding, Riot Games has published its titles independently through digital distribution. Riot Games self-publishes globally except in China, where Tencent is the publisher, and in Northeast Asia, where Garena manages publishing.

In December 2019, Riot Forge was established as the company's publishing division, designed to collaborate with smaller studios creating games set in the League of Legends universe. The first titles released by Riot Forge were Ruined King: A League of Legends Story by Airship Syndicate and Convergence: A League of Legends Story by Double Stallion Games. In January 2024, the company decided to close this division.

e-sport

Since 2011, the company has held the official League of Legends World Championship. While the initial event was small in scale, the subsequent tournament showcased a professional setting and a million-dollar prize pool. Starting in 2015, investors began acquiring shares in participating teams and establishing new teams of their own. In addition, the first global championship for Valorant - the Valorant Champions Tour - took place in November 2020.

History

(not so) humble beginnings

Riot Games was officially launched in September 2006. The company was founded by Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill, who met at the University of Southern California. Their initial funding of $1.5 million came from developer families and external investors. The company was headquartered in a renovated workshop in Santa Monica, California, and its first employee was Steve Feak, co-creator of the DotA Allstars mod. This mod laid the foundation for the entire MOBA genre, which was significant because the company's debut project would be League of Legends. To develop their first game, the team raised a total of $8 million from various investors. Among them was Tencent, which would later play a key role in Riot Games' history.

A legendary hit

League of Legends debuted on October 27th, 2009. The game was a resounding artistic and commercial success, allowing the studio to build momentum, continue its development, and grow stronger.

In May 2010, Riot Games established a new European office in Dublin. Furthermore, between 2010 and 2011, the team recognized the potential of hosting professional League of Legends tournaments. The first small-scale World Championship was held in 2011. Aiming to elevate future editions into professional esports competitions, the company invested in broadcast technology, recruited sports production staff, and coached players to perform on camera. As a result, by 2012, the prize pool for the California tournament had reached $1 million. The global esports craze began, with official League of Legends tournaments hosted in New York's Madison Square Garden, Berlin, Seoul, Beijing, Los Angeles, and several other cities. The team began to lose its independence in February 2011 when Tencent acquired 93 percent of the company for $400 million.

In 2013, League of Legends earned the title of the "biggest" game ever, and by 2016, it attracted 100 million players worldwide. Meanwhile, Riot Games continued to develop its flagship project and came under full control of Tencent, which acquired the remaining 7 percent stake in December 2015. Furthermore, in 2015, the studio relocated to new headquarters in West Los Angeles. In March 2016, Riot Games acquired the Radiant Entertainment team.

In 2017, Riot Games filed a lawsuit against Moonton Technology for copyright infringement. Moonton Technology developed Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, a game whose title Riot argued was too similar to League of Legends. The case was initially dismissed by a California court, but when Tencent filed a lawsuit on Riot Games' behalf, a Chinese court awarded $2.9 million in damages.

Not just League of Legends

On October 13th, 2017, Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill, the studio's founders, declared their plan to focus on game development again, placing Dylan Jadeja, Scott Gelb, and Nicolo Laurent in charge of managing the company. Riot Games remained silent on new projects until October 2019, when the company announced the mobile game League of Legends: Wild Rift, the auto-battler Teamfight Tactics, and the card game Legends of Runeterra. The company also teased several mysterious projects: the tactical shooter Project A, the fighting game Project L, and a multiplayer game codenamed Project F. Project A was later revealed to be Valorant, a multiplayer FPS unrelated to League of Legends, which launched in June 2020. In November 2020, the first global tournament, the Valorant Champions Tour, was held.

Riot Games' next initiative was Riot Forge, a publishing division designed to collaborate with smaller developers on projects set in the League of Legends universe. These included titles such as Ruined King: A League of Legends Story from Airship Syndicate and Convergence: A League of Legends Story from Double Stallion Games. In January 2020, Riot Games launched Riot Tabletop, a division for tabletop game development, with its first title, Tellstones: King's Gambit, released in 2020.

In October 2019, Riot Games filed a lawsuit against another company. Riot Squad Esports was the company accused of violating Riot Games' "Riot" trademark. Meanwhile, Riot Games had been financially supporting Hypixel Studios, which was developing Hytale. In April 2020, Riot Games decided to acquire the studio. That same month, the company announced the opening of an office in Singapore. In October 2021, Kanga also came under Riot Games' umbrella.

Controversy and changes

In 2018, controversy began to build around Riot Games. According to Kotaku, female employees at the company experienced discrimination and sexual harassment. Seeking to address these issues and repair its reputation, the company appointed Frances X. Frei as senior advisor for diversity, leadership, and strategy. Additionally, during PAX West 2018, Riot Games organized meetups aimed at prospective developers, open only to women and non-binary participants. In December 2018, Nicolo Laurent informed employees that Scott Gelb, acting as COO, had been suspended for two months for unprofessional conduct and was being sent for specialized training. The company also updated its official list of values for the first time since 2012, making the revised version available on its website.

Despite these efforts, Riot Games faced lawsuits from former employees. In August 2019, a settlement was proposed under which Riot Games would pay at least $10 million in compensation to women who had experienced harm while working at the company over the past five years. Nicolo Laurent faced a lawsuit for sexual discrimination in January 2021. However, an internal investigation at the company found "no evidence" to support the claims. As a result of the negative impact of these controversies on Riot Games' image, Alienware ended its sponsorship of League of Legends esports events in March 2021.

2021 also brought good news for Riot Games. In November, Netflix released Arcane, an animated series set in the League of Legends universe, which was met with critical acclaim. Riot Games revealed in March 2022 that it had invested in Fortiche, the studio responsible for creating Arcane, and had brought on former Netflix, Paramount, and HBO Max staff to develop film, TV, and music projects based on its brands. In October 2022, Riot Games announced that it had acquired Wargaming Sydney and renamed it Riot Sydney.

In March 2023, The Believer Company, a new development studio, was launched. Its founders include several former Riot Games executives: Michael Chow, former VP and executive producer of League of Legends: Wild Rift; Steven Snow, former executive producer of League of Legends and co-founder of Riot Games; and Landon McDowell, Tim Hsu, Shankar Gupta-Harrison, Grace Park, and Jeff Jew. Interestingly, Riot Games was among the investors funding The Believer Company's development of a "next-generation open-world game."

Riot Forge offensive

Since 2021, spin-off projects set in the League of Legends universe have started to appear, published by Riot Forge. Ruined King: A League of Legends Story, released in November 2021, was the first of these side projects. The game developed by Airship Syndicate received positive feedback from players, with very favorable reviews on Steam, and from critics, whose average Metacritic scores ranged from 77 to 84/100 across platforms. Shortly afterward, the rhythmic auto-runner Hextech Mayhem: A League of Legends Story, developed by Choice Provisions, was released and received similarly positive reviews from both players and critics.

Projects from other studios within the League of Legends universe were not released until April 2023. That's when the action RPG The Mageseeker: A League of Legends Story, developed by Digital Sun Games - creators of the well-received Moonlighter - hit store shelves. Like previous spin-offs of Riot Games' flagship title, the game was well received by both players and critics. In May, fans were introduced to the 2D platformer Convergence: A League of Legends Story, developed by Double Stallion Games. As Riot Forge had already set expectations for high-quality games, this release was also warmly received.

In May 2023, the discrimination case involving women at Riot Games finally came to an end. Riot Games settled the case by agreeing to pay $100 million in damages to current and former female employees, with over 1,500 women eligible for payments between $5,000 and $156,056. Soon after, Nicolo Laurent resigned as CEO of Riot Games, with Dylan Jadeja taking over the role.

Riot Forge's next production, the action-adventure game Song of Nunu: A League of Legends Story, launched on PC and Nintendo Switch in November 2023, and on Sony and Microsoft consoles in January 2024. February 2024 saw the release of Bandle Tale: A League of Legends Story, an RPG with a strong emphasis on crafting. Like earlier projects in the League of Legends universe, these titles were also artistically successful.

The end of Riot Forge and restructuring

Unfortunately, Bandle Tale was the final release under the A League of Legends Story banner. In January 2024, Riot Games announced a big restructuring of the company. As a result, over 500 employees lost their jobs, representing approximately 11 percent of the company's total workforce. The decision also led to the closure of Riot Forge and the discontinuation of the A League of Legends Story initiative.

Officially, the reasons given for this situation included a lack of "a sufficiently clear purpose" for the company and the fact that "some of Riot's significant investments have not yielded the expected return". Meanwhile, CEO Dylan Jadeja stated, "There is no room for experimentation or failure at Riot."