Digital Media Concepts/Riot Games

Riot Games, Inc.
	Riot Games' West Los Angeles headquarters (pictured in 2015)
Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Video game industry\|Video games
Founded	September 2006
Founders	Brandon Beck; Marc Merrill;
Headquarters	Los Angeles, US
Number of locations	24 offices
Products	League of Legends; League of Legends: Wild Rift; Legends of Runeterra; Teamfight Tactics; Valorant;
Parent	Tencent (2011–present)
Website	riotgames.com

Riot Games is a Video game developer company, that was founded in August 31, 2006 Los Angeles, CA. It was founded by Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill, they were attending University of California. Both wanted to create a company that would modify current released games, basically open up their code and add things that would make the game more enjoyable. They never intended to create a game of their own. On February 2011, Riot Games was acquired by Tencent.^[1]

Riot Games is best known for League of Legends, a (MOBA) which stands for a 'multiplayer online battle arena'. This games is also considered the legacy of Riot Games, which would make sens since this is one of the world's most popular free games. The game was created in a small office full of interns who had passion for video games then it was released in October 2009. Riot Games also hosts many esports tournaments for the video game, including the League of Legends World Championship Series, Mid-Season Invitational, and many others.^[2]

History

The founders of Riot Games are Brandon "Ryze" Beck and Marc "Tryndamere" Merrill. Both were attending University of Southern California, as business students. They lived together as roommates. With time they bonded over their love for video games especially multiplayer games. After College they went their separate ways and focused on their careers where each worked for a consulting firm. It didn't take long before they felt dissatisfied with their new jobs. Soon they met up again reconnecting through video games, now living in a small apartment in West Hollywood.^[3] As they got deeper into video games they felt like developers were not listening to the players. They were moving to next games as soon as they finish one. Beck and Merrill became frustrated, but with that frustration gave birth to the foundation of Riot Games. With the mindset that they could do better, they started their own company Riot Games. Instead of focusing on creating games over and over they decide to make the company player-focused. They also though that pay to win games were unfair and stupid.^[4] They wanted to evolve a games make them more accessible for everyone, in lack of better words, anyone can try to get better at. Where the company would focus on skill based structures and reward players with cosmetics.

With the help of Investors they were able to raise $1.5 million to launch Riot Games in Los Angeles. Therefor it was established on September 2006. As League of Legends started to grow they were able to be knowledge by international companies, for example Tencent. Which later would become League of Legends distributor in china.

On October 27, 2009. After six months of beta testing, Riot Games launched League of Legends as a free-to-play game. The organization continued to develop League of Legends by allowing players to provide input. Their game creators and developers were active in online forums to make adjustments based on feedback from the players.

On May 10, 2010. Riot Games revealed that it would take over the distribution and development of its game in Europe; to do so, Riot Games moved its European headquarters in Brighton to new offices in Dublin. Tencent paid $400 million in February 2011 for a 93 per cent stake in Riot Games. Tencent purchased the remaining 7 per cent on 16 December 2015.

On 2019. Riot Games introduced a "player action squad" of psychologists to counter abuse on its website in response to violence and harassment in video game culture. The methods of Riot Games to fix League of Legends problems, including an opt-in chat feature between opposing players, reminding banned players of the reasons behind the ban, and having a players ' tribunal to decide on suspensions, resulted in a 30 per cent decrease in recorded harassment behavior. The number of active League of Legends players rose from 67 million to over 100 million from 2014 to 2016. Riot Games announced several new games in October 2019: a League of Legends version for mobile devices and consoles known as Wild Rift, a standalone mobile version of the League of Legends Teamfight Tactics mode, and a digital collectible card game called Legends of Runeterra, all three of which are scheduled for release in 2020. The company also announced three additional games — code-named as Project A (later revealed to be renamed Valorant), Project L, and Project F. Riot Games revealed that Riot Forge, a label run by Leanne Loombe, will be published. The company partners are in the production of League of Legends games with smaller game development studios, with some games of this kind already under development.^[5] At the 2019 The Game Awards two games from Riot Forge were announced: Ruined King: A League of Legends Story by Airship Syndicate, and Convergence: A League of Legends Story by Double Stallion Games. Another group was announced in January 2020, Riot Tabletop. His first was revealed to be Tellstones: King's Gambit, making tabletop games.

Esports

Worldwide, Riot Games runs e-sport competitions. This includes the League of Legends Championship Series, which covers North American and European tournaments. Currently, there are over 100 teams around the world in the 14 regional leagues of Riot Games. During a season, teams compete separately into two seasonal splits. Teams win championship points to qualify for two major international competitions: Mid Season Invitational and World Championship League of Legends. The World Championship of Riot Games is the annual professional tournament that ends each season.^[6]

In June 2014, the European Center for Strategic Innovation's founder and CEO, Alessandro Di Fiore, wrote in Harvard Business Review that the Riot Games ' League of Legends was the massive multiplayer online game that epitomized the development of the sports industry. The Riot Games team developed new content for League of Legends between 2010 and 2011; it was during this period that the company realized that people not only liked to play League of Legends, but also liked to watch it.^[7] As a result, Riot Games set up its own League of Legends esports leagues which produce weekly broadcasts and establish a professional game schedule. After the first world championship event organized by Riot Games in 2011, a small affair at a Swedish conference, the organization decided to turn their competitions into professional sports events. It invested in television facilities, recruited producers of sports programming and trained "TV-ready" pro gamers. In 2012, Riot Games held its tournament at the Galen Center at the University of Southern California, offering prize money of $1 million. Since then Riot Games has organized tournaments in Berlin, Seoul, New York City's Madison Square Garden and Los Angeles ' Staples Center.

The company sells its esport league corporate sponsorship through, services and access to broadcasting. In 2015, founders acquired squad shares and started building their own teams. Team owners include Washington Wizards, Cleveland Cavaliers, Houston Rockets, Golden State Warriors, Philadelphia 76ers, Los Angeles Dodgers, AOL co-founder Steve Case, and life coach Tony Robbins, among other team owners in the Riot Games league As part of their rationale for transforming Riot Games into a 2016 company, Inc. cited the success of the leagues and high-profile management.^[8] In 2016 the company issued the open letter pledging higher revenue sharing and more cooperation with athletes following debates as to whether players and referees were supposed to contribute more to Riot Games ' sports income and complaints with a company making improvements in-game prior to tournaments. The League of Legend World Championships in China was organized by Riot Games in 2017 and the finals were played in Beijing. The same year the company reported that its North American Legends Championship Series ten team would be franchised, which would cost $10 million or more to participate.

Litigation

In 2017, Riot Games filed a lawsuit against Moonton Technology Co., the maker of the mobile game Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, citing similarities between Mobile Legends and League of Legends due to copyright infringements. In California the complaint was initially dismissed on the grounds of forum non conveniens. Tencent filed a new complaint in a Chinese court on behalf of Riot Games, which ruled in favor of Tencent in July 2018 and compensated them $2.9 million in damages.

Games Developed

Year	Title	Genre(s)	Platform(s)
2009	League of Legends	Multiplayer online battle arena	macOS, Microsoft Windows
2020	League of Legends: Wild Rift	Multiplayer online battle arena	Android, iOS, consoles
	Teamfight Tactics	Auto battler	Android, iOS
	Legends of Runeterra	Digital collectible card game	Android, iOS, macOS, Microsoft Windows
Summer 2020	Valorant	First-person shooter	TBA
TBA	Project L	Fighting
TBA	Project F	TBA

Other Games

Year	Title	Genre(s)	Platform(s)	Developer(s)
2013	Astro Teemo	Arcade	Browser	Pure Bang Games
2014	Cho'Gath Eats the World		Browser
2015	Blitzcrank's Poro Roundup		Android, iOS
2017	Ziggs Arcade Blast		Microsoft Windows	Riot Games
2018	Star Guardian: Insomnia	Shoot 'em up
	Project.execute	Shoot 'em up
	Super Zac Ball	Sports