Cash Games: Riot Games and League of Legends

“Money Games” is a new rubric on “Megamind”, under which author publications will be issued on the principles of management and monetization of the largest and most popular game development companies and those games (“labels”) that they release.

History reference

Fact 1 : Riot Games is an American company, publisher of the only League of Legends game.

Explanation : Founded in 2006 in Los Angeles by Brandon Beck and Mark Merrill, who raised $ 100 million in investments to create the game. Headquarters: Santa Monica, California; additional offices: St. Louis, Dublin, Seoul, Sao Paulo, Istanbul, Sydney, Taipei and Moscow (Ed.: “How professionals work” with Alexei Krainov, general director of the Moscow office).



Fact 2 : In 2011, China's largest telecom company, Tencent, acquired a controlling stake in Riot Games, announcing that the company would remain independent under the control of the previous management.

Explanation : The Asian gaming market is central to any company producing labels with cyber-sports value, from the old Valve and Blizzard to young companies like Wargaming and Riot Games. Chinese and South Korean teams remain the strongest teams in all cyber-sports genres, which forces the publishers of the most popular online games to orient themselves to this part of the planet as the main market for the distribution and development of their own products.

Subjectively : After talking with the key representatives of the company at RiotConf in Moscow (the conference itself will be discussed below), I concluded that the sale of the company's share to the Chinese Tencent was motivated by the capture of market share in Asia - this is confirmed in backstage conversations with the “rooters” from USA and Chinese Hong Kong.



Fact 3 : In October, the World Championships (which begins with the group selection phase of the teams that ranked highest in five regional leagues: North America, Europe, Korea, China and Taiwan / Hong Kong / Macao), the second time in its own history was the Chinese SK Telekom T1, which took away $ 1 million.

Explanation : It is impossible to argue with the fact that eSports is a “new” sport. In 2013, in South Korea, the League of Legends became the most popular game that organizes its own top-level competitions, and at the end of the year it became known that the US government officially recognized professional LoL players (short for name) as athletes, which simplifies the process visa and allows you to stay in the country for up to 5 years.

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Excursion to the genre

Fact 1 : The founder of the MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) genre is considered to be a DotA game.

Explanation : DotA is originally a custom map (modification) for Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, based on the StarCraft Aeon of Strife map, improved in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. Designed and maintained by: Eul (creation), Guinsoo (2003-2005) and the legendary Ice Frog from 2005 to the present, called DotA Allstars.

In 2009, Valve hired IceFrog, in the summer of 2010, filed an application for trademark registration and announced Dota 2 on October 13. The game was released on July 9, 2013.



Fact 2 : As in the original DotA, in League of Legends, the most popular battlefield is a square map with opposing “bases” of teams, the format is 5x5.

Explanation : There is also a smaller map for the 3: 3 format, a diagonal card with one line, periodically Riot Games complement the formats with short “fantasies” about what is happening with the in-game world, expanding and pushing the possibilities of standard mechanics (“One for all” is one “hero "On all players and so on).



Fact 3 : Today, MOBA is one of the most popular e-sports genres in principle.

Explanation : The quarter-final of the last international championship was broadcast by the British BBC in prime time, in Russia the final of the championship was shown on a 2x2 television channel.

RiotConference and product management

Game publishers are one of the most progressive companies, firstly, because the market itself is still in the early stages of its development, and secondly, because the players are demanding consumers. Here are three examples of what tricks Riot Games is going to efficiently manage the company, the team and the product itself - we learned about them by visiting Riot Conference in late September, conducted by employees of the company's Moscow office.



1. Europe - a language problem

Europe is the most "diversified" market for the publisher of any game, which is a big problem. Many languages, national differences, the difference in the average speed of access to the network. In League Of Legends, players from Europe have a choice between several regions (gaming zones / servers): Northern and Eastern Europe, Western Europe and Russia. The game is translated into 11 languages ​​that make up the bulk of the population of the region.



2. South Korea - the country of computer clubs

Many will be surprised, but in South Korea, computer clubs remain the most popular place for the game, of which there are many. This is due to both economic and socio-cultural factors. The bulk of the players are schoolchildren without means of payment (the game exists at the expense of microtransactions on account of payment for new “champions” (in-game characters), their “looks” (appearance of the character) and other visual lotions.



For successful promotion in South Korea and the opportunity to get additional, including visual attributes, RiotGames unlocked all paid features for computer club operators, which include their cost in the distributed cost of a game hour - this is a popular local monetization model.



3. China - a country with no less strong hierarchy than Japan

In China, as in Japan, the hierarchy and the place of a particular employee in it play a huge role - the boss cannot be countered.



As you understand, for the publisher of the game, whose main players are young people under the age of 35, this is death like. Therefore, in the Hong Kong office of Riot Games, they “abolished” positions, the personnel structure is horizontal and “flat”, employees rotate their own “duties”. According to the manager of the Hong Kong office, this model has proven to be effective.

Future moba

Giving forecasts on the gaming market is a thankless task, because the situation changes, in fact, every year.

Here are some comparative statistics we managed to find, showing the current (at the end of 2014) position of cyber-sports disciplines in terms of the prize fund. In terms of revenue - Riot Games reigns.







In the end - another fact . The fantasy league industry (about which we talked about on “Megamind” ) and its leading representative - DraftKings (which the prosecutor’s office in New York has already declared “outlawed”) added League of Legends (HKG: 0700) in September of this year as one of disciplines for collecting teams. Many people believe that the “fantasy leagues” is the future of not only cyber sports, but also traditional, “real” sports disciplines.



Finally, SuperDataResearch in September 2015 considered that League of Legends is the most popular free online game on the market.







And what are you playing?