The State of Riot’s Games
By Douglas Faulkner
It has been almost five years since Riot Games celebrated League of Legends’s 10-year anniversary. For the event, they shared a video that announced and teased some of their future games. This reveal came as a surprise to many, as despite their name, League of Legends was the only game the company had previously supported.
Of the five games revealed, three have been released while the remaining two are still in development with no release dates. The first of these latter two is a fighting game that has recently been renamed 2XKO. Nothing has been disclosed about the other title besides its existence.
There is also another project the company had revealed in a recruitment article. Unfortunately, whatever they had created up until now seems to have been scrapped. In a tweet from the company’s co-founder, Riot Tryndamere reveals they had reset the project's development.
These troubled developments are not just the result of them trying to make the best games possible though. In an article released in January this year, the company announced that over 500 of their employees had been laid off due to them over-hiring for their projects. The article tries its best to lessen the impact of this shift, but it cannot sidestep all the issues that have and will come up for their games.
League of Legends for example lost Riot Llama. He was one of the game’s champion designers and is responsible for creating some of its latest characters. This leave was only announced in a tweet by the former employee, though he seems to have left on good terms with the company.
Their other popular games like Valorant and League of Legends: Wild Rift seem unimpaired by the layoffs for now, but the same cannot be said for their less spotlighted games. Legends of Runeterra and the third-party publishing label Riot Forge were mentioned to be receiving changes that did not sit well with their fans.
Legends of Runeterra is a digital card game that uses the League of Legends property to direct the game’s mechanics and visuals. Despite being the company’s second game published, it was never able to reach the same level of popularity as their other multiplayer games. This made the game’s team one of the prime targets for the layoffs.
The article states they will be shifting the game’s resources away from its own multiplayer and toward their single-player experiences instead. This is an unusual choice that most games of this genre would never take.
Online multiplayer is the biggest upside that digital card games have over physical. It allows any amount of random people to coordinate matches without any hassle. For such a crucial aspect to be set aside like this implies a failure to retain player interest over time.
In a market saturated with other free options, every game needs a hook to get outsiders interested in trying them. Legends of Runeterra’s hook was its unique progression system.
Most digital card games are free to play but will push you to purchase packs to obtain new cards. The contents of these packs are always random, and some cards are made intentionally rarer than others. This gives players who pay more opportunities to obtain better cards.
Legends of Runeterra distinguished itself from its competitors by providing a system that would guarantee you all the cards of a set by just playing. It ensured players would not have to go through repeats when unpacking just to get the last cards of a set.
While this seems like a great hook on paper, it was likely responsible for the game’s unsatisfactory revenue. It is a system that rewards the game’s most dedicated players, those who are the most likely to spend money on the game.
Despite this shift crippling Legends of Runeterra, it is still being supported and will continue to add new cards. The same cannot be said for Riot Forge.
The publishing label was responsible for putting out single-player experiences that utilized the League of Legends property. The article revealed that their doors would be closed once the label’s final game is released.
Why their games never took off can be owed to a lack of audience overlap. Every other game made by the company is free to play and features multiplayer components. These aspects did not translate over to the label’s games so neither did the audiences.
Riot Games got in over their heads and are now experiencing the faults of their ambitions. For the sake of their previous and future employees, it can only be hoped that the company has learned from the situation and compensated everyone affected.