Riot Games

History

Brandon "Ryze" Beck and Marc "Tryndamere" Merrill, the founders of Riot Games, became friends while roommates at the University of Southern California, where the two studied business. Beck and Merrill believed too many video game developers diverted their focus from game to game too often, distinguishing Defense of the Ancients as an indication that games could be supported and monetized long-term. They also drew inspiration from Asian video game designers who released their games for no up-front cost, and instead charged for additional perks.

Beck and Merrill sought funding from family and angel investors, raising US$1.5 million to launch their company. Riot Games was established in September 2006 in Santa Monica, California. The first person Riot Games recruited was Steve "Guinsoo" Feak, one of the early developers of DotA Allstars, a game considered to have been foundational to the MOBA genre. As they refined League of Legends' initial creation, they pitched investors a video game company rooted in e-commerce. Merrill said that they approached publishers who were baffled by the game's lack of a single-player mode and free-to-play business model. Riot Games received several rounds of funding totaling $8 million, including investments by the Benchmark and FirstMark Capital venture capital firms, as well as Chinese holding company Tencent. The latter would later become League of Legends' distributor in China, and then the parent company of Riot Games.

Following six months of beta tests, Riot Games released League of Legends as a free-to-play game on October 27, 2009. Their game designers and executives participated in online forums to make adjustments based on player feedback. On May 10, 2010, Riot Games announced that they would take over distribution and operation of their game in Europe; to do so, Riot Games relocated their European headquarters in Brighton to new offices in Dublin. In February 2011, Tencent invested $400 million for a 93 percent stake in Riot Games. Tencent bought the remaining 7 percent on December 16, 2015; the price was not disclosed.

In 2012, in response to toxicity and harassment in League of Legends, Riot Games launched a "player behavior team" of psychologists to combat harassment on its platform. Riot Games' tactics to address issues on League of Legends, which included an opt-in chat function between opposing players, informing banned players of the reasoning behind the ban, as well as creating a tribunal of players to weigh in on bans, resulted in a 30 percent drop in reported harassment behavior. The efficacy of their results has been questioned by players and the gaming press. By 2013, League of Legends was the most-played multiplayer PC game in the world. By 2016, Inc. reported the game had over 100 million monthly players.

Esports

Riot Games operates esports leagues worldwide. This includes the League of Legends Championship Series, comprising leagues in North America and Europe. In total, there are more than 100 teams in Riot Games' 12 regional leagues around the world. Teams compete over the course of a season separated into two seasonal splits. Teams earn championship points to qualify for two major international competitions: the Mid-Season Invitational and the League of Legends World Championship. Riot Games' World Championship is the annual professional tournament at the conclusion of each season.

During 2010 and 2011, the Riot Games team developed new content for League of Legends; it was during this time that the company realized that people also liked to watch the game being played. As a result, Riot Games established its own League of Legends esports leagues which produce weekly broadcasts and create a professional game schedule. Following Riot Games' first world championship event in 2011, a small affair at a conference in Sweden, the company decided to turn their tournaments into professional sports-like events. It invested in broadcasting equipment, hired sports programming producers, and trained pro gamers to be "TV-ready". In 2012, Riot Games held its tournament at University of Southern California's Galen Center, offering $1 million in prize money. Riot Games has since held tournaments in Berlin, Seoul, Madison Square Garden in New York City, and the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

The company sells corporate sponsorships, merchandise, and streaming rights for its esports league. In 2015, investors bought stakes in teams and began building their own squads. Among the team owners in Riot Games' leagues are the owners of the Washington Wizards, Cleveland Cavaliers, Houston Rockets, Golden State Warriors, Philadelphia 76ers, Los Angeles Dodgers, AOL co-founder Steve Case, and life coach Tony Robbins. Inc. cited the growth of the leagues and high-profile ownership as part of its reasoning for making Riot Games its 2016 Company of the Year. Following debates over whether pro players and coaches should have a greater share of Riot Games' esports revenue and concerns raised about the company making in-game changes prior to matches, the company issued an open letter in 2016 promising higher revenue shares and more collaboration with professional teams. In 2017, Riot Games held the League of Legends World Championship in China, with the finals taking place in Beijing. The same year, the company announced it would franchise its ten-team North American League of Legends Championship Series, which cost at least $10 million to enter.

Criticism and controversies

Allegations over gender discrimination and sexual harassment

Over the first half of 2018, Kotaku spoke to about 28 former and current employees at Riot Games. Several employees claimed that female employees at Riot were being discriminated against. For example, some noted that ideas from female employees were overlooked while the same ideas from male employees were readily accepted, and some female employees were groomed for more senior positions only to be passed up by a new male hire. These employees described Riot's working environment as a "bro culture". Other allegations included receiving images of male genitalia from colleagues and bosses, an email thread speculating on what it would be like to penetrate a female employee, and a list shared among senior staff members detailing which female employees they would sleep with. Kotaku speculated that this came from Riot's history of generally catering to "core" gamers both in products and in hiring practices, causing the company to favor male employees over female employees.

Some Riot employees approached by Kotaku asserted these accusations were not true or were already being addressed; for example, according to the head of the platform, Oksana Kubushyna, efforts to improve the hiring process to be more diverse and inclusive toward women started nine months before article's publication. Riot Games' corporate communications lead Joe Hixson acknowledged the problems and said they did not align with Riot's core values. Furthermore, he said that all Riot employees must be held accountable for the working environment.

In the week following Kotaku's article, several more current and former developers came forward to speak on their own experiences at Riot, which included claims of sexual harassment and misgendering. In a statement to Gamasutra, Hixson indicated that the company is taking action based on the story and its response. He elaborated that, in regards to claims of misbehavior by higher-level executives at Riot, the seniority of the individuals would have no impact on disciplinary proceedings. By the end of August 2018, Riot revealed it was implementing seven "first steps" to change the company's internal culture in light of the issues raised, including a "Culture and Diversity & Inclusion Initiative" priority. To help implement these, Riot hired Frances X. Frei as a senior adviser for diversity, leadership, and strategy.

As a response to the Kotaku article, Riot offered a session at PAX West in 2018 for prospective video game developers with a panel and one-on-one sessions to review résumés; the session only admitted women and non-binary people. Members of Riot's game communities expressed outrage at the exclusion of men, while Riot employees defended the decision as such gender-exclusive support was necessary to correct the male-dominated nature of video game development. Some of the feedback towards Riot included harassment and threats. In response to a shooting at a video game tournament in Jacksonville, Florida, in August 2018, Riot planned to increase security at its upcoming events. Two employees of Riot attempted to address the feedback from the PAX event; one was fired, and the other left the company. Riot stated that these departures were separate from its Diversity Initiative.

Others

In the context of the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests, Riot Games took action to discourage political statements during its live events, claiming that overt statements on politics, religion, and other sensitive topics "cannot be fairly represented in the forum [their] broadcast provides", and has asserted that the company bears responsibility for ensuring "that statements or actions on [their] official platforms [...] do not escalate potentially sensitive situations."

In 2019, players discovered that words that are politically sensitive in China, including Tiananmen and Uyghur, were censored in League of Legends. The censorship varied by server and language, with some restrictions being lifted after complaints were posted to Reddit.

In June 2020, Ron Johnson, Riot Games' global head of consumer products, shared a Facebook post that claimed George Floyd had been murdered by police "because of his criminal lifestyle". The company subsequently placed Johnson on leave to conduct an investigation, after which Johnson resigned from the company.

Riot had announced a planned partnership with the developing city of Neom in Saudi Arabia in July 2020, with the city to sponsor the upcoming League of Legends European Championship series. Shortly after the announcement, fans of the game, as well as Riot employees, criticized the company over social media and their streaming channels over the partnership, citing Saudi Arabia's record on human rights and the violent attempts to evict the Howeitat tribe from the area during the city's construction. Riot canceled the partnership within a few days in response, apologizing and saying that the partnership had been rushed.

Riot was criticized for marketing a new League of Legends character, Seraphine, by creating an in-character Twitter account in which it alluded to her struggles with her mental health, including low self-esteem, anxiety, and impostor syndrome. Some wrote that the account was an attempt to trick players into feeling close to her in an attempt to advertise. Creative director Patrick Morales said that, although he was "proud" of the members of the team who worked on the campaign, it had "an unintended impact outside of the narrative we wanted to tell".

After Russia launched an invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Riot Games did not withdraw from the Russian market after being asked to do so by Ukrainian politician Mykhailo Fedorov. In March 2022, Riot donated the proceeds from battle passes sold in several of its games, as well as profit from some in-game items, to humanitarian relief organizations operating in Ukraine. According to Riot, these donations totaled $5.4 million.

Litigation

In 2017, Riot Games filed a lawsuit against Moonton Technology Co., the developer of the mobile game Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, because of copyright infringement, citing similarities between Mobile Legends and League of Legends. The case was initially dismissed in California on account of forum non conveniens. Tencent, on behalf of Riot Games, then filed a new lawsuit in a Chinese court, which ruled in Tencent's favor in July 2018, awarding it $2.9 million in damages.

In October 2019, Riot Games filed a lawsuit against Riot Squad Esports LLC, a Chicago-based esports organization founded in March 2019, alleging that Riot Squad intentionally infringed on Riot Games' "Riot" trademark.

Games

Tabletop games

In October 2016, Riot Games released Mechs vs. Minions, a cooperative tabletop game based on League of Legends. Riot's first tabletop game under Riot Tabletop was Tellstones: King's Gambit, a bluffing game for two or four players, released in 2020.

Card game

In August 2025, Riot Games released Riftbound, a multiplayer trading card game set within the world of Runeterra.