Before games like Dota and League of Legends became popular, our familiar e-sports games are generally war3, StarCraft, Red Alert, and Age of Empires. In the early years, these were regular projects of WCG. When Sky won two championships in the WCG, how many people took the honor of playing well in Warcraft.
And why are all these games in decline, gradually losing to League of Legends?
League of Legends launched 12 years ago over the summer of 2008. Now has turned into one of the most successful MOBA games in the industry.
In 2009, Riot earned an estimated $1.29 million in revenue according to estimates by SuperData. The following year, that revenue was up to $17.25 million, according to SuperData. And in 2011, Riot Games revenue rocketed to more than $85 million. That same year Chinese gaming and internet giant Tencent Holdings purchased 97 percent of the company for $400 million.
In 2011, Riot began to try to get into e-sports. In June, during the Dreamhack Summer Games in Sweden, it hosted the first “League of Legends” Global Championship (S1), attracting more than 1.6 million spectators.
In 2012, Riot decided to hold the S2 finals in Los Angeles. However, when the Chinese team WE and Counter Logic Gaming Europe playing for about 50 minutes, they suddenly suffered a disconnection on the spot, leaving both teams dumbfounded. The match could not continue, so CLG EU and WE had to rematch, and then they rematched again due to disconnection. The process lasted for a full 7 hours, and finally, Roit had to stop and host a rematch the next day.
Merrill admitted that the match accident was like “tragedy, but a great rallying cry for the company to get better, to figure out how to solve these things”.
Years later, as “League of Legends” continued to be popular, the game’s problems continued to appear. As early as 2012, Riot realized that some players’ behavior insulting others in the game was a problem and even formed a Team Play Behavior group led by scientists.
Merrill believes that one of the reasons why Riot can be successful is that they are willing to listen to the voice of the players, whether they are enthusiastic supporters of the game or outspoken critics. At the same time, Riot also needs to be aware of which of the players’ suggestions are wrong.
Most of the players’ brand experience with League of Legends is excellent, and Riot’s consistency of having conversations with its players plays a major part in such successful communication. Riot keeps bringing new champion, creating videos to share the new champion’s insights before releasing it, and even created a band called KDA with League of Legends’ champion.
KDA band turned out to be so successful, even nonplayers started to pay attention to this band, thus League of Legends. With a creative mind, Riot was able to keep creating trends over social media and engage with its players. Riot was able to bring its element outside of the gaming world to reach a more general public.
Each year players are so excited during League of Legends’ World Championship to see what Riot can bring. Last year was a song and KDA band, this year, Riot is still able to host its world championship in China in the Shanghai Stadium with live audiences.
There are many perspectives that I didn’t mention in this post, but the fact that each champion in League of Legend has it is own background story. It’s also very intriguing to a lot of people. So please join me in the summoner’s rift.
References
Champion insights: Samira – League of legends. (n.d.). Retrieved October 11, 2020, from https://na.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/news/dev/champion-insights-samira/
Crecente, B. (2019, October 27). League of Legends is now 10 years old. This is the story of its birth. https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2019/10/27/league-legends-is-now-years-old-this-is-story-its-birth/?tdsourcetag=s_pctim_aiomsg.
Lim, W. (2018, August 9). Legendary: The story of league of legends from 2009–2018. Medium. https://medium.com/@williamlim3/legendary-the-story-of-league-of-legends-from-2009-2018-68c578a0563f