Type Subsidiary Products League of Legends CEO Brandon Beck (Sep 2006–) | Number of locations 19 (2017) Number of employees 1,000 (2013 estimate) Parent organization Tencent | |
 | ||
Industry Interactive entertainment Key people Brandon Beck (CEO)
Tom Cadwell (Lead Designer) Marc Merrill (President)
Greg Costello (International Affairs) Revenue 1.6 billion USD (2015 estimate) Headquarters West Los Angeles, California, United States Founded September 2006, Los Angeles, California, United States Founders Brandon Beck, Marc Merrill Video games League of Legends, Vapor Trail: Hyper Offence F, Valis: The Fantasm Soldier, Cosmic Fantasy Stories, Cyborg 009 Profiles | ||
Riot games office tour with chobra
Riot Games is an American video game developer, publisher, and eSports tournament organizer established in 2006. Their main office is based in West Los Angeles, California. They currently have additional offices located in Berlin, Dublin, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Mexico City, Moscow, New York City, St. Louis, Santiago, São Paulo, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney, Taipei, and Tokyo.
Contents
The company is primarily known for League of Legends, which was released in North America and Europe on October 27, 2009. The company also developed a free mobile game called Blitzcrank's Poro Roundup, which was released on iOS, and Android in August 2015. Riot is also involved in League's competitive eSports scene by organizing the League of Legends World Championship and Championship Series for Europe and North America and well as coordinating the filming and broadcasting of those events. They also sanction leagues organized by third parties in other regions across the world.
History
Riot Games was founded as an indie game developer in 2006 by Brandon "Ryze" Beck and Marc "Tryndamere" Merrill in Los Angeles. The company announced its only game, League of Legends: Clash of Fates, in October 2008, and released the game in October 2009 as simply League of Legends. Their game uses a free-to-play model, supported by microtransactions rather than ads or boxed copy sales.
In 2008, Riot Games obtained initial funding of US$7 million provided by venture capital firms Benchmark Capital and FirstMark Capital. In a second round of funding in 2009, the company raised $8 million from Benchmark, FirstMark, and Chinese technology company Tencent Holdings. In early 2011, Tencent Holdings bought out a majority stake in Riot Games. Tencent later reported the deal was for $231,465,000 in an interim report.
Employees at the company include veterans of Defense of the Ancients, such as the former lead developer Steve "Guinsoo" Feak, and the former official DotA-Allstars.com website founder Steve "Pendragon" Mescon. Riot Games also employs some former Blizzard Entertainment employees. On July 12, 2013, Business Insider named Riot Games #4 on its list of the top 25 technology companies to work for in 2013.
On November 8, 2013, Riot Games announced that the company would relocate to a new building in West Los Angeles in 2015.
On December 16, 2015, Riot Games sold its remaining equity to Tencent Holdings.
On March 8, 2016, Riot announced its acquisition of Radiant Entertainment.
Distribution
Riot Games has already released and distributed League of Legends in Latin America, Australia, the United States, Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, Canada, South Korea, Taiwan, China, Europe, Brazil, Japan, and Indonesia. In China, Riot's primary shareholder Tencent Inc. distributes the game online. In Southeast Asia, online game service provider Garena publishes League of Legends. In North America, Riot Games self-publishes and operates the game and all of its customer service aspects.
In Europe, Riot Games originally signed an international licensing partnership with GOA, a division of Orange S.A.. On October 13, 2009, GOA and Riot announced that they would start channelling server access for players located in Europe, to GOA's dedicated servers. This restriction meant that players located in Europe would not be able to play on Riot's servers in the United States. Due to negative community feedback, the channelling decision was rescinded October 16, 2009. On May 10, 2010, Riot Games announced that they would take over distribution and operation of the game in Europe. To do so, Riot Games established a European headquarters in Dublin.
On July 19, 2012, Riot Games launched the official Closed Beta Test servers for League of Legends Greece. The game has been fully localised, including translated menus, texts, subtitles, with all characters being dubbed. On April 16, 2013, Riot Games launched the official Open Beta Test servers for League of Legends Russia.