League of Legends is a major force in videogames, dominating online multplayer and especially esports. League of Legends - known as League, for short - has also taken steps beyond the world of videogames, spawning a franchise that encompasses TV shows and collaborations. But it's not all been without controversy.
It's a far cry from when League first dropped into people's lives, all the way back in October 2009. It was a different era - a time when Bitcoin was not a thing, when Instagram was not yet invented, and Barack Obama was nine months into his presidency having taken over from George 'Dubya' Bush. But for those who don't know, League of Legends is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) developed and published by Los Angeles-based Riot Games. And it's become massively popular.
In a statement announcing League of Legend's RiotX Arcane event, Riot said that they had recorded an all-time high of users for their signature game. In October Riot measured over 180 million active users playing in the League of Legends universe, a record number for the company.
"Today, there are more players enjoying our games worldwide than ever before, validating our confidence in the League of Legends IP as we begin a new era with the launch of Arcane," Riot's CEO Nicolo Laurent said, in a written statement. "Together with players, we want to establish gaming as the center of global entertainment."
Laurent is taking that last bit seriously. Riot Games has begun a global scaling policy and is opening brand new offices around the world. They have announced plans to open a Remote Broadcast and Content Production Centre in Dublin, Ireland. Further centres are planned for Seattle, USA, and somewhere in the Asia-Pacfific region. These broadcast offices are focused on organising esports events.
League remains a huge force in esports, with the 2020 League of Legends World Championship finals attracting a peak of 45 million concurrent viewers, according to Riot. Riot operates 12 regional leagues internationally while the biggest leagues - China, Europe, South Korea, and North America - have franchised systems.
In addition Riot are launching an animated series called Arcane, on Netflix. The show, which is based on League of Legends, debuts on November 7 and tells the backstories of some of the champions from the League universe, although there may be many differences from the games.
Riot are also working on a League of Legends MMO with CD Projekt Red's former quest director Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz on board. The project is an MMORPG based on the Runeterra universe and is still in its early days.
But it's not all good with Riot as the company has been accused of a toxic workplace culture and failures to address online abuse in its games. Riot also operates the F2P first-person shooter Valorant. Riot was acquired by Tencent in 2011 and is a subsidiary of the Chinese tech conglomerate.