Riot Games, Inc. is an American company that creates, publishes, and organizes esports tournaments. It is based in Los Angeles and was started in September 2006 by Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill to make the game League of Legends. The company later created other related games and the first-person shooter game Valorant. In 2011, Riot Games was bought by a large Chinese company called Tencent. Riot Forge, a part of Riot Games, helped other developers create League of Legends spin-off games until it closed in January 2024. Riot Games partnered with Fortiche to produce Arcane, a television show inspired by the League of Legends universe.
Riot Games manages esports competitions for League of Legends and the Valorant Champions Tour. As of 2023, the company had 23 offices around the world and sells sponsorships, merchandise, and streaming rights for its leagues. The company has been accused of having a harmful workplace environment, including claims of gender discrimination and sexual harassment. Riot Games was criticized for requiring employees to resolve disputes through private legal processes instead of public court cases.
History
Brandon "Ryze" Beck and Marc "Tryndamere" Merrill, the founders of Riot Games, became friends while living together at the University of Southern California. Both studied business there. Beck and Merrill noticed that many video game companies changed their focus too often. They saw Defense of the Ancients as a sign that games could be supported and made money over time. They also took ideas from Asian game designers who gave their games for free at first and charged for extra features later.
Beck and Merrill asked family and investors for money, raising US$1.5 million to start their company. Riot Games was created in September 2006 in Santa Monica, California. The first person they hired was Steve "Guinsoo" Feak, an early developer of DotA Allstars, a game that helped shape the MOBA genre. As they worked on League of Legends, they told investors their company would focus on selling games through online shopping. Merrill said that some publishers were confused by the game’s lack of a single-player mode and its free-to-play model. Riot Games received more than $8 million in funding from investors, including Benchmark and FirstMark Capital, as well as Tencent, a Chinese company. Tencent later became the distributor of League of Legends in China and eventually owned Riot Games.
After six months of testing, Riot Games released League of Legends as a free-to-play game on October 27, 2009. Designers and leaders at Riot Games used online forums to make changes based on player feedback. On May 10, 2010, Riot Games announced it would manage the game in Europe. To do this, they moved their European office from Brighton to Dublin. In February 2011, Tencent invested $400 million for 93% of Riot Games. Tencent bought the remaining 7% in December 2015, but the price was not shared.
In 2012, Riot Games created a team of psychologists to address problems like harassment in League of Legends. They introduced features such as optional chat between players, explanations for bans, and a system where players could vote on bans. These changes reduced reported harassment by 30%. Some players and reporters questioned how effective these efforts were. By 2013, League of Legends became the most-played multiplayer PC game globally. By 2016, the game had over 100 million monthly players.
In 2015, Riot Games moved to a new building on a 20-acre campus in western Los Angeles. In March 2016, Riot Games bought Radiant Entertainment, a studio working on Rising Thunder and Stonehearth. Rising Thunder was canceled after the purchase, and its team joined a new project. In October 2017, Beck and Merrill said they would focus more on creating new games for players and esports. They handed daily operations and management of the League of Legends team to three longtime employees: Dylan Jadeja, Scott Gelb, and Nicolo Laurent. Gelb and Laurent later became chief operating officer and chief executive officer, while Beck and Merrill became chairmen. By May 2018, Riot Games had 2,500 employees and operated 24 offices worldwide.
In October 2019, Riot Games announced new games: a mobile and console version of League of Legends called Wild Rift, a mobile version of Teamfight Tactics, and a digital card game named Legends of Runeterra, all planned for 2020. The company also shared details about other projects, such as a tactical shooter (later named Valorant), a fighting game, and a multiplayer game set in Runeterra. These projects were not fully described at the time.
In December 2019, Riot Games created Riot Forge, a label to work with smaller studios on League of Legends games. Two games from Riot Forge were announced at The Game Awards 2019: Ruined King: A League of Legends Story and Convergence: A League of Legends Story. In January 2020, Riot Tabletop was launched to make tabletop games, starting with Tellstones: King's Gambit.
In April 2020, Riot Games bought Hypixel Studios, which had been working on Hytale, a sandbox game. The company also planned to open an office in Singapore. Jason Bunge became chief marketing officer in October 2020. In October 2021, Riot bought Kanga, a firm that helped with fan events and merchandise.
Riot Games partnered with Fortiche, a French animation studio, to make an animated series called Arcane. The series was released on Netflix in November 2021 and received good reviews. In March 2022, Riot invested in Fortiche, and two of its executives joined Fortiche’s board. Riot also hired leaders from Netflix, Paramount, and HBO Max to help develop films, TV shows, and music based on its games.
In October 2022, Riot acquired Wargaming Sydney, a subsidiary of Wargaming, and renamed it Riot Sydney. The deal did not include rights to the BigWorld technology or its publishing arm.
In January 2023, Riot Games laid off 46 employees. That same month, hackers stole source code for League of Legends, Teamfight Tactics, and an anti-cheat system. The stolen data was sold online for $700,000. In 2023, several Riot Forge games were released, including The Mageseeker and Song of Nunu. In September 2023, Dylan Jadeja became company CEO.
In January 2024, Riot Games announced it would lay off 530 employees, or about 11% of its workforce. It also ended the Riot Forge program and its planned Twitch competitor, Riot Esports Network (REN). Jadeja explained the decision was necessary to focus on long-term goals for players. In May 2024, the company was sued in a California federal court over its partnership with bankr.
Esports
Riot Games runs esports leagues in many countries around the world. These leagues include the League of Legends Championship Series, which has teams in North America and Europe. In total, there are more than 100 teams in Riot Games' 12 regional leagues. Teams compete during a season that is divided into two parts. Teams earn points to qualify for two major international events: the Mid-Season Invitational and the League of Legends World Championship. The World Championship is the annual professional tournament that happens at the end of each season.
Between 2010 and 2011, Riot Games created new content for League of Legends. During this time, the company noticed that people enjoyed watching the game being played. As a result, Riot Games started its own League of Legends esports leagues, which produce weekly broadcasts and set up a professional game schedule. After Riot Games' first world championship event in 2011, which was a small event at a conference in Sweden, the company decided to make its tournaments more like professional sports events. It invested in broadcasting equipment, hired sports programming experts, and trained professional gamers to appear on television. In 2012, Riot Games held its tournament at the University of Southern California's Galen Center, offering $1 million in prize money. Since then, the company has held tournaments in Berlin, Seoul, Madison Square Garden in New York City, and the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
Riot Games sells business partnerships, merchandise, and streaming rights for its esports league. In 2015, investors bought shares in teams and began forming their own squads. Some of the team owners in Riot Games' leagues include 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. named Riot Games its 2016 Company of the Year, partly because of the growth of its leagues and the involvement of well-known owners. After discussions about whether professional players and coaches should receive a larger share of esports revenue and concerns about changes to the game before matches, Riot Games released an open letter in 2016 promising to share more revenue and work closely with professional teams. In 2017, Riot Games held the League of Legends World Championship in China, with the finals in Beijing. That 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 join.
In November 2020, Riot Games introduced the first Valorant Champions Tour, a global competitive tournament for Valorant.
In 2021, Riot Games began building three new "remote broadcast centers" in Asia, North America (Seattle), and Europe (Dublin) to improve its esports productions. These centers use a centralized model with regional hubs. The facilities can support on-site productions and allow regional teams to connect to the centers' datacenters for remote productions. The three locations were chosen because their time zones are eight hours apart, enabling each center to handle a full shift and then transfer control to the next facility. The first remote broadcast center in Dublin, Ireland, opened in July 2022 in a building that was previously a nightclub called The Wright Venue in Swords. The center has an IP-based infrastructure, six studios, and keeps the nightclub's disco ball, which was once the largest in Europe.
As part of its efforts to expand the League of Legends series, Riot Games partnered with the FTX cryptocurrency exchange in August 2021 for a seven-year agreement. After FTX went bankrupt in November 2022, Riot Games began looking for legal ways to end the FTX contract.
Criticism and controversies
In the first half of 2018, Kotaku interviewed about 28 former and current employees of Riot Games. Some employees said female workers faced discrimination. For example, some claimed that ideas from female employees were ignored, while similar ideas from male employees were accepted. Some female employees were promoted to senior roles but were passed over for new male hires. Employees described Riot's workplace as having a "bro culture." Other claims included receiving inappropriate images from colleagues and bosses, an email thread discussing inappropriate topics about a female employee, and a list shared among senior staff members that named female employees they wanted to sleep with. Kotaku suggested that this behavior might have come from Riot's history of focusing on "core" gamers, which may have led to favoring male employees over female employees.
Some Riot employees told Kotaku the accusations were untrue or were being addressed. For example, Oksana Kubushyna, the head of the platform, said efforts to make hiring more diverse and inclusive for women started nine months before the article was published. Joe Hixson, Riot's corporate communications lead, acknowledged the problems and said they did not match Riot's values. He added that all employees must be held accountable for the workplace environment.
After Kotaku's article was published, more current and former developers shared their experiences, including claims of sexual harassment and misgendering. In a statement to Gamasutra, Hixson said the company was taking action based on the story. He explained that disciplinary actions for higher-level executives would not depend on their rank. By August 2018, Riot announced seven "first steps" to change its culture, including a "Culture and Diversity & Inclusion Initiative." To help implement these steps, Riot hired Frances X. Frei as a senior adviser for diversity, leadership, and strategy.
In response to the article, Riot offered a session at PAX West in 2018 for prospective game developers. The session included a panel and resume reviews, but only women and non-binary people were invited. Some Riot community members criticized this exclusion, while employees defended it as necessary to address the male-dominated nature of game development. Some feedback toward Riot included harassment and threats. In response to a shooting at a video game tournament in August 2018, Riot planned to increase security at its events. Two employees who tried to address the PAX event feedback were fired or left the company. Riot said these departures were unrelated to its Diversity Initiative.
In December 2018, Riot's CEO, Nicolo Laurent, sent an email to all employees stating that after an internal investigation, its COO, Scott Gelb, was suspended for two months without pay for misconduct and would take training before returning. Riot told Kotaku it was still investigating other cases but would not discuss them publicly. By January 2019, Riot updated its company values on its website for the first time since 2012 to reflect the "bro culture" mentioned in the report. By February 2019, Riot hired Angela Roseboro as its chief diversity officer to improve its culture and guide hiring practices.
About three months after Kotaku's article, one current and one former Riot employee filed a lawsuit against the company, claiming gender discrimination in pay and positions and a "sexually-hostile" workplace. The lawsuit sought to be a class-action case and included claims for unpaid wages and damages. Three other employees later filed similar lawsuits. Riot tried to dismiss two of the suits, citing arbitration agreements the plaintiffs had signed when hired. Internally, some employees threatened to walk out, as they felt Riot had not improved transparency and had kept Gelb suspended.
A proposed settlement for the class-action lawsuit was reached in August 2019, offering at least $10 million in damages to female employees hired in the prior five years. Representatives of the class believed the settlement would lead to change, while Riot said other issues remained unresolved. California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) had been investigating gender discrimination claims at Riot since October 2018. In June 2019, DFEH said Riot had not provided requested documents and sought court action to compel them. Riot claimed it had complied with all requests. After learning about the settlement, DFEH filed a complaint, saying the amount was too low and could have been worth up to $400 million. The state's labor division also filed a complaint, arguing the settlement would release Riot from legal responsibilities. Both groups urged the court to reject the settlement. Riot denied the claims and said the $10 million amount was fair.
After DFEH found the settlement terms too low, the class withdrew the $10 million plan and replaced their original lawyers with new ones involved in Me Too-related lawsuits in February 2020. Riot said the $10 million figure was fair but wanted to resolve the issue. In August 2021, DFEH accused Riot of interfering with its investigations by falsely telling employees they could not speak directly to DFEH. The court ordered Riot to inform employees they could contact DFEH, but Riot had not complied by late 2021. By the end of 2021, Riot agreed to a new $100 million settlement with DFEH and employees, with $80 million going to impacted employees. The settlement was approved in July 2022. Riot will pay 1,548 female employees between $2,500 and $40,000 each as part of the agreement.
In January 2021, Riot was sued by Laurent's former assistant for sexual discrimination, including inappropriate language and labor mistreatment. Riot's board of directors began an investigation into Laurent's behavior in response.
Litigation
In 2017, Riot Games sued Moonton Technology Co., the company that created the mobile game Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, for copyright infringement. Riot Games said that Mobile Legends is similar to their game, League of Legends. The case was first dismissed in California because the court believed it would be better handled in another location. Later, Tencent, which represents Riot Games, filed a new lawsuit in a Chinese court. In July 2018, the Chinese court ruled in favor of Tencent and ordered Moonton to pay $2.9 million in damages.
In October 2019, Riot Games sued Riot Squad Esports LLC, an esports organization based in Chicago that was founded in March 2019. Riot Games claimed that Riot Squad used the name "Riot" without permission, which violates trademark laws.
Games
In October 2016, Riot Games released Mechs vs. Minions, a cooperative tabletop game based on League of Legends. Riot Tabletop's first game was Tellstones: King's Gambit, a bluffing game for two or four players, released in 2020.
In August 2025, Riot Games released Riftbound, a multiplayer trading card game set within the world of Runeterra.