Riot Games, a name you might not be familiar with, but you must have heard of League of Legends. In fact, Riot Games is the company that made League of Legends one of the most popular games in the world. Not only that, they also made Valorant, another rising star in the gaming market.

 In Korean PC Bang (Korean PC cafe), League of Legends is the No. 1 game played, indicating the highest share, which is over 40%, and Valorant followed closely at No. 3 with about 9% share.

MOBA : LEAGUE OFLEGENDS

 League of Legends is one of the most popular games in the e world. It’s been 14 years since they started service. It’s a 5:5 team fight MOBA game. A key point of success for League of Legends is the low entry barrier of its genre. In 2016, it reached a hundred million players a month, and in 2019, the number of concurrent users was 8 million. Based on this popularity currently, Riot Games has been trying to expand their League of Legends IP.

 There are 168 characters in League of Legends, and each character has their own story in the League of Legends universe. Riot Games developed some games based on these story lines in a totally different genre, such as “Ruined King,” “Bandle Tale,” “Song of Nunu,” and so on. This was kind of a challenge for Riot Games, but they got a ‘very positive’ rating on Steam for those games.

FPS: VALORANT

 On the other hand, Valorant is currently the most popular free-to-play first person shooter (FPS) game in the market, surpassing CS:GO and Apex Legends. Its success can be seen with its recent expansion from being only a PC game to the release of a console version of the game. They also won the recent e-sports Game of the Year Award at the E-sports Awards.

 Valorant is a tactical and hero-based abilities FPS game released back in June 2020 where 2 teams of 5 players face off, with each player choosing a character known as an “agent.” It gained massive popularity due to the unique mechanics and diverse cast of its “agents” in the e-sports scene. Valorant has over 20 million concurrent players internationally since its release. The fundamental success of Valorant is the accessibility and constant improvement from its players’ feedback. As mentioned, Riot Games has recently launched a console version of Valorant, and it was a phenomenal hit in the PS5 and XBOX markets, making Valorant the top 10 most popular games in August 2024.

 Despite the great success, Riot Games has had some issues with their games, such as ‘cheat,’ ‘abusing,’ ‘bugs,’ and so on. However, Riot Games is special, especially in Korea, because Riot Games has been taken back as Korea’s cultural property since 2012. They have faith that games could contribute positively to society in the long run.   Furthermore, they made a fund for climate change, race equality, and medical activity, where the fundraising amount was over 50 million dollars.

 In a nutshell, Riot Games can be seen as one of the top game developers in the e-sports scene, achieving great success in both MOBA and FPS markets. Riot Games also maintains great balance in the games they launch by taking great care of their players and their content creators. They listen to their players and make necessary updates, which keeps the users engaged, forming a strong relationship between them. Riot Games. It’s no doubt that we can expect more innovative game experiences from them in the near future.

81st Cub Reporter • KIM TAE WOO • jerryfighter27@gmail.com

International Reporter • GAN JO WIE • jowiegan@gmail.com