Pre-release
Riot Games' founders Brandon Beck and Marc Merill had an idea for a spiritual successor to Defense of the Ancients, known as DotA. A mod for Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, DotA required players to buy Warcraft III and install custom software; The Washington Post's Brian Crecente said the mod "lacked a level of polish and was often hard to find and set up". Phillip Kollar of Polygon noted that Blizzard Entertainment supported Warcraft III with an expansion pack, then shifted their focus to other projects while the game still had players. Beck and Merill sought to create a game that would be supported over a significantly longer period.
Beck and Merill held a DotA tournament for students at the University of Southern California, with an ulterior goal of recruitment. There they met Jeff Jew, later a producer on League of Legends. Jew was very familiar with DotA and spent much of the tournament teaching others how to play. Beck and Merill invited him to an interview, and he joined Riot Games as an intern. Beck and Merill recruited two figures involved with DotA: Steve Feak, one of its designers, and Steve Mescon, who ran a support website to assist players. Feak said early development was highly iterative, comparing it to designing DotA.
A demonstration of League of Legends built in the Warcraft III game engine was completed in four months and then shown at the 2007 Game Developers Conference. There, Beck and Merill had little success with potential investors. Publishers were confused by the game's free-to-play business model and lack of a single-player mode. The free-to-play model was untested outside of Asian markets, so publishers were primarily interested in a retail release, and the game's capacity for a sequel. In 2008, Riot reached an agreement with holding company Tencent to oversee the game's launch in China.
League of Legends was announced October 7, 2008, for Microsoft Windows. Closed beta-testing began in April 2009. Upon the launch of the beta, seventeen champions were available. Riot initially aimed to ship the game with 20 champions but doubled the number before the game's full release in North America on October 27, 2009. The game's full name was announced as League of Legends: Clash of Fates. Riot planned to use the subtitle to signal when future content was available, but decided they were silly and dropped it before launch.
Post-release
League of Legends receives regular updates in the form of patches. Although previous games had utilized patches to ensure no one strategy dominated, League of Legends' patches made keeping pace with the developer's changes a core part of the game. In 2014, Riot standardized their patch cadence to once approximately every two or three weeks.
The development team includes hundreds of game designers and artists. In 2016, the music team had four full-time composers and a team of producers creating audio for the game and its promotional materials. As of 2021, the game has over 150 champions, and Riot Games periodically overhauls the visuals and gameplay of the oldest in the roster. Although only available for Microsoft Windows at launch, a Mac version of the game was made available in March 2013
Revenue model
League of Legends uses a free-to-play business model. Several forms of purely cosmetic customization—for example, "skins" that change the appearance of champions—can be acquired after buying an in-game currency called Riot Points (RP). Skins have five main pricing tiers, ranging from $4 to $25. As virtual goods, they have high profit margins. A loot box system has existed in the game since 2016; these are purchasable virtual "chests" with randomized, cosmetic items. These chests can be bought outright or acquired at a slower rate for free by playing the game. The practice has been criticized as a form of gambling. In 2019, Riot Games' CEO said that he hoped loot boxes would become less prevalent in the industry. Riot has also experimented with other forms of monetization. In August 2019, they announced an achievement system purchasable with Riot Points. The system was widely criticized for its high cost and low value.
In 2014, Ubisoft analyst Teut Weidemann said that only around 4% of players paid for cosmetics—significantly lower than the industry standard of 15 to 25%. He argued the game was only profitable because of its large player base. In 2017, the game had a revenue of US$2.1 billion; in 2018, a lower figure of $1.4 billion still positioned it as one of the highest-grossing games of 2018. In 2019, the number rose to $1.5 billion, and again to $1.75 billion in 2020. According to magazine Inc., players collectively played three billion hours every month in 2016.
Plot
Before 2014, players existed in-universe as political leaders, or "Summoners", commanding champions to fight on the Fields of Justice—for example, Summoner's Rift—to avert a catastrophic war. Sociologist Matt Watson said the plot and setting were bereft of the political themes found in other role-playing games, and presented in reductive "good versus evil" terms. In the game's early development, Riot did not hire writers, and designers wrote character biographies only a paragraph long.
In September 2014, Riot Games rebooted the game's fictional setting, removing summoners from the game's lore to avoid "creative stagnation". Luke Plunkett wrote for Kotaku that, although the change would upset long-term fans, it was necessary as the game's player base grew in size. Shortly after the reboot, Riot hired Warhammer writer Graham McNeill. Riot's storytellers and artists create flavor text, adding "richness" to the game, but very little of this is seen as a part of normal gameplay. Instead, that work supplies a foundation for the franchise's expansion into other media, such as comic books and spin-off video games. The Fields of Justice were replaced by a new fictional setting—a planet called Runeterra. The setting has elements from several genres—from Lovecraftian horror to traditional sword and sorcery fantasy.
Riot Games' founders Brandon Beck and Marc Merill had an idea for a spiritual successor to Defense of the Ancients, known as DotA. A mod for Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, DotA required players to buy Warcraft III and install custom software; The Washington Post's Brian Crecente said the mod "lacked a level of polish and was often hard to find and set up". Phillip Kollar of Polygon noted that Blizzard Entertainment supported Warcraft III with an expansion pack, then shifted their focus to other projects while the game still had players. Beck and Merill sought to create a game that would be supported over a significantly longer period.
Beck and Merill held a DotA tournament for students at the University of Southern California, with an ulterior goal of recruitment. There they met Jeff Jew, later a producer on League of Legends. Jew was very familiar with DotA and spent much of the tournament teaching others how to play. Beck and Merill invited him to an interview, and he joined Riot Games as an intern. Beck and Merill recruited two figures involved with DotA: Steve Feak, one of its designers, and Steve Mescon, who ran a support website to assist players. Feak said early development was highly iterative, comparing it to designing DotA.
A demonstration of League of Legends built in the Warcraft III game engine was completed in four months and then shown at the 2007 Game Developers Conference. There, Beck and Merill had little success with potential investors. Publishers were confused by the game's free-to-play business model and lack of a single-player mode. The free-to-play model was untested outside of Asian markets, so publishers were primarily interested in a retail release, and the game's capacity for a sequel. In 2008, Riot reached an agreement with holding company Tencent to oversee the game's launch in China.
League of Legends was announced October 7, 2008, for Microsoft Windows. Closed beta-testing began in April 2009. Upon the launch of the beta, seventeen champions were available. Riot initially aimed to ship the game with 20 champions but doubled the number before the game's full release in North America on October 27, 2009. The game's full name was announced as League of Legends: Clash of Fates. Riot planned to use the subtitle to signal when future content was available, but decided they were silly and dropped it before launch.
Post-release
League of Legends receives regular updates in the form of patches. Although previous games had utilized patches to ensure no one strategy dominated, League of Legends' patches made keeping pace with the developer's changes a core part of the game. In 2014, Riot standardized their patch cadence to once approximately every two or three weeks.
The development team includes hundreds of game designers and artists. In 2016, the music team had four full-time composers and a team of producers creating audio for the game and its promotional materials. As of 2021, the game has over 150 champions, and Riot Games periodically overhauls the visuals and gameplay of the oldest in the roster. Although only available for Microsoft Windows at launch, a Mac version of the game was made available in March 2013
Revenue model
League of Legends uses a free-to-play business model. Several forms of purely cosmetic customization—for example, "skins" that change the appearance of champions—can be acquired after buying an in-game currency called Riot Points (RP). Skins have five main pricing tiers, ranging from $4 to $25. As virtual goods, they have high profit margins. A loot box system has existed in the game since 2016; these are purchasable virtual "chests" with randomized, cosmetic items. These chests can be bought outright or acquired at a slower rate for free by playing the game. The practice has been criticized as a form of gambling. In 2019, Riot Games' CEO said that he hoped loot boxes would become less prevalent in the industry. Riot has also experimented with other forms of monetization. In August 2019, they announced an achievement system purchasable with Riot Points. The system was widely criticized for its high cost and low value.
In 2014, Ubisoft analyst Teut Weidemann said that only around 4% of players paid for cosmetics—significantly lower than the industry standard of 15 to 25%. He argued the game was only profitable because of its large player base. In 2017, the game had a revenue of US$2.1 billion; in 2018, a lower figure of $1.4 billion still positioned it as one of the highest-grossing games of 2018. In 2019, the number rose to $1.5 billion, and again to $1.75 billion in 2020. According to magazine Inc., players collectively played three billion hours every month in 2016.
Plot
Before 2014, players existed in-universe as political leaders, or "Summoners", commanding champions to fight on the Fields of Justice—for example, Summoner's Rift—to avert a catastrophic war. Sociologist Matt Watson said the plot and setting were bereft of the political themes found in other role-playing games, and presented in reductive "good versus evil" terms. In the game's early development, Riot did not hire writers, and designers wrote character biographies only a paragraph long.
In September 2014, Riot Games rebooted the game's fictional setting, removing summoners from the game's lore to avoid "creative stagnation". Luke Plunkett wrote for Kotaku that, although the change would upset long-term fans, it was necessary as the game's player base grew in size. Shortly after the reboot, Riot hired Warhammer writer Graham McNeill. Riot's storytellers and artists create flavor text, adding "richness" to the game, but very little of this is seen as a part of normal gameplay. Instead, that work supplies a foundation for the franchise's expansion into other media, such as comic books and spin-off video games. The Fields of Justice were replaced by a new fictional setting—a planet called Runeterra. The setting has elements from several genres—from Lovecraftian horror to traditional sword and sorcery fantasy.