Riot Games starts second act with Valorent

Can one of the biggest game makers catch lightning again?

One of Tencent’s biggest pearls now faces the question of how to move forward. Riot built its success on a single title, League of Legends, and represents roughly 1/10th of the Tencent game publishing empire.

Capturing lightning in a bottle twice is what it’s really about in entertainment. To this end, Riot previously announced not one but a string of new projects. Why take only one shot on goal, when you have the money to fire off a barrage?

So this week we saw some detail on its new shooter, Valorant. The gameplay footage looks promising, and basically emulates Overwatch. It is also obvious that Riot has a highly skilled talent pool. Culturally, however, the firm has historically been zealous about its LoL franchise and has focused the time and attention of all these people on a single game. Yes, there have been other projects, like the collectible card game that’s been in development for nine years but that never really saw the light of day. Working on a string of new projects could be a welcome breath of fresh air. Many have undoubtedly dreamed up interesting game play mechanics in different genres for years.

All this does not free me of the sensation that it feels forced. Is this a worthwhile expansion for the fans, or a carefully crafted strategic decision because LoL’smonthly numbers aren’t as strong as before? You have to ask why Riot didn’t do this sooner, especially when it was at its peak. In conventional blockbuster-based entertainment businesses, the moment you have a hit on your hands, you start thinking about the next album, movie, song, or performance to ensure continuity and establish a legacy.

LoL certainly has its own legacy. But it’s only one game and Riot is seeking to instantly remedy its singular reliance by pushing out multiple projects at once. My question here is why are they so public about it? You don’t hear very much from another of Tencent’s money printing game makers, Supercell, until they’re certain it will be another billion dollar hit.

The public nature of these announcements suggests that in the mind of Riot’s current leadership, success in a creative industry is merely a function of access to vast capital resources. Combined with Tencent’s marketing muscle a strategy emerges that emphasizes scale and volume rather than a cohesive fictional universe that is carefully crafted over time and emerges from a deliberate company culture. Do consumers really want a LoL/Overwatch clone? Last time I checked, Overwatchwasn’t exactly doubling its monthly active player base. And, there’s the risk of people leaving, too. If you were a designer or producer at Riot with a vision for a shooter game or RPG, would you stay and build if for your employer, or go raise a few million based on your credentials and pursue your own success?

The true test here, then, is not whether Riot can release another game that is demonstrably successful. Instead it has taken on the challenge of establishing a creative environment from which multiple efforts will spring and relenting its laserfocus on a single title. That seems much, much harder to me than making a LoL-inspiring trading card game or shooter. Link