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Riot Games history
Riot Games company history timeline
The company was founded in September 2006 by University of Southern California roommates Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill.
Riot Games was established in September 2006 in Santa Monica, California.
As soon as it wrapped up, the two offered Jew an $11-an-hour internship. It was September 2006, and Riot Games had just opened up its offices in an old converted machine shop under an Interstate 405 overpass in Santa Monica.
They wrote a massive design document and focused on creating entirely new characters — the original DOTA used the intellectual property of Blizzard — while slapping together a demonstration of the game in about four months that could be shown at the 2007 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.
In 2009, Riot earned an estimated $1.29 million in revenue according to estimates by SuperData.
On May 10, 2010, Riot Games announced that they would take over distribution and operation of their game in Europe; to do so, Riot Games relocated their European headquarters in Brighton to new offices in Dublin.
Within three months of the May 2010 hand-off, European growth -- which had been well behind North America -- was now 9 percent stronger and growing.
Following Riot Games' first world championship event in 2011, a small affair at a conference in Sweden, the company decided to turn their tournaments into professional sports-like events.
And in 2011, Riot Games revenue rocketed to more than $85 million.
Today, League of Legends is one of the largest esports in the world, but in 2011 Riot had just started experimenting with the idea of pro play.
In 2012, in response to toxicity and harassment in League of Legends, Riot Games launched a "player behavior team" of psychologists to combat harassment on its platform.
Riot Games has since held tournaments in Berlin, Seoul, Madison Square Garden in New York City, and the Staples Center in Los Angeles. It invested in broadcasting equipment, hired sports programming producers, and trained pro gamers to be "TV-ready". In 2012, Riot Games held its tournament at University of Southern California's Galen Center, offering $1 million in prize money.
By 2013, League of Legends was the most-played multiplayer PC game in the world.
Tencent bought the remaining 7 percent on December 16, 2015; the price was not disclosed.
In March 2016, Riot Games acquired Radiant Entertainment, another developer who was working on Rising Thunder and Stonehearth at the time.
In October 2016, Riot Games released Mechs vs.
Inc. cited the growth of the leagues and high-profile ownership as part of its reasoning for making Riot Games its 2016 Company of the Year.
In 2016, the company decided to start focusing a bit more on rewarding players who behaved and less on punishing those that misbehaved.
On October 13, 2017, Beck and Merrill announced that they were returning their focus to developing games, aiming to create new experiences for video game and esports players.
In 2017, Riot Games held the League of Legends World Championship in China, with the finals taking place in Beijing.
As of May 2018, Riot Games employed 2,500 people, operating 24 offices around the world.
Tencent, on behalf of Riot Games, then filed a new lawsuit in a Chinese court, which ruled in Tencent's favor in July 2018, awarding it $2.9 million in damages.
In response to a shooting at a video game tournament in Jacksonville, Florida in August 2018, Riot planned to increase security at its upcoming events.
By the end of August 2018, Riot revealed they were implementing seven "first steps" to change the company's internal culture in light of the issues raised, including a "Culture and Diversity & Inclusion Initiative" priority.
California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) had been investigating claims of gender discrimination at Riot Games since October 2018.
Then in 2018, gaming site Kotaku delivered a scathing story about the company’s culture, reporting multiple incidents of sexism from a large number of sources at Riot Games.
Additionally, Riot established a 90-day plan starting in May 2019 to continue to address internal issues related to diversity and inclusion.
A proposed settlement was reached in the class-action suit in August 2019, which would include at least US$10 million in damages to women that had been employeed at Riot Games over the prior five years.
In October 2019, Riot Games filed a lawsuit against Riot Squad Esports LLC, a Chicago-based esports organization founded in March 2019, alleging that Riot Squad intentionally infringed on Riot Games' "Riot" trademark.
The game was announced by Riot Games, and entered its first preview, on October 15, 2019, coinciding with the tenth anniversary of League of Legends.
Jason Bunge was hired as Riot Games' chief marketing officer in October 2020.
Riot and Laurent were sued by Laurent's former assistant in January 2021 on sexual discrimination charges, which included inappropriate language and labor mistreatment.
In October 2021, the company bought Kanga, a services firm involved in "fan hubs", merchandising, and content aggregation.
The series was released worldwide in November 2021 on Netflix, and by parent company Tencent in China, and received a favorable critical reception.
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Riot Games competitors
| Company name | Founded date | Revenue | Employee size | Job openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Electronic Arts | 1982 | $7.6B | 9,800 | 150 |
| Rockstar Games | 1998 | $63.0M | 2,001 | 60 |
| Zynga | 2007 | $2.8B | 1,777 | 45 |
| Epic Games | 1991 | $500.0M | 1,001 | 79 |
| Activision Blizzard | 2008 | $7.5B | 9,500 | 142 |
| Take-Two Interactive Software | 1993 | $5.3B | 6,495 | 53 |
| Daybreak Game | 2015 | $25.0M | 450 | 12 |
| 2k | - | $7.5M | 3,000 | 77 |
| ArenaNet | 2000 | $111.0M | 400 | 5 |
| Hi-Rez Studios | 2005 | $25.0M | 451 | - |
Riot Games history FAQs
Zippia gives an in-depth look into the details of Riot Games, including salaries, political affiliations, employee data, and more, in order to inform job seekers about Riot Games. The employee data is based on information from people who have self-reported their past or current employments at Riot Games. The data on this page is also based on data sources collected from public and open data sources on the Internet and other locations, as well as proprietary data we licensed from other companies. Sources of data may include, but are not limited to, the BLS, company filings, estimates based on those filings, H1B filings, and other public and private datasets. While we have made attempts to ensure that the information displayed are correct, Zippia is not responsible for any errors or omissions or for the results obtained from the use of this information. None of the information on this page has been provided or approved by Riot Games. The data presented on this page does not represent the view of Riot Games and its employees or that of Zippia.
Riot Games may also be known as or be related to Riot Games, Riot Games Inc and Riot Games, Inc.