League of Legends: Riot Games to Earn $1 bn Revenue [VIDEO]

There almost thousands of interactive video games available online. But only some manages to win the hearts of gamers for long period of time. League of Legends (LoL) is one among the fat list of online games enjoying impressive fan base.

Market watchers say League of Legends by developer Riot Games has become a big sensation now among the gaming aficionados. With its high user base, the game is gradually grabbing its good hold and giving tough fight to its competitors.

Despite being a very complex game due to the presence of constant patches, highly volatile meta-game and several additions, it is becoming huge in the e-sports world.

But how Riot Games, the company behind the wonderful game, manages to generate high profits. With over 30 million active users and roughly 67 million registered accounts across the world, the League of Legends is nearing USD 1 billion in revenue.

Experts say it has a very unconventional business model- “Revenue is second, the player experience and satisfaction is first.”

“People told us when we started that if you don’t charge up front, or if you are not selling extra power or stats, it won’t work. But that fails to account for the coolness factor. If you are really into cars, you don’t mind spending USD 50,000 to soup up your Honda. That’s the player we are tapping into,” says Riot Games cofounder Marc Merrill.

We must have remembered the 2013 championships where thousands of sports lovers thronged at the LA’s Staples Center, while millions gathered online, to watch the Korean team ‘SK Telecom T1’ take home the USD one million prize.

Riot Games says it puts on these tournaments and also recruits players on handsome salaries so that they can devote quality time (almost 14 hours a day) while practicing for such tournaments.

Ironically, such tournaments are actually losing money but their entry tickets bring between USD 15 and USD 50.

Merrill says the tournaments are in true sense a marketing mode to bring in more players, besides inspiring loyalty.

The developers offer the game for downloading and playing absolutely free of cost. You can enjoy the game to the fullest. Few extra accessories like certain characters or cosmetic items are, however, available at a minimal cost between USD 2 and USD 10.

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Christina Langfold

Remember that weird girl in school who never quite managed to fit in? Who was always silent and strange? That was me during my entire teenage life. A few years after finishing college (with a degree in arts) I decided that the best way to become more sociable, while also feeling safe, is to test my people skills online.