Riot Games Accused of Greed, Tryndamere Talks

January 02, 2014 29

Riot Games President and League of Legends Executive Producer, Marc Merrill, also known as Tryndamere, has recently decided to answer a bunch of questions related to the game, while also, has decided to talk more about Riot Games after fans accused it to be "a money hungry company". While some may still think the same, Mr. Merrill definietely managed to explain Riot Games business practices a bit better and introduce us to everything his company did up to date for e-Sports. Marc Merrill's post can be seen here under, while whole discussion can be found on Reddit:

It's pretty frustrating when people try to position us as greedy, because look at it from our perspective:

1.      We build pretty much the first successful free online game in the west that core gamers actually really like and play

2.      We did this by building a really fun game, constantly investing over and over to grow and improve this game and by NOT selling power of being money hungry. If you compare the price of League of Legends entertainment per hour to every other form of media, we're the lowest around (we should probably commission a study to explain this), but the easiest examples to think of are: movies, magazines, books, box games, etc. $60 for 10 hours, woo!

3.      Millions upon millions of our players spend zero dollars on league and enjoy it endlessly. We're COMPLETELY OK with this. Greedy how? You do not have to spend money, it is completely opt-in.

4.      We spend tens of millions of dollars building a pro-esports scene to help some of our best players become global superstars who make hundreds of thousands of dollars (or a million like Ocelote:http://www.gamespot.com/articles/league-of-legends-player-makes-close-to-1m-per-year/1100-6415722/)

5.      We build a TV show that also costs millions and we run ZERO ads on it to deliver a great experience to our players, entirely free

We do all this because Ryze and I are gamers. Always have been, always will be. We play the shit out of League of Legends. When servers go down, we flip out. When we don't deliver on something we promised, we flip out (Magma chamber where?) and change the world internally. When we overreach on legal language with eSports contracts to prevent competitors from paying our pros to promote their games, we acknowledge the error and change it immediately.

And guess what else? Most game businesses focus on metrics like ARPU (average revenue per user) and try to build their entire companies and organizations around optimizing for driving to a sale (think Zynga). We do the OPPOSITE.

We train our entire company to drive towards ENGAGEMENT. Meaning, MAKE COOL SHIT and deliver VALUE and if people PLAY enough because they love what we do, then they will WANT to spend money. Our focus is entirely different.

So, no offense - but I completely disagree with your greed accusation and yes, it pisses me off because I've spent the last 8 years of my life building this company, game and team to deliver great value and to treat players well - and largely because the Rioter to player ratio has changed from like 1:5,000 to 1:50,000, our core message and passion is being diluted.

So, thanks for the additional reminder we need to do better at explaining who we are. But FUCK me if I don't allow a little emotion to slip in when the takeaway is so utterly wrong for who we are as a company.

What is your opinion on this? Leave your answer in a comment section below. 


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Vorgath
Vorgath | Thursday, January 2, 2014 4:33 PM
To be honest i don't think that LoL players are worse than Dota 2 players, but if I were mentally retarded I'd choose LoL instead of Dota 2
Mforcer86
Mforcer86 | Thursday, January 2, 2014 4:32 PM
Stormcho if you're playing with noobs that means that YOU are a noob becouse noob's are only in low elo and devisions.If you dont want noob dont be one and get better so you can climb to a devision like Gold.

Vorgath if you're going to be such an arogant fag the leave!
Jembat
Jembat | Thursday, January 2, 2014 4:28 PM
Stormcho the fact that you are retarded and braindead yourself doesnt mean that everyone is matched with "trolls" or "noobs".You should try to improve yourself first to get matched with better players.Riot made the perfect division system for this.There is tier called bronze for ungrateful shits like you who dont try to understand the point of the game and blame the "trolls" and feeders.
P.S Sorry for the terrible english,wrote it pretty fast :)
George Kazz Nikz
George Kazz Nikz | Thursday, January 2, 2014 4:27 PM
Wtf is wrong with all of you, Riot started this game with great and low expectations, the prices of champions are high because it makes you set a goal towards saving up for that champion therefore you play more onto servers YOU DON'T PAY FOR, you can choose to pay for a skin and what not, but that's AN OPTION! YES! It's an option to pay for extras, next time you go get a game at the stores and they ask you if you want it for free or not then make sure to tell me because RIOT is making this YOUR choice, and yes, I understand the servers are bad and so are so many of the players but don't forget, Riot is getting new servers built in Amsterdam and also, you could be a toxic player yourself by raging and what you ever what to call it, instead make it a friendly community, don't give into pathetic players which rage at you, instead calm them down and tell them that what they are doing is going to result to defeat for the team because of some emotions you're letting come between you and the game, YES it's a game, game = fun not something to take your emotions upon. Make the community a better place by making the effort to control yourself and those around you, and Riot is nothing close to greedy, they give you the options, they don't hold you gun-point telling you to buy the extras!
Gabriel Momesso
Gabriel Momesso | Thursday, January 2, 2014 3:40 PM
Yeah Riot is so greedy, that LOL is free-to-play and you only pay if you want your champ with another skin. Skins are optional and all the rest you can get by IP (in-game money);
Dakata Gospodinov
Dakata Gospodinov | Thursday, January 2, 2014 3:18 PM
Stormcho, you can do like me and play with friends vs toxic players :)
Vorgath you are terribly wrong... they can't have good servers and montly paches with no money ... they need money that's why there is this thing to buy a champion with RP, BUT you have weekly champion rotation and you can play only these who are free ^_^ also when you play to buy something you are valuating it more ... so yeah riot are not greedy and if you don't want to play LoL there are 6-7 MOBAs (HoN for the win, best MOBA 4ever) which you can start and play if you want ^_^
Vegard Koch
Vegard Koch | Thursday, January 2, 2014 3:15 PM
free? its not free
Vorgath
Vorgath | Thursday, January 2, 2014 3:13 PM
>make a game where you can't play what character you want until you buy it
>start crying and explaining that you're not greedy

riot [s]gays[/s] games is one of the worst companies ever
Stormcho
Stormcho | Thursday, January 2, 2014 2:56 PM
yep really "fun" game where you can have fun with toxic players and noobs all day long xD
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