How to make a Riot

Riot Games is a developer that needs no introduction. Through their success with League of Legends, and their recent delves into new genres it’s safe to say that even if you never played one of their titles, you’ve heard of one. Runeterra, Wildrift, Valorant, the upcoming Project L, and of course the recently released Arcane show that the real power Riot has isn’t in creating games, but creating enormous amounts of interest by giving consumers what they want, or what they didn’t realize they needed. An animated TV show about League of Legends isn’t something you’d think game developers would create, after all it’s an expensive venture into uncharted territory. And yet that’s exactly what Riot did. But it’s in the marketing and lead up to the release of new titles where Riot shows an unparalleled mastery in generating massive amounts of hype with the smallest amount of information. When you take a step back and look at what they do to build the excitement, it’s pretty simple, but for anyone lucky enough to be in a genre with an upcoming Riot title it’s hard to take a breath and look beyond the hype. But that’s what I’m gonna do here, because the formulaic way Riot Games advertises upcoming games is simple, but damn effective. After all why make a splash when you can make a Riot?

There are 4 core principles to the Riot advertising formula which serves as the foundation of the marketing of any new product, which then gets tailored specifically to its market. Not to say that complex marketing plans can’t work, but rather keeping track of multiple moving parts is hard and sometimes companies can get too lost in the sauce leaving the consumer behind. So what are these four principles that Riot uses in their new ventures? The first step is to cop- sorry ‘take inspiration’ from a successful competitor in the space. The second step is to onboard respected community figures from whatever scene Riot is expanding into, serving to further hone the game as well as creating an instant bond between the community and the new IP. Thirdly Riot goes out of their way to directly address community concerns when revealing the details of the game. Valorant had some very targeted selling points and Project L is aiming to fill a very specific niche in fighting games. The final step in the Riot marketing machine is to advertise the living shit out of upcoming title and create a comprehensive esports scene to keep people invested long term. Obvious maybe, but undeniably effective to getting eyes on a new release to break a record or two, which in turn creates articles about the success of the game which begets yet more eyes in a very profitable cycle. Throw in some cool looking skins and the ‘free’ game suddenly got a cool $150 out of your wallet and into Riot’s bank account.

Step 1: Using Proven Concepts

As already hinted at, LoL is simplified DOTA, removing mechanics like high ground and other aspects that I don’t understand from never playing MOBAs myself. But this isn’t something exclusive to LoL, with both Valorant and now Project L Riot has shown that this is a key step in their production process. Thing is, as much as I might bash it for a lack of creativity its a very effective plan. Why try to reinvent the wheel when you can slightly change its core concept and simplify it? Branching out and creating genre defining mechanics is…cool…but when it comes to creating a successful (and profitable) game following in the footsteps of titans in the space is the safer way to go. Titanfall is an amazing game but it’s not exactly living it up 8 years later. Valorant is just Counter Strike with aspects of the Hero Shooter subgenre and from the looks of it Project L is like a less outwardly chaotic Marvel vs Capcom lookalike with LoL characters. Just by looking at the titles Riot bases their games off of you can see that it’s fundamentally hard for their new IPs to fail. Counter Strike is THE tactical shooter and has been on top of the fps esports scene for decades. Marvel vs Capcom 2&3 were two of the most hype fighting games to watch and were seen as the pinnacle of tag fighters. On top of that, the point in time where Riot releases these games is when their competition is weakest. Valorant released when the community stance on CSGO was at an all time low, and Project L is competing with the rotting corpse of MvC Infinite. But Riot isn’t simply copying a successful formula, they add in enough new ideas to create a unique identity for their games. Valorant isn’t just Counter Strike: Anime Edition, its a CS:GO base with Overwatch styled characters and abilities, something that hadn’t been done before. Project L isn’t just a tag fighter in the same vein of MvC, it’s a tag fighter with simplified inputs but deep mechanics based on one of the most popular games in the world. These are games clearly based on successful competitors but taken in a new direction to the point where you can clearly see Riot has been doing it’s own thing from the start. Riot also tends to lower the skill floor of the genre they’re getting into to appeal to a wider audience but I won’t be getting into that here.

Step 2: Making a Face

But Riot doesn’t just put a twist on a successful title and call it a day. They also bring in respected figures from the community to help with the creative process. This has two purposes; to have someone experienced with the genre have input on development as well as give the prospective community a face to the new game. The first part is important because someone in the weeds of a certain community is going to have a much better idea of what makes a good game than a giant MOBA developer whose jumping into a new genre blind. In the case of Valorant that person was Volcano, a former Counter Strike competitor and map creator who was brought on board to help with the development of Riot’s FPS. Even just having that one voice who can explain why something works in theory but not in practice is critical to preventing major sources of frustration for the players. But on top of providing feedback based on experience, bringing in community figures for a new title also gives Riot’s new project a well known face. It isn’t the corporate MOBA developers trying to intrude in the FGC, it’s the Cannon brothers who created Evo, the biggest fighting game tournament in the world and GGPO, better known as Rollback netcode. The FGC has a preexisting connection to the Cannon brothers and are more likely to give the project more leeway if anything goes wrong because of that connection. And its a matter of when, not if, something will go wrong in games development. But on top of that it gives Riot a much more popular face its Tony Cannon giving out developer updates, which is a much harder figure to hate than a giant corporation owned by Tencent. 

Step 3: Addressing the Community

The third aspect of Riot’s marketing is where they start to go from a ‘good’ developer to a ‘great’ one. Rather than come up with a solid product and sell it by saying “Look at this game, look at how cool it is”  Riot goes out of their way to identify key complaints about their competitors and address those either in the core game design or with marketing. The best example of this is with Valorant, where Riot harped on the strength of their anti-cheat; Riot Vanguard. It was one of their key focuses with the marketing of the game and it was a direct attack on Counter Strike. CSGO is notorious for being infested with hackers, which is why outside services like ESEA and Faceit are seen as the ‘real’ ranked modes of CS over Valve’s official playlist. Riot hammering home how effective Vanguard is against cheaters is pandering right at the group of Counter Strike players who love the game but can’t stand the hackers in casual play. Why not just play Valorant which is pretty much CSGO but with no hackers? But Riot doesn’t stop at addressing one community concern, they go above and beyond to get buddy buddy with their new market. On top of the better anti-cheat Valorant also offers cosmetics that are more customizable and ‘cooler’ than CSGO’s gun skins and stickers, 124hz servers over the 64hz of CS, improved netcode that prevents peekers advantage, high quality matchmaking, and very active developers who are genuinely interested in player feedback about balancing. Whether or not all of these are actually as good as advertised is irrelevant, they are all directly addressing community concerns aimed at Counter Strike. Valve is notorious for not communicating with the community, not updating the game, and never addressing issues like hacking. All of these are things Riot goes out of their way to advertise. That’s not just smart, calculated marketing off of strong research on the landscape.

It isn’t just Valorant which does this, already Riot is starting to play the same tune with Project L. It might have only been a small video but in it so much information is given out. One aspect of Project L that the Cannon brothers hammer home is that netcode is a top priority for Riot. This isn’t a coincidence, the discussion about good netcode in fighting games has been at the forefront of the FGC since quarantine where it became impossible to ignore. Hard to get around laggy online play when there is only online play after all. Even now the discussion surrounding netplay is always at the top of people’s mind with content creators like Sajam constantly praising rollback netcode’s usefulness. And what was one of the reasons the Cannon brothers matter again? But just like in Valorant, Riot isn’t content to stop at addressing one community concern no. They’re going balls to the walls once again. Project L promises simplified button inputs with easy to understand but deeply complex character designs to appeal to both players too scared of jumping into the genre of fighting games due to its perceived high skill floor and those who revel in the difficulty of the genre. It may be early days for Project L’s marketing but it’s very clear the game is going to follow a very similar marketing plan to Valorant, the seeds have already been planted.

Step 4: Making Some Noise

The final step of Riot’s gameplan is rather simple in comparison to everything else: market the hell out of the game and make sure there’s a thriving esports scene. The first is a pretty basic concept for any game but especially for the free to play, pay to look pretty model of game that Riot traditionally puts out. Even a decade after launch League of Legends has plenty of advertisements on platforms like Youtube with visually interesting advertisements. While they might not always work, it was refreshing* seeing a cool animated or funny advertisement about League in comparison to some bland run of the mill ‘99% of people can’t pass level 1’ ads. (*As ‘refreshing’ as an advertisement can be) Valorant follows in the footsteps of LoL with its advertising, but with a much more modern take, utilizing influencer marketing to promote the game at launch as well as in the advertisements. Beta keys were unlocked by watching specific streamers and many ads namedropped people like Hiko, Pokimane, and Shroud. But even beyond the traditional marketing that a game developer might do Riot once again goes the extra mile with its integration of the esport and the game. While some games have divides between the competitive and casual playerbases (Rainbow Six for instance) Riot sidesteps this issue by turning big esports events into a big event for the game and gaming space as a whole. Every time a LoL Worlds song drops it’s the only thing people talk about for at least a day or two, longer if the song’s a banger. Valorant appears to be on the same wavelength having released Die For You in preparation for the Champions tournament. Add in some in game promotion of esports events and all of a sudden Berlin Masters matters to more than just the competitive players, its plastered all over the damn game and impossible to miss. When it finally launches it’s hard to see a world where those same resources aren’t put to use to make Project L’s biggest tournaments of the circuit pop as well.

So what does this all mean for you, the potential player? Well it makes you aware of some of the tactics used by companies to try and convince you to use their product and yes they are tactics. You can wrap subliminal messaging and priming in whatever nice looking coat of clean presentation and good intentions but at the end of the day advertisements are still trying to convince you on a conscious and subconscious level to do something, in this case play a free game in the hopes of buying a $40 skin. You might get to play a pretty bang up game in the process but being aware of this kind of tactic is useful, and while Riot’s not here to ruin your life someone out there is. This was just my excuse to gush about a well made ad campaign and simultaneously make you a little more critical of media but if you think I got something horribly right, horribly wrong, or just want to talk about this in more depth let me know.