Riot Games
|
Contents
History
Riot Games' was founded to "develop, publish, and support the most player-focused games in the world" according to their website. They have headquarters in Los Angelos, California, and currently have over 3,000 employees worldwide. [2] Founders Brandon Beck and Mark Merrill met at the University of South California where they took classes together. [3] Both Merrill and Beck worked at banks after college, but eventually realized that wasn't what they wanted. The two had connected together over their love for video games, specifically Warcraft 3's Defense of the Ancient: Allstars[4] and Starcraft's Aeons of Strife, both of which were community made mods for their games which resembled the very first Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas (MOBAs). In fact, Riot Games would hire one of the developers of DotA: Allstars as one of their first employees, and League of Legends main competitor today Dota 2 was designed by the founder of Defense of the Ancients: Allstars after he[5] was hired by Valve.
Esports
Riot Games hosts a number of esports leagues, the most well known of which is the League of Legends World Championship. This event is the among most watched sports events in the world[6], and had over 100 million unique viewers in 2019, making it the most popular esport.[7]. In 2021, the prize pool was $2,250,000 USD[8] and had 22 teams compete. In order to qualify, each team needs to place highly in their own regional esports league, which Riot Games also hosts. The total prize pool for all League esports in 2019 was around 9.15 million USD [9]
Riot Games also recently started hosting esports league for Valorant, of which, like the League of Legends World Championship, culminated in the Valorant Champions tournament. It debuted in 2021, and crowned its first ever winners, a team known as Acend. [10] This tournament has a slightly smaller prize pool of around $600,000 USD but this could be due to it being the tournament's nascent year.[11]
Ethical Issues
Tencent
Tencent is a Chinese corporation mostly known for being the biggest corporation in the gaming industry and for their ownership of and stakes in large video game companies such as Epic Games, SuperCell and Riot Games. As of writing this in January 2021, Microsoft has just announced a deal to buy Tencent's share of Blizzard Entertainment. [12] Tencent has also earned criticism from the United States government for it's apps WeChat and TikTok that, according to a letter from the White House, "automatically capture vast swaths of information from its users" and could possibly allow the Chinese Communist Party to "conduct corporate espionage". [13] [14] [15] Tencent is also notorious for copying games. Its CEO, Ma Huateng has famously been quoted as saying "[to] copy is not evil".
Vanguard
Vanguard will be talked about here if needed.
Sexual Harassment and Discrimination Lawsuit
In 2018, Riot Games was sued for sexual harassment and gender discrimination by Melanie McCracken and Jess Negrón, who filed a class-action lawsuit against the firm alleging sexual harassment and misconduct as well as gender discrimination. The suit was eventually settled in 2019 for $100,000,000 USD, with 20% going to the plaintiffs legal fees. Part of the settlement also promises workplace policy changes, many of which are focused on making pay more transparent.[16]
Women at Riot had historically had great difficulties getting jobs in leadership positions, and the "bro" culture of the firm meant that there was high female turnover. Many former women employees interviewed about their experience at Riot Games couldn't speak publicly due to policy agreements forbidding employees from disparaging the company. [17] Harassment bad
References
- ↑ Riot Games' Website https://www.riotgames.com/en
- ↑ https://www.riotgames.com/en/who-we-are
- ↑ https://www.polygon.com/2016/9/13/12891656/the-past-present-and-future-of-league-of-legends-studio-riot-games
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IceFrog
- ↑ https://www.kotaku.com.au/2016/06/more-people-watched-league-of-legends-than-the-nba-finals/
- ↑ Business Insider on League of Legends World Championships https://www.businessinsider.com/league-of-legends-world-championship-100-million-viewers-2019-12
- ↑ https://liquipedia.net/leagueoflegends/World_Championship/2021#Prize_Pool
- ↑ https://www.statista.com/statistics/807925/lol-tournament-prize-pool/
- ↑ https://liquipedia.net/valorant/VALORANT_Champions_Tour/2021/Champions
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Valorant_Champions#Winnings
- ↑ Microsoft buys Activision Blizzard [1]
- ↑ "The Shady Side of Tecent" [2]
- ↑ Letter from the White House on Tencent [3]
- ↑ "‘League of Legends’ maker Riot Games to ‘double down’ in China as gaming growth continues", Arjun Kharpal. [4]
- ↑ https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2021/12/27/riot-discrimination-100-million-settlement/
- ↑ https://kotaku.com/inside-the-culture-of-sexism-at-riot-games-1828165483
