Written by: Samriddha Sapkota - 24067, Grade XI
Posted on: 09 February, 2023
Riot Games is an International Company owned by Nicolo Laurent. It is an American video games company which is mainly known for its popular game ‘Valorant’. Riot Games was originally founded in September 2006 by Brandon Beck and Marc Merrial. The first ever game made by Riot was ‘League of Legend’ which was released on 27th October, 2009, four years after the company was made. It is still well known among the gaming community. Riot was originally started with 1.5 Million of funds but after the release of a First person shooter game named ‘Valorant’ on June 2, 2020, they became a unicorn company with net worth more than $1.08 Billion. Originally riot games started with 2 people only but now they have more than 2,500 employees. Riot Games also runs more than 12 esports yearly such as ‘Valorant Champion Tour (V.C.T)’ and ‘League of Legend esports leagues’. Riot Games has more than 24 offices worldwide as of 2018. In February 2011, Tencent, a multi billion company invested more than 400 Million dollars in Riot Games for 93% share and later on 16th december, 2015 tencent bought the remaining 7% of share.
The main headquarters of riot games is located in West Los Angeles, California, United States. In October 2019, Riot announced the release of ‘League of Legend’ in mobile phones to expand their player base. They also announced that ‘Valorant’ would have been released on mobiles by late 2021. Riot Games has won 3 awards in total. Some of them are for Best Company Culture and for the Best CEO. Their games have also won many awards such as ‘Valorant’ for the best esports game in 2021. It has been a decade since Riot Games launched its first game ‘League of Legend’ and has been delivering new games ever since. Riot Games also hires people through their website for a certain time as well. They mainly focus on those who can improve their games. Riot Games also offers a lot to those who make content about their games on different media platforms like Youtube, Twitch, etc. Riot Games also has offices in different countries like Japan, India, United States of America, etc. Even though Riot Games started as an American brand, now it has become a Chinese brand as the company which bought Riot Games is Chinese. As of 2022, ‘League of Legend’ has more than 180 million active players around the globe and their peak being 36 million players every single month. Riot games is now expanding to many countries as well. They recently added an Indian Character to their popular game ‘Valorant’ and they also celebrated Indian culture as a celebration. As of today, Riot Games sits with 6.5 Million followers on Twitch and has more than 100 million visits to their website with the United States being the country that has visited their website the most.
References: https://www.semrush.com/website/riotgames.com/overview/ (For their website visit count.)
