Co-founders of Riot Games, and former college roommates, Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill joined Bram Weinstein on stage at the National Museum of American History to talk about the genesis and growth of their best known creation, League of Legends.
“Ultimately the league vision was to build this really competitive game that was almost a sport from the perspective of ‘It has to be more fun the hundredth time we play than the first, and it has to be more fun the thousandth time than the hundredth time,'” Beck said. “And we wanted this replayable experience and play space that could just be almost infinite from a mastery curve standpoint. And we wanted a company that would be able to serve that player and that experience on that journey for many, many years.”
The event was part of SportTechie’s ongoing collaboration with the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation and was part of its Innovative Lives program. You can view the entire conversation here.
Brandon Beck: How Riot Games convinced users to give LoL a shot
“First of all we made it free. Which at the time was a weird thing to do. So you’d meet with traditional publishers and they’d be like ‘Wait, you spent this development budget on a game and you want to give it away for free?’ That was sort of a weird concept. ‘And then there’s not going to be a subscription, there’s not going to be a paywall? You’re just going to sell stuff in the game, and even that stuff can’t really influence the competitive integrity or power, anything like that?’
Marc Merrill: The initial plan for LoL, and the growth beyond that
“Our original model when we were planning for the creation of League of Legends, we were hoping to achieve 20,000 simultaneous players. Then we could maybe be profitable and have a business. And we blew past that over time, which created a lot of scaling challenges. We had no idea that when we were intentionally trying to focus on what we perceived to be a niche, that it would resonate with so many all around the world.”
Brandon Beck: Experiencing the first major LoL live events
“That first event at Galen Center, one of the things that was sort of petrifying was ‘What’s the energy going to be like in here?’ None of us know what it’s like to be in an arena supporting an esport team. Do we need the defense chant? When would that happen? What would that be like? What do we do during halftime? Even during the game, is it going to be loud? Is it going to be quiet like a library? What is it going to be like?”
Marc Merrill: Building a fan experience around esports
“Part of our philosophy around esports distribution has always been ‘Let’s try to make it as accessible as possible to our players. Let’s not lock it behind some exclusive broadcast deal. Let’s create free videos on demand shortly thereafter.’ Our goal was build a great sport, build a great fan experience … There were all sorts of crazy ideas that we threw out. Should we have cheerleaders? Or halftime? The national anthem?”
Listen to the full interview with Beck and Merrill to find out about the videogames that most influenced them, the vision behind League of Legends, and to hear them try to describe LoL to the uninitiated on this episode of the SportTechie Podcast with Bram Weinstein.
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