In 2009, the game League of Legends was released and was seen by many as a clone of the Warcraft 3 mod Dota. Today, however, LoL is one of the most influential games. This is also due to many decisions that were made surrounding the game. One of them was the creation of a virtual band that even appeals to non-gamers.
What makes LoL so significant? League of Legends is a phenomenon. In 2019, it was the PC game with the most players worldwide. When the World Championships are on, tens of millions of viewers tune in. The influence of the game is huge. According to the website Esports Observer, LoL was by far the most influential game on the market in Q3 2020 – measured by game hours, watched hours, and tournaments.
Fans are still playing or watching on the same map as they did 10 years ago. It has been revised in details and graphics, but still fundamentally consists of the 3 lanes and the jungle in between.
Yet in 2020, there is much more surrounding League of Legends than just the map “Summoner’s Rift”. There are new games like TFT or LoR, huge events in the real world, social media profiles of champions, and even virtual pop bands.
During a virtual press conference attended by MeinMMO, Riot Games spoke about the background of the band and confidently stated that it is about more than just a video game.
“We want to create pop moments that everyone remembers”
What does LoL do to become even more famous? One of the most successful campaigns surrounding the LoL universe was the creation of the virtual band K/DA. They released their song “Popstars” during the LoL Worlds 2018. On YouTube, it has more than 380 million views.
What was the idea behind K/DA? The formation of the band was a promotional campaign to advertise new skins for the characters in the game. However, according to Riot, there is more to it.
Its big goal was to connect LoL with music and “to create pop moments that everyone remembers”. This is how Patrick Morales, the Creative Director for Marketing at Riot Games, described it.
This was likely achieved with the appearance at the LoL Worlds 2018, when the essentially virtual champions even stood on stage.
With the music, they also want to excite not only existing LoL players but also reach new target groups. These include both gamers and people who do not play. According to their own statement, this has also been successful, as evidenced by good chart positions on Spotify and iTunes.
Today, on November 6, the first complete album of the band titled “ALL/OUT” has been released.
K/DA is not the only music project: The band K/DA is not the only project that Riot Games has regarding music. With their songs for new champions, they have repeatedly drawn attention.
One of the best-known examples is “Get Jinxed”, the song for champion Jinx. The video from 2013 has nearly 100 million views.
Besides these individual songs, there are two other projects – Pentakill and True Damage:
- Pentakill is somewhat like a precursor to K/DA. Here too, there are songs related to LoL, but without the singers or champions being in the foreground.
- True Damage, on the other hand, is a hip-hop group and essentially works like K/DA. It was established in 2019 and has skins designed by Louis Vuitton.
However, music is still far from all that makes up the universe of LoL.
“Players love to interact with their champions”
What is Riot doing to engage fans further? In recent months, the developers have increasingly focused on social media profiles for the champions. On Twitter, Instagram, and Weibo, for example, you can find the band K/DA, but also the newest champion Seraphine.
They tell stories from their lives, interact with followers, and even host challenges. According to Patrick Morales, this is received quite well:
Just like with real pop stars, we wanted our players to be able to interact with them like with real people – through social media.
Something we also recently found out through in-game events like Spirit Blossom is that our players love to interact with their champions.
Patrick Morales in the press conference on K/DA
Does that always go well? However, the approachability of the champions isn’t well received by everyone. There is currently a lot of criticism surrounding Seraphine. This is based not only on her gameplay and background story but also on the aspect that she seems too human.
In a rough and brutal world like Runeterra, where many wars take place and champions constantly betray one another, a character with pop star-like qualities and at the same time strong self-doubts doesn’t fit the image for many.
The huge LoL universe
League of Legends already includes much more than just this one map and this one game mode. And this is also expected to continue into the future.
Morales promised in the press conference that there are further plans for K/DA and the expansion of the LoL universe towards music.
However, there will also be new features gameplay-wise. One is the single-player game “Ruined King: A League of Legends Story,” which is set to be released in 2021. This will be a turn-based role-playing game for PC and consoles.
Also in 2021, the mobile and console version of League of Legends, called Wild Rift, will be released. All important information about the game and the beta starting in December can be found here:
