When League of Legends was released in 2009, a MOBA hype broke out for many. In fact, it seems to have been much more of a LoL hype. Because 11 years later, the game is still successful and has managed to establish further titles in completely different genres.
How successful is LoL? In 2019, the developers revealed that at peak times about 8 million players are online in LoL at the same time. This made it the most popular PC game in the world.
In the third quarter of 2020, the website Esports Observer named LoL the most influential game on the market by a wide margin – measured in play hours, hours viewed, and tournaments.
According to the analysis website SuperData, LoL is said to have generated around 1.75 billion dollars in total in 2020. This makes the game rank 6th among the highest-grossing Free2Play games, only surpassed by mobile games and the multiplatformer Roblox.
But not only the revenue of LoL is strong:
- Riot manages to have millions of people watching the Worlds every year. Among all e-sports titles, the leagues and tournaments of LoL appear the most professional. They even invest in youth leagues and a connection to amateur sports.
- With the virtual band K/DA, the developers have opened up a completely new field. Meanwhile, they have released their own album, which can be listened to on many music platforms.
- Last but not least, Riot Games has released 3 new games in the LoL universe in the last two years: Teamfight Tactics, Legends of Runeterra, and now Wild Rift. And they are all successful.
LoL convinces even when it is not a MOBA
What is so special about the spin-offs? Spin-offs from successful game series are not uncommon:
- For The Witcher 3, the card game GWENT was developed, whose console version has since been discontinued
- In AION, they tried their luck with Legions of War, a mobile game that did not survive in 2020
- Dota, like LoL, focused on an auto chess called Dota Underlords, which had already lost a significant number of players by early 2020
The big difference, however, is that hardly any player still has the mentioned titles on their radar or they have even been discontinued. They could not establish themselves compared to the main game.
However, the games related to LoL are still very popular or have become successful straight away:
- TFT had 33 million players in September 2019 – 3 months after the official release.
- Wild Rift, which is still in beta, reached over 12.5 million downloads and generated more than 10 million dollars in revenue between October 27 and December 18.
- Legends of Runeterra had a somewhat difficult start, but continues to be developed. Even before the launch, the developers had a clear vision of how it should proceed, and they have kept it so far.
Depth in Characters and Love for Detail
Why are titles related to LoL so successful? Legends of Runeterra, Teamfight Tactics, and Wild Rift all play in the same universe – the world of Runeterra. The art style, characters, and content are already known from LoL and are loved there as well.
Because even though it is a PvP game and there is hardly any storytelling in the game, the developers have a certain love for detail and create a huge lore catalog outside of the game. Every character has a profound backstory.
Siblings fight each other, characters reveal themselves surprisingly vulnerable, and unusual alliances are formed. In-game, you experience these stories mostly in the form of emotes when a character reacts particularly to another.
However, players can be very precise and if the story is not done well, there is also resistance from the players, as recently with the champion Seraphine.
How much the players are connected to the story was recently evident in the announcement of the upcoming LoL MMORPG. The post was viewed over 70,000 times here on MeinMMO, even though it was only a short tweet.
In the comments, it quickly became clear that players are looking forward to the MMO because of Riot itself, but also because of the lore and the characters.
MeinMMO reader Brohn wrote, for example:
Where Riot failed to engage me with their gameplay from LoL, they have succeeded even more with their grand art style and their incredibly good lore. I have always been very curious about what the world outside of Summoner’s Rift looks like, but aside from the videos on YouTube, there was hardly any proper material that showed that world properly (Or I was simply too dumb to find the corresponding material).
Therefore, I am very curious about it and hope that the attempt at an MMO bears fruit.
Riot has built a certain trust over the years and is considered one of the few studios that is still believed to be able to create a successful MMO.
New single-player game is in the pipeline: In addition to the already existing titles, the role-playing game “Ruined King” is also set to be released in 2021, which also revolves around the story of Runeterra.
The goal of Riot is a huge LoL universe
As the developers revealed to us at a press event for K/DA, their goal is to develop a huge universe around LoL – with everything that goes with it.
In addition to the games, huge tournaments, and the music, epic cinematics also play a major role. One of the most famous videos is likely “Warrior”, which has now been viewed more than 290 million times. However, even small videos, such as a trailer for Wild Rift, almost instantly reach 40 million views.
Finally, Riot Games has ventured into the world of social media. For the champion Seraphine, they created profiles on Twitter and Instagram and posted pictures, quotes, but also the “concerns” of the champion. Some players felt that this went too far, but in general, the profiles were a great success. K/DA has now also created such profiles.
Especially in the field of e-sports, hardly any other game can keep up with LoL. This is also due to the professional staging of teams and players. They build an image for themselves and become advertising figures, as is also the case in
