Company Overview

Prompt: Once you find your position/role of focus, research the company/organization/institution and write 1-2 pages, double spaced explaining pertinent facts about the company.

Riot Games is a global digital entertainment company headquartered in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 2006 by two of the three lead developers on the biggest video game mod ( a modification made to a game to change or add content) at the time, the company was designed to ‘develop, publish, and support the most player-focused games in the world’.


Riot Games currently has 5 products released, with one more in beta testing. They make League of Legends and Valorant, two of the biggest esports titles in the world. Their other games, League of Legends: Wild Rift, Teamfight Tactics, and Legends of Runeterra are also minor esports titles. Their upcoming product, 2XKO will also be a competitive esports. Riot knows their target audience. They make competitive games with high skill ceilings so their core ‘audience’ of competitive, hardcore gamers always has some new skill to master or a new rank to achieve.


One of the ways they do this is via their core missions. Their first one is ‘Hyper-serve the core’. Instead of focusing on new players, focus on their core audience, and let them bring other players into the game. This works because their products are primarily free-to-play games, so a new player doesn’t bring in income until they become dedicated enough to buy something. Their next one is ‘live the player experience’. Riot devs are part of the player community. The company encourages employees to get together and play their games during break time. By doing this, they understand their games and their players better.


As mentioned earlier, Riot Games was founded in 2006 by two modders on the original Defense Of The Ancient’s mod. Their first product released in 2009, League of Legends took a lot of what they contributed to that mod, but put it in a format that was independent of the game it was a mod of, and thus monetizable. 2018 brought the studios major controversy- a civil suit accusing the company of gender discriminatory practices. Recently the suit was settled for payouts between $5000-$150000 to 1548 women, totaling $100 million. In the years since the suit, the once all male leadership has since become 20% female.


For 10 years, Riot Games supported League of Legends as it grew into the behemoth of the gaming industry it is today. In 2019 Riot launched Teamfight Tactics as a gamemode for league of legends. Eventually Teamfight Tactics grew separate from the main league of legends team, but it still remains as part of the league of legends client. Towards the end of 2019, for league’s 10 year anniversary, they announced they would be working on new games, including Valorant, Legends of Runeterra, and 2XKO. In 2020, Valorant launched to huge success, becoming another gaming behemoth and esport giant. Legends of Runeterra however, also released that year and did not find success. In 2024, Legends of Runeterra announced they would stop active development on the competitive mode of Legends of Runeterra, and focus on support and the single player mode. The major reasons for the failure was that the card game genre is niche, and the game mechanics grew extremely complicated over time, making it hard for it to attract new players. In the summer of 2024, 2XKO held it’s first beta test.


In conclusion, I would be able to put into use a lot of the skills that I have learned as a Computer Science major in game development. But the reason I want to work for Riot is simple- I like Riot’s games. Many of my best friends I have met through League of Legends, and many that I haven’t, I still play League of Legends or Valorant with them. I agree with their values- games can do a lot of good in the world if people take them seriously and focus on uplifting their player’s experience. If I were to be hired at Riot, I would wish that I could look at a clip online and know that that person’s day was made better because of me.


Sources: