Industry: | Video Games |
Net Worth/Valuation: | $26 billion |
Latest Reported Revenue: | $1.5 billion (2021) |
Year Founded: | September, 2006 |
Public/Private Company: | Private |
Number of Employees: | 2,500 employees (2021) |
Notable Shareholders: | Marc Merrill, Brandon Beck (co-founders) |
Riot Games is Frequently Associated With
- League of Legends
- Tencent
- Marc Merrill
- Brandon Beck
- Valorant
- Teamfight Tactics
- Arcane
- Epic Games
- Blizzard
Net Worth of Riot Games
The company Riot Games is currently valued at roughly $26 billion, and it’s latest reported revenue in 2021 is $1.5 billion. Much of that comes from League of Legends, which is one of the most popular games ever made and is played all around the world.
Riot Games is Best Known For
Riot Games is best known for League of Legends, which is ridiculously successful worldwide. This game was released in 2009. Later on, they developed League of Legends: Wild Rift for mobile in 2019.
They also developed DotA Allstars, which was eventually bought out by Blizzard, another successful video game company.
League of Legends: The Most Popular eSports Game Ever?
In 2021, League of Legends was the most viewed eSports game with 664.16 million hours watched, beating the second most viewed by over 200 million hours.
Stemming from the popularity of the game, Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok is one of the most recognized and famous eSports player in the world.
Valorant – Project A
In 2014, Riot Games began developing Project A, a tactical first-person shooter game. The game was teased to the public in 2019. After it was finally released in June fo 2020, Valorant has gained great recognition, becoming one of the most popular games as of now.
Valorant has been able to attract Shroud to mostly stream it as his game of choice, even causing him to return to the competitive eSports scene for a short period of time.
Parent Company of Riot Games
Riot Games’ parent company is the Chinese gaming behemoth known as Tencent. Tencent acquired a majority 93% stake in Riot Games in 2011 for roughly $400 million and by 2015, Tencent bought the rest of the 7% of the company for an undisclosed amount.
Tencent is also known as the company behind TikTok, and generates one of the highest revenues of all multimedia companies in the entire world. Of note, although Riot Games is a private company and isn’t publicly traded, it is owned by Tencent Holdings Ltd. which is a publicly-traded company that goes by the ticker TCEHY.
About the Founders of Riot Games
The co-founders of Riot Games, Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill, were roommates and friends at the University of Southern California (USC) and studied business. They founded Riot Games in 2006 after raising $1.5 million from family members and angel investors. League of Legends was released in 2009.
Beck and Merrill had a really hard time finding someone to fund the publishing of League of Legends. The concept of free-to-play, making money from sort of an e-commerce marketplace game was not easy for investors to understand. After seven rounds of funding, Beck and Merrill were finally able to raise $8 million to develop the game.
Riot Games Notable Controversies
There were some allegations in 2018 of discrimination and sexual harassment against female employees and a “bro culture” working environment within Riot Games. Riot Games responded to this with disciplinary proceedings as well as proactive hiring of more women and non-binary workers.
Is Riot Games Publicly Traded?
Riot Games is not publicly traded. Riot Games was acquired by the Chinese technology conglomerate Tencent Holdings in 2011. Tencent is a publicly traded company listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and has various subsidiaries and investments in the gaming industry. However, Riot Games itself, as a subsidiary of Tencent, was not publicly traded as an individual entity.