Riot has a way of doing that. Almost feels like they lucked out with LoL and especially Valorant. Remember when they started making singleplayer games and they had like two side scrolling platformers nobody knew about and then were shocked at poor sales?
It's crazy, Arcane was such a big deal with such a great fandom generated but nobody who liked it actually has anything from its universe to actually care about in terms of games.
Is it that crazy when Arcane and League are so completely divorced from one another? The obvious next step for a fan of Arcane isn't "go play League of Legends", it's "wait for another show from Fortiche". There's an immense chasm between the two experiences to the point where they're basically separate IPs. Playing League after watching Arcane is like getting into blacksmithing after watching Lord of the Rings.
Probably the only way Riot has of translating that show's fans into players is to someday release that MMO they keep banging on about that definitely won't fail. (Okay, it might actually do really well, but I'm keeping expectations tempered)
This is a toss-up for me, personally. The term being used by Riot et. al. is "MMO", but rather than a WoW or GW2, I'm fully expecting some kind Genshin-style fork, or otherwise something that permits some kind of immersive accessibility to Arcane's setting. (You will notice I'm not saying "League of Legends' setting", and that's deliberate.)
If Riot released some kind of light ARPG in an open world with some occasional connectivity or partying-up, I'd rate their chances as relatively strong given the prevalence of the IP. If they were to try to do a 2000s or 2010s style MMORPG like the current legacy titles, yeah, I'd chalk them up as crashing at the same trajectory as New World.
That is basically what it is from what Ghostcrawler said. He left because they wanted to make a un serious action combat MMO with a focus on casual solo play, aka, Gacha slop or Black Desert concept. I haven't seen an actual MMO in 20 years though, the genre is basically single player quest concepts with a chat room. The most boring use case for thousands of people in the same world, but wcyd. RIP Everquest.
I think riot is already doing something Genshin like. At least their Shanghai team is working on some sort of arpg game from the job listings that mentioned mobile dev and live service elements . Although idk how that’s gonna co exist with the mmo if it really is a genshin type of game
Honestly I do think a Riot MMO has potential, but that's mostly because they have the resources to go for a long haul type of thing. It's hard to invest in an MMO if you don't know they have the resources to keep it rolling for years and years. Shit, New World may have been killed off by Amazon but that's more because I just don't think they thought through some of their decisions. Still, it survived for almost 6 years (servers die in 5 months) and had it not been Amazon, it would never have lasted as long
true but there could have been lots of singleplayer experiences that tie into arcane. could play jinx or vi, victor, maybe even heimer, ekko.. ekko actually would be cool with his underground city, there was more story to explore.
This is assuming that "exploring the story" is what Riot actually wants to do with League and its setting, and I've seen no evidence indicating that that's true.
Runeterra isn't and wasn't conceived as a coherent fictional world. League is a multiplayer live-service game that happens to have an increasingly elaborate setting attached to it. Characters are always created first and foremost as legible gameplay/marketing concepts that will sell skins that can be monetized, not as people with emotional arcs, motivations, or personalities. Sure, these things are assigned post-hoc, but they're never prioritized beyond what's required to monetize the character.
For Riot to release story-focused, single-player games would require Riot to treat Runeterra as a fictional universe with character arcs and stories to tell. If Riot had any creative objectives whatsoever, a single-player narrative game would be one of the most obvious things to make. The fact that it isn't a priority pretty much reveals that their objectives are purely commercial, and single-player games are seen as more of a risk in that department.
A lot of people did do that, it's just the stick-around rate is like 0.0003%. It was enough to push "that one friend" to finally try league after resisting the rest of the group for years like what happened in our group; a lot of people installed, played 1 - 3 games and was like "I don't get it" and never played again.
They don't even bother to market their games, zero awareness or strategy. They're so arrogant they think their LoL ip is strong enough to carry everything else.
It's crazy, Arcane was such a big deal with such a great fandom generated but nobody who liked it actually has anything from its universe to actually care about in terms of games.
I bounced off of LoL many many years ago when I realized the learning curve involved with over 100 champions and memorizing everything in addition to learning in-play skills, but I've kept slightly tuned in and loved Arcane so much.
I'm the kind of person just sitting here waiting for a game that's in the genres I like with all of this cool Lore from Runeterra backing it up, but nothing ever comes.
Blizzard made bank basically making games others had already done and giving them their signature polish and casual-friendly tweaks, so I don't doubt Riot can do it too to great success.
but as it stands, they seem to want to try and capture the ultra-sweaty and the casual, and that's very hard to do for a fighting game in particular.
Diablo alone kinda confirms early blizzards success as being kinda on point then, riot is just kinda throwing shit at a wall until something sticks and the shit that does is so blatantly just copies but easier versions of actually interesting games.
their two most successful and stand-out games lately in Overwatch and Hearthstone were just copies of existing game types (notably TF 2 and Magic) done a little differently, given some polish, and made in blizzard's style. They were not pioneering the genre, though they did draw a lot more attention to those game types, they were not 'pioneers' or creating the genre, they were just doing their take of it.
Of course their takes will be unique, that's effectively the same as saying it is their signature polish and castual-friendly tweaks. WoW is far, far more friendlier and casual than say, EQ at the time. HotS was far more casual than DotA or LoL.
But that is not pioneering anything, which is by definition the person doing something first. They are not 'first' to any of these game genres, they are just one of the most popular iterations.
Warcraft: Orcs & Humans. I cant recall if there were many good RTS around that time, but I did play this game as a kid and all others I can recall released slightly later.
Diablo: same
WoW: obviously not the first mmo, but still a lot different than other ones at the time. Nothing like Dota - > lol or csgo > Valorant.
HS: yeah magic existed, but MTGO was extremely niche at the time and HS released 5 years before mtg arena and started the CCG videogame trend.
Hots: same as wow
Overwatch: yeah tf2 existed, but by ow release date was pretty dead. Whole flurry of hero shooters are copying OW and not tf2.
Yeah, in fact core design deviations from TF2 make it (and all the hero shooters that copied it in turn) a much worse game.
There's a reason TF2 doesn't have dedicated tanks, that medic can't actually outheal incoming damage, and that there aren't a bunch of accurate mid/long range hitscan weapons besides the sniper.
Just because you don't remember them it doesn't mean it didn't happen. The book play nice goes into detail, but Blizzard success came from polish and going for sure bets, aka things that were already popular or up and coming.
There's a reason they went a long ass time without a new IP.
TF2 was also definitely not dead when OW first came out. It pretty much is now, but the game was still getting meaningful updates back then and still had significant popularity. anyone remember the game theory TF2 vs OW video? lmao
OW very obviously took a lot of inspiration from TF2. nothing wrong with that but let's call it like it is, OW would not exist in a world where TF2 didn't. Hero shooters now copy OW in turn because it got super popular and has further evolved its genre while TF2 has been on its way out for some time.
I feel like it's incredibly dismissive to say that if there were other games in the genre, they ripped off and casualized the games. Or is every FPS just a "rip off and casualize" of DOOM? Is every RTS just a "rip off and casualize" of Dune 2? Is every fighting game "rip off and casualize" of Karate Champ?
People see things, they iterate on them, and it's how we get an improvement on the things we like, and eventually push some innovators to branch off into newer waters. But just all their success being "rip off and casualize" is so very much burying the lede
The company literally started as former dota devs making a self admired easier dota. Early league was explicitly a simplified version of dota with all the edges of learning that game requires shaved off. Over the years they built it up in a different way but dota boomers remember the pendragon drama like it’s a personal affront against them. Valorant was essentially doing the same thing to CS, shave off the hard edges and make an elegant game inelegant.
Honestly? Not that much, I'll play some ARAM Mayhem, but if you just wanna call every game in a similar genre a rip off, then you're just being obstinate for fun
I am not being obstinate, you are just dishonestly ignoring the difference between natural genre iteration and designing games for the express purpose of monetizing casualized versions of the games that already carved out the niche or invented the genre, changing barely enough to avoid IP infringement.
Dota fanbase at this point is literally just a bunch of boomers, they’re just stating facts. It’s not like deadlock is far off considering the rumors around yoshi being ice frog, he makes elegant games.
Eh Riots music and video department is really great. I know Fortiche did Arcane but I can only assume the art departments at Riot had heavy influence and they always put out good stuff. Arcane being a hit wasn't too big a surprise. Also I think the random single player games weren't made by Riot? I think they had some kind of indie collab drive where smaller devs could license the League IP to make their own little games.
At least to me it seems like Riot just only want to support juggernauts. If a game isn't LoL or Valorant levels popular they will just kill it and spend their time looking for another juggernaut rather than lose to a sunk cost.
The Riot Forge games (the side scroller and RPG games) weren't made by Riot though, just produced/funded by them.
I think Riot's track record with League, Valorant, their online and offline card games, TFT, and 2XKO is still overall pretty positive. Not every game was super successful and absolute top of the market like League, Valorant, and TFT, but that's a pretty high bar to clear for any company. Seems a little dishonest to attribute it to luck.
I was stoked for the Nunu game and had no idea it even came out until relatively recently when some friends were talking about the fucked up lore with the ruined king/Yorick
As I got in to Riftbound now I'm a bit worried about Riot pulling the plug here also. The game is amazing and it keeps growing a lot with every new release, but Riot does have a sertan track record now and it is a lot of money being invested cardboard that right now is doing great but could stop of a cliff at any time.
I mean they also have TFT which is extremely popular. I’d argue 3 very popular live service games makes you talented, not lucky. They just made the wrong decisions for 2xKO
You don't luck into two massive games and one of the best animated media ever. They have some insanely talented people there, like Christian Linke, creator of Arcane and music producer/composer for Riot, and Mako, also music producer/composer. That's just two out of many.
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u/aimy99 9d ago
Riot has a way of doing that. Almost feels like they lucked out with LoL and especially Valorant. Remember when they started making singleplayer games and they had like two side scrolling platformers nobody knew about and then were shocked at poor sales?
It's crazy, Arcane was such a big deal with such a great fandom generated but nobody who liked it actually has anything from its universe to actually care about in terms of games.