Riot Games five goals for five years

To achieve its goals, the American studio Riot Games will create ecosystems for players and put employees at the center of their activities.

Nicolò Laurent, general manager of Riot Games, lays out the American studio’s ambitions for the next five years in a long open letter, which also looks back on the past year (more than 180 million players worldwide enjoyed Riot Games games every month), hundreds of millions of players and newcomers watched the first season of Arcane on Netflix, LoL Worlds 2021 is the most watched ever, the first world championships of Valorant, LoL Wild Rift and Legends of Runeterra passed without problems and $12 million was raised for charity).

• Winning our genres: “Our games will work together to continue to care for players, solve their problems, surprise and delight them, and take their genres to the next level.”
• Fandom Disclosure: “We will be creating groundbreaking gameplay and never-before-seen in-game events and features to redefine fandom across esports, television, film, music, live performance, merchandise and more.”
• Develop creativity and innovation: “We will make it easy, safe and rewarding for our employees to take bold, innovative and creative risks to strengthen our connection with players.”
• Making games around the world: “Riot Games will use studios outside of its Los Angeles headquarters to bring diverse talent to top locations around the world.”
• Reimagining the viewing experience: “We will continue to lead the esports industry by reinventing what live sports can be and creating new ways for viewers to actively participate in the lives of fans.”

Internal restructuring to redefine Riot Games and turn it into a “player studio”.

Riot Games will now consist of five operating groups: Games, Esports, Entertainment, Publishing and Enterprise. This new structure also complements the approach to remote work initiated by management in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic: “We are committed to finding a balance between remote work and face-to-face work in order to preserve our culture and our community. work is possible. When we are finally able to reopen our offices, each employee will have three working days in the office, with the other two days being flexible days where they can come into the office or work from home whenever it suits them.”

The goal will also be to bring together industry nuggets within Riot Games: “We will continue to open new publishers and development studios so that our fans from talent centers around the world can look for a place near us, but not far from home. Last year we announced the creation of development studios in Seattle and Shanghai and plan to open several more this year. ”

Improving the corporate culture is also the desire of the leaders: “While we are proud of how far we have come since 2018, it is important that we also take responsibility for our past. Given the lofty goals we have for the future and the tens of millions of dollars we’ll be spending each year on lawyers to help solve some tough cases – money we’d rather pay the women in the group and invest in the future of Riot Games. – over the past few months it has become clear that the best outcome for all would be to reach a final solution. To be clear, we are not asking anyone to forget this chapter and move on. On the contrary, the lessons we have learned together over the past few years will become an integral part of the Riot Games story.”

Raise the bar for society through better interaction:» As the world and society become increasingly divided and companies around the world struggle to maintain their identity and promote healthy collaboration, we believe it is more important than ever to refocus employees. about our mission and the purpose of our business. We ask our employees to take part in the riot, where everyone will feel supported. Where ideas get productive feedback, where developers ask tough questions to promote healthy conversation, where we all learn and grow from different perspectives, and where we unabashedly and relentlessly focus on players. ”

With the help of Tencent, employees will also be able to take advantage of incentives and purchase shares in Riot Games: “We strive to be one of the highest paid employers. This not only means that we pay better than most game studios, but also that we keep up with (and often outperform) our peers in technology, media, sports, entertainment and other related industries. Our shareholder agrees with our long-term strategy and returns part of the company’s property to employees. We are aiming for the top of a great mountain, and while nothing is guaranteed, we want to make sure that everyone who joins us on this climb can share in this potential success if we achieve what we hope for.”

Finally, Riot Games is even more committed to respecting the layoffs of frustrated employees: “For many, joining Riot is a dream job, but sometimes, for one reason or another, this dream does not come true as expected. For several years we have been implementing a program called Queue Dodge. This is a program that allows anyone to opt out of Riot for the first six months and receive a portion of their salary to help move on to what’s next.

With our new strategic plan, the evolution of our culture, new compensation and operating models, and new teams, we are confident that we are providing Riot with the best opportunity to achieve our ambitious goals. For all those who do not agree with all of the above and are not committed to what we want to do for the players, there will be no hard feelings. We want every rebel to feel energized, supported and excited for the next step in our ascent.“