Riot spending $250 million to produce two seasons of Arcane shattered several records in the animation industry. The question that many asked afterward was whether the spending was justified and whether the show would translate to more League of Legends players or inspire more players to purchase skins.
According to a Bloomberg report, Arcane failed to inspire increased gaming revenue for Riot, notwithstanding it won a plethora of awards and nominations and attracted a massive audience on Netflix.
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“People who look at the world through a short-term, transactional, cynical lens, really struggle to understand Riot,” wrote the company’s co-founder Marc Merrill on Reddit.
“This has been true with various people trying to claim that high-quality free games won’t work, that esports will never work, that our music was insane, are now saying that Arcane wasn’t awesome and worth it.
“These people think we make things like Arcane to sell skins, when in reality we sell skins to make things like Arcane. Riot is a mission driven company where Rioters are constantly striving to make it better to be a player. That is why we have successfully done that over and over again across multiple games and now multiple businesses / mediums – games, sports, music & animation.”
According to the Bloomberg publication, Netflix paid Riot $3 million per episode with Riot’s parent company, Tencent, paying an additional $3 million per episode to air Arcane in China. That’s below half of the total cost of the show which prompted Tencent to start asking Riot difficult questions between Season 1 and 2 release.
“Do we get everything right?” Merrill wrote. “Nope. But we are not focused on the short-term extraction of profits – we are focused on delivering exceptional value to our audience over the long term, again and again and again.”
“To be clear, Arcane crushed for players and so it discouragedfor us.”
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Last month, Christian Linke, the creative director of Riot and creator of Arcane, revealed three Runeterra regions (Demacia, Ionia, and Noxus) they are exploring as settings for future shows set in the League of Legends universe—and fans are already hoping it becomes a reality.
Do you fancy another animated series set in the League of Legends universe? GameBaba Universe would love to hear your thoughts.
