Riot Games President Defends Company, League of Legends
Marc Merrill, President of Riot Games whose company develops the popular free-to-play League of Legends title, has a message for those calling his company greedy: “Greedy how?”
In a message posted of the League of Legends Reddit page, Merrill went on a bit of a tirade to defend the company that gave gamers one of the most successful free-to-play games of all time. And it all stems from a thread where users were complaining about a lack of a new game client for season 4 of League of Legends.
“It’s pretty frustrating when people try to position us as greedy,” Merrill said to open his statement. “Millions upon millions of our players spend zero dollars on league and enjoy it endlessly. We’re COMPLETELY OK with this. Greedy how? You do not have to spend money, it is completely opt-in.”
To back up his point more, Merrill used some type of formula to compare the price of “League of Legends entertainment per hour” to every other media outlet there is. He claimed that they have the lowest cost per hour of entertainment, and even suggested an official study to find out exactly what that cost would be.
Merrill says that the team at Riot Games are gamers through and through. He said that when the servers go down or the company doesn’t deliver on a promise they’ve made, they flip out. It’s all about the experience users have with the game, not the amount of money they spend. He added that they care more about making great games over the bottom dollar.
“We train our entire company to drive towards ENGAGEMENT.,” he said. “Meaning, MAKE COOL S**T and deliver VALUE and if people PLAY enough because they love what we do, then they will WANT to spend money. Our focus is entirely different.”
Merrill ended his statement by stating the biggest reason for his anger at the idea that he and his comapny are “greedy”.
“So, no offense – but I completely disagree with your greed accusation,” he said. “Yes, it pisses me off because I’ve spent the last 8 years of my life building this company, game and team to deliver great value and to treat players well – and largely because the Rioter to player ratio has changed from like 1:5,000 to 1:50,000, our core message and passion is being diluted.”
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