“It cost more than what it brought”, Riot Games admits to its failure with this game inspired by the LoL universe

During the 10th anniversary of League of Legends, Riot Games announced numerous titles, including its famous card game. The developer has had the desire for years, but that was slowed down by the release of Hearthstone from Blizzard. But in 2020, the Californian studio finally released its TCG, Legends of Runeterra. 4 years after its release, the results are not really what was hoped for.

Legends of Runeterra has never been profitable

Riot Games has laid off more than 500 employees, and one of its hardest hit titles is Legends of Runeterra. Since this first statement, those responsible for the studio have given more details to explain the situation, but also the choices they made, especially regarding the card game.

The biggest problem with LoR is financial. Mark Merrill, one of the founders of Riot Games, explains the situation: “We wanted a generous business model for players that would allow them to experiment with a lot of cards, as if they had to spend hundreds of dollars to build a deck. Totally successful. We always made more money from the game than we did. spent more to develop or support the community. We were largely funded by the rest of our products.”

In short, the revenue generated by the game never covers the costs generated. It should be remembered that like LoL, LoR’s economy runs essentially on cosmetic products, a situation that forces them to invest in ever more ambitious cosmetics. “Even if we could have comfortably produced them, the gap between the revenue we estimated and what we actually needed to maintain PvP was huge.”

Riot Games could have changed the situation with a more aggressive economic model in terms of cards, as some of its competitors do, but Riot Games has always refused to do so.

The developers also wanted to clarify another situation, a question that many players have been asking for years: Why was this game never released in China? This way they will be able to get a bigger player base, and as a result, generate more revenue, especially since the Chinese public is not really cautious in terms of spending. “We made a lot of efforts after the release of the game, but in the end we could not release it in China (…) The main problem is that we should not only send the current version of the game to the Chinese agencies and approve the license. Too significant to make changes. Action needs to be taken. We can’t afford to disrupt game development for months to do this.”

What is the future of card games?

As we said earlier, The latest layoffs at Riot Games will primarily affect Riot Forge and Legends of Runeterra.. For the moment, the game should not stop, at least that’s what the developers said. On the other hand, the team allocated for the game has now reduced. It will focus on PvE game modes and especially Path of Champions, as it is the most popular game mode.

“Our plan is to adjust team size and investment to match the available player base”, Riot Games explains. The game will continue to receive new features and a variety of content, but the pace of updates and new champions will slow down in the coming months.