Riot Boss: Many Smart Reasons Not To Make The LoL MMO

Riot Games co-founder Marc Merrill says there are plenty of good arguments against building an MMO set in the League of Legends universe, and yet the studio is pressing ahead. On an episode of the Lemonade Stand podcast, he was asked how the project can succeed in a space where devoted MMO players are often older and have less free time, and where established giants such as World of Warcraft already soak up attention. He said he does not disagree with those concerns and that there are all sorts of smart reasons not to do what Riot is doing.

Merrill described MMOs as an insane genre, pointing to their scale, expectations and the argument that they are niche, but said there are many ways to approach one. He argued one advantage is the following Riot has built around its fictional world. He said the company has spent 20 years building Runeterra and that a great many players around the world have developed a deep attachment to its characters, factions and setting. Riot, he added, did not want to take on such a demanding space until it had a global fanbase numbering in the hundreds of millions. The studio now has that, he suggested, though he admitted there are still some really hard problems to solve.

Tags

• league-of-legends
• business

Sources

• GamesRadar+

Where this story ran: one outlet on 2 October 2026. The summary above is written by GamersGuild; the links go to the original reports.

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