3 go-to-market strategies Riot used to get League of Legends in the hands of 150M+ MAU (part 2)

In part 1 of our Riot deconstruction series, we discussed how Riot turned the highly engaged community of DotA players into dedicated LoL users. 

Now in part 2, we’re diving into Riot’s go-to-market strategy. Though often overlooked as less “sexy” than game design and less technical than backend engineering, GTM is critical for a game’s success. A great game doesn’t matter if nobody knows about it. A good go-to-market strategy will establish your game’s unique value propositions (why it’s different from other games and why users should play it), build your community and audience, and give players more ways to interact with your brand beyond gameplay itself (e.g. social features, a web series, esports). 

Riot is one of the best in the business when it comes to GTM because of their emphasis on putting the player experience first, rather than focusing only on product. Looking at how they expanded on the League of Legends IP to create experiences both inside and outside of gameplay can help inspire your own go-to-market approach - and we’re sharing our key takeaways at the end of this article to help you do just that. 

1. Grassroots community building 

The League of Legends community is one of the most loyal out there. And it all started after Riot’s founders, Brandon Beck and Marc Merill, saw the potential in DotA’s gameplay and dedicated user base.

The Riot team recognized that LoL already had a bulletproof game design because it was based on DotA, a mod that had already proven itself to be highly engaging - and had attracted a loyal player community. Their real edge was focusing on GTM. According to their investor and industry legend Mitch Lasky, Riot succeeded because: 

“It was this combination of an extremely passionate team focused on customer quality and engagement, with a distinct distribution advantage and a business model that was amenable to scale.”- Mitch Lasky, on Secret Stash podcast

Beck and Merill recognized that they weren’t alone: a bunch of game developers were working on their own MOBAs at the same time, like DotA 2 (2013) and Heroes of Newerth (2010). But the Riot founders sought to make LoL the king of the genre by taking over the global MOBA community. 

As players themselves, Beck and Merill had a keen insight into what users would want from Riot beyond just gameplay - and they recognized the importance of continuing to tap into community and speaking directly to player motivations. So through an aggressive outreach strategy, they used existing DotA networks as the launchpad for League of Legends. 

The Riot team wasted no time getting in touch with two key members of the DotA community: Steve “Guinsoo” Feak and Steve “Pendragon” Mescon. Feak was responsible for the DotA: Allstars map design that became the default gameplay template. And Mescon was the owner of the biggest DotA forum, DotA-Allstars.com, that had over 1 million visitors each month. Shortly after joining the Riot team as Director of Community Relations, Mescon took down the forum with little warning or announcement - just a letter explaining his decision and redirecting users to play League of Legends:

“After working on and launching LoL, I began to realize that…with LoL available to play I no longer possessed the passion for DotA which once drove me…Ultimately I believe that the right decision here is to not trick myself into thinking that this site will be rebuilt into what it once was, and to shift my full focus and time to my new project, with an eye towards the future. In the meantime, I hope some of you will join me and over 3 million other players for a game of League of Legends (it’s free!).” - Pendragon, in an open letter to DotA-Allstars.com visitors

By hiring modders from the most popular DotA mods and taking over community spaces and forums, Riot got a headstart in winning over the MOBA community - and hyping up League of Legends prior to its 2009 launch. This strategy served the additional benefit of tapping into player motivations: building mastery and theorycrafting the game’s meta are key elements of what MOBA fans love about the genre. Engaging players through forums and educational hubs helped to grow LoL’s community, onboard new players, and deepen the engagement of hardcore, longer-term users. Plus, Riot often turned to this community for feedback that they used to shape the game in its early stages. DotA players represented their initial, core audience - understanding these players and speaking to their motivations was the best way to help League of Legends succeed.

“To be player-centric, you have to hear from your players” - Travis George, former Product Director at Riot 

By 2022, League of Legends had over 150M monthly active users - but its early ability to capture the core DotA community was essential to achieving this success. LoL was able to build a thriving community outside of the game and rapidly overcame the “cold start” problem that multiplayer games can have at launch (lower player numbers lead to long matchmaking times or mismatched skill levels). Building up the hype around League of Legends meant that right from launch, the game had enough real and diverse players so queues for teams were low and gameplay was fun. 

“I’m hyper-aware of just how much of the success was based on the way we took a particular product to market…For a lot of these modern games, you’re really trying to get enough user liquidity into the product…so achieving that first million users or first half million users is something I obsess about.” - Mitch Lasky, on Secret Stash podcast

In fact, a 2015 study showed that the median wait time for forming a LoL team of 5 was under 60 seconds. And the same study proved that the teams were balanced and evenly matched (80% of games have an avg. team rank within 1 of each other).

2. Directly distributing lol to unlock scale 

Beyond their grassroots community strategy, Riot also carved their own path by distributing the game exclusively through a proprietary desktop launcher. This seems pretty drastic, but it actually makes a lot of sense when you look at what platforms like Steam charge studios to distribute vs. what they’re actually providing in terms of identifying high-value players. And since Valve released DotA 2 shortly after LoL’s release, Riot’s strategy seems even more relevant in retrospect.

“We're really born from what we as players would want. The market was so much in its infancy that this was both an opportunity and a challenge. There wasn't really a blueprint for how to do things.” - Travis George, former Product Director at Riot

It’s also important to note the context in which Riot was launching LoL. In the early 2000s, Steam was pretty much only for premium games, and the only F2P games getting funding were social games, especially for mobile and Facebook/browser - like EA’s acquisition of Playfish, wooga’s successful round of funding, and Playdom raising $43 million. Riot knew from the get-go that they wanted to release League of Legends as free-to-play, but there didn’t seem to be many options available to them for distributing at scale. 

So the team decided to do it differently by using their own client for distribution and UA. And as is the case for all parts of their GTM strategy, this game launcher was built with their players in mind - even the installation process was intuitive for their audience. League of Legends users only needed (and this is still the case) to sign up with their email, create an account, and download either the Mac or PC version of the game. Riot recognized that this type of easy installation resembled the CD-ROM install process of the past - something most gamers were very familiar with and knew how to use. They also built social features into the launcher, like a friends list and matchmaking tool (one of the first online games to do so) because these were the tools their community cared about - especially as the game coincided with the rise of social networking giant, Facebook.

The launcher enabled Riot to turn their game into a sensation. From 3M monthly active users in 2010 to 11.5M players in 2011, Riot scaled the game rapidly in its first few years (10 new games began every 1 second in 2011). 

And by using a D2C channel for distribution, they got to enjoy some major benefits:

1. Riot bypasses third-party platforms and their commission fees. Steam, for example, takes 30% of IAPs and subscriptions. Offering their game directly to users allows Riot to pocket that revenue and reinvest it in marketing instead of losing it to distribution platforms 
2. Distributing through their own launcher gives Riot access to first-party user data and communication channels, like email. Plus, having this player data at their disposal is a major marketing advantage: it lets them run retargeting campaigns and build lookalike audiences  
3. A launcher allows Riot to deepen player engagement beyond the gameplay itself with features like matchmaking, news/updates, and a friends list - and it all lives right in the launcher for easy access

4. Through their D2C channel, Riot gains full control over the user experience to be able to provide better support both in and outside of gameplay and serve regular updates more easily. For example, players can enable auto-updates in the launcher so they can always have the most up-to-date version of LoL (and Riot’s other games) without leaving the platform

5. The launcher also enhances LoL’s close-knit community feel and valuable feedback loop. For example, League of Legends has a Public Beta Environment (PBE) server they use to test features with players before implementing in the game. When testing a new feature called Eternals in this environment in 2019, the LoL dev team gained valuable feedback they then used to improve the offering before pushing it live 
6. Riot has used their launcher as a platform to expand upon the LoL IP, creating new games and transmedia content. Beyond new game modes for League like “All Random All Mid (ARAM)”, Riot has also successfully launched new games like Team Fight Tactics using the LoL characters and world. They’ve even expanded the game’s universe with animated content, initially as web shorts via Youtube and their own channels and now into Arcane, a full-on Netflix series. Oh, and let’s not forget to mention the League of Legends band, KDA!

3. Capturing the esports market to reach a loyal audience

If League of Legends is known for one thing beyond the game itself, it’s esports. This is a game that boasts the most viewed esports event in history - 6.4M concurrent viewers tuned in to the 2023 League of Legends World Championship. In total in 2023, LoL earned the title of most live-streamed game, with 1.6 billion hours watched.

The fact is, esports acts as a powerful community-building and distribution tool. In 2023, 2.5 billion hours of esports events were watched globally - a 92% increase compared to 2019. That represents a huge, engaged audience that a game can tap into. And that’s just what League of Legends did, turning esports into an additional distribution channel to reach a wider audience and boost LTV by building a larger core of loyal users. 

What’s the secret to LoL’s esports success? The competitive nature of the gameplay not only provides a spectacle for viewers, but also creates a community of players that aim to compete at higher levels - which drives engagement and loyalty. In fact, MOBA esports go back to the very origins of the genre: Blizzard held a DotA competition at their first ever Blizzcon in 2005. That’s because MOBA games are ideally suited for esports:

• They have a low barrier to entry but no ceiling for progress
• It’s a team-based genre, so requires skill, strategy, and cooperation to succeed
• A genre like FPS has mechanics that are purely reflexive, while MOBA has depth of strategy and more complex mechanics
• The characters, abilities, and metagame allow for a constantly evolving set of tactics and strategies that keep the game fresh 

“MOBAs are fun to watch because there is always something happening. With five people on a team, someone is always making an interesting or unique decision, performing a crazy play, or lining one up. In traditional sports and other competitive games, there is a lot of waiting, but MOBAs are nonstop action from start to finish.” - Leah Jackson, associate editor at IGN 

Recognizing that League of Legends was an ideal fit for an esports arena and could improve their distribution strategy, Riot invested heavily in the esports ecosystem and began organizing and sponsoring tournaments and leagues worldwide. In 2011, they held the first LoL esports tournament - League of Legends World Championship - at DreamHack in Sweden. That year, $100K was the top prize up for grabs - fast forward to 2023, when the prize pool was an estimated $2.2 million. And, the official LoL Esports YouTube has 3.6M subscribers that tune in for the global events.

The key components of a gtm strategy (according to Riot)

Innovating on their go to market and distribution strategies, Riot expanded on the world that DotA started, and created a League of Legends universe. Here are some tangible ways to apply their GTM approach to your own game:

Lean on community

Why reinvent the wheel if there are similar games to yours with an existing community of like-minded players? Tap into this player base like Riot did with the DotA audience, reaching them through their favorite forums and online spaces. Generally, community-building is a key aspect of a GTM strategy. As you get your game ready for a successful launch and continue to grow it afterwards, tapping into player motivations and prioritizing your users can go a long way.

Distribute directly

When Riot published League of Legends, distributing the game through their own launcher was a risk in many ways - but it certainly paid off. And the benefits they enjoyed then still apply today, like:

• Earning higher margins by saving the 30% on commission fees that platforms like Steam take
• Owning a direct relationship with your players, which also means having direct communication channels and access to first-party data (like email) to improve the player experience and your marketing. From gathering player feedback to personalizing offers that can boost spend, establishing a direct channel to your users can deepen engagement and increase LTV
• Incorporating engagement features, like the matchmaking tool that Riot used. Game launchers can host social tools like this and other community-building features (e.g. a content hub, in-platform chat, and loyalty program) that give players an enhanced experience, foster their loyalty, and boost retention and spend depth

Explore the right marketing opportunities

A GTM strategy doesn’t end at launch. Even more than 15 years after launch, Riot continues to grow League of Legends and add to the game experience. Even if your game isn’t a fit for the esports arena, Riot shows there are countless ways to expand your game ecosystem and product into new territories - just look at the success of Riot’s Arcane series on Netflix, whose first season earned 4 Emmy awards in 2022 and the second season became the most popular show on Netflix in over 60 countries.

The key here - and that Riot shows - is making sure you’re tapping into your player’s motivations. Many players that enjoy MOBA games like LoL are driven by the genre’s competitive nature, gaining mastery, learning new tactics, and feeling a sense of achievement and progress. Others love the teamwork required and strategic thinking associated with playing, while still more have fallen in love with the game’s universe and lore, cosplaying as Jinx and following every piece of content Riot releases. Much of this is what powers the game’s ecosystem: fan engagement with the League of Legends universe goes way beyond just the game.

Get to market and keep growing with a D2C channel

As we’ve discussed, one of the key aspects of Riot’s GTM strategy and League of Legends’ continued success is direct distribution - they’ve expanded what players love about LoL through their own game launcher. At Stash, we build fully custom game launchers that expand upon your specific game’s universe - boosting margins and LTV while improving player experience at the same time. If you want to learn more about the advantages of a game launcher and how we can design one tailored to your unique game and users, talk to us today.

PS - stay tuned for part 3 of this Riot series! Building a community and scaling it through D2C channels and esports is just one piece of this success story - the other is monetization, which is what we’re getting into next.