From Gaming to Culture: The First Inside Story of League of Legends
- What is Riot Games' 'player-centricity'?

How did League of Legends grow beyond eSports into a cultural phenomenon? The answer lies in "player focus," or "player-centricity."
'Player Focus' has provided fertile ground for Riot Games, League of Legends, and the community to establish themselves as a global culture.
Many companies use the same slogan, but not all of them produce the same results.
So how did Riot Games create this ecosystem? Let's explore the expertise gained from the experiences and practices of author Jin-ho Oh, who began his career as the first CEO of Riot Games Korea and later served as its president.

The launch of League of Legends took every second, and I had to explain and convince people who didn't speak the language.
I had expected it since I had had many similar experiences before, but it was still true that the situation was frustrating.
Anyway, I thought that my role was to achieve important results quickly and wisely without major conflict, so I worked hard at communicating.

As the representative of Korea, I knew very well how important it was for me to establish a relationship with headquarters.
The responsibility was heavy, as the status and outcome of the Korean branch depended on how I acted in the beginning.
If I continue to hold onto the Korean position, I may be able to get what I need from Korea in the short term, but in the long term, conflict with headquarters will increase, and in the worst case, headquarters staff may become prejudiced against Korea and uncooperative.
On the other hand, if I go along with the headquarters' wishes, I might be able to survive, but because of the headquarters-centered policies, Korean employees and Korean customers will ultimately suffer.
Then, in the end, it will cause great trouble to Korean businesses.

I kept wondering what would happen if a headquarters-centric system were established.
Instead of releasing the game, communicating with players, and running it successfully, I would spend my time and energy reporting to and pleasing the headquarters staff.
It's the wrong way.
If you set up the wrong structure from the beginning, it will continue that way.
Korean employees' morale will drop, and passionate and capable employees will leave the company.
In the end, only employees who please headquarters will remain.
Ultimately, I thought Riot Games would fail or become just another average company like the countless foreign companies that had previously entered the market.

I didn't take risks and move to Riot Games to fail or to please others.
“I came here to succeed.” My philosophy on that was clear.
I thought that even though they might not understand us now and it might be difficult for us, we could show them through our achievements.
---From "I Came to Succeed"

The server opened on the morning of December 12, 2011.
I haven't had a proper night's sleep since the closed beta ended and we were preparing for the open beta.
I spent six months establishing a branch, recruiting staff, and working with the head office.
A truly murderous schedule flashed before my eyes.
Even the day before the open beta, I went to work without even a wink of sleep.

The time of destiny has come.
Little by little, the number of players connecting increased.
The server, which had been holding up well, became unstable as more players connected in the evening.
Posts about lag were posted all over the community.
First impressions are important, but the problem persisted.
No matter how good a game is, if there are server issues and the environment is difficult to play in, players may turn away.
From the player's perspective, there is no need to wait for a game that cannot even connect to the server.
There were hundreds of games in service.
Many Avengers-level competitive games were waiting for players who had turned away for a moment, their servers tense.

‘Ah, if this keeps up, I’ll just collapse in vain.’ A cold sweat ran down my face.
The server was installed by headquarters staff who stayed in Korea for several months.
If everything went according to plan, I was supposed to leave for my home country right after launch.
They were exhausted from working day and night away from home and family for a long time.
There was a local team to take care of the follow-up work, but they were still lacking in experience and response capabilities compared to the headquarters team.
It seemed like there was no chance of winning at this rate.
I desperately asked them to finish the stabilization work.
Fortunately, the servers have become noticeably more stable over the past few days.
Although this did not seem to cause any major disruption to the immediate service operation, it did not solve the fundamental problem.
---From the "Open Beta Service"

In preparation for the launch of League of Legends, we conducted a survey and FGI consumer in-depth survey targeting PC rooms to establish a strategy for domestic PC rooms.
As a result, the most important value in PC room business was derived from the 'economics of coexistence'.
He also established a practical principle: "We are partners, not sales networks." He believed that the performance of PC rooms would determine the success or failure of League of Legends.
Therefore, a promotion was needed to make it more fun for players to play League of Legends at PC rooms rather than at home.
If the strategy is successful, players will flock to PC rooms and the PC room occupancy rate will increase.
This is the economics of win-win, mutual prosperity.

With the launch of the game service, the premium PC room membership benefits for League of Legends were announced.
PC rooms that subscribe to the paid premium PC room service are given the unprecedented benefit of being able to use all champions.
In addition, we have decided to provide an additional 20 percent bonus IP (Influence Points) to players who play games at affiliated PC rooms.
The most important thing here was to make all champions playable.

There's a story behind this.
Just before launch, when we were still contemplating the appropriate price and other issues, we held a FGI with PC room owners.
It was the end of the PC room boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s.
At that time, what the CEO considered important was not the price of the service.
“I really hope that we can provide meaningful benefits that will make game players come to PC rooms.”
At the time, there were many games that were good to enjoy alone at home, like MMORPGs, and although each game company offered premium benefits for PC rooms, it wasn't enough to change the number of people heading home.
The idea was to offer truly impactful, consistent benefits. After careful consideration and listening to the voices of PC bang users, the solution we developed was to allow players playing League of Legends in PC bangs to select and use all champions for free.

To do this, we had to convince the US headquarters.
In fact, League of Legends is a game that anyone can play for free, and at the time, 7 champions were provided for free in a rotational manner within the game.
However, it was limited to '7 random types'.
At the start of the Korean service, there were 88 champions in the game, including Ahri.
It was a big decision to make these champions available for free just by going to a PC room.
Because in other regions this is a key factor in sales.

However, the Korean office was confident that this method was in line with the characteristics of League of Legends, which is more fun to play with friends and acquaintances, and that it was also a direction in which we could coexist and grow together with PC rooms.
Eventually, I succeeded in persuading the headquarters management.
League of Legends is a game that continuously plans and adds champions to make the game more fun.
As such, the fact that you can play a new champion in a PC room whenever it is released has been a very attractive factor for actual players.
It was the best symbiosis that satisfied all three parties: Riot Games, PC rooms, and players.

As part of the PC room coexistence operation, a 'PC room tournament' was also planned.
The 'PC Room Tournament', first held in the summer of 2012, was an amateur event prepared to expand the base of e-sports and allow any player to participate.
Any League of Legends player can apply, and the tournament event is not held at a separate venue, but at a local PC room that has expressed interest in participating.
It has fulfilled its role as a grassroots local league that can literally see the momentum of League of Legends from the ground up.

In June 2014, the second year of the PC Bang Tournament, the competition rate was 310 percent, with more than three times the number of participants in each tournament, making it a great success.
PC room owners, in particular, reported high satisfaction. PC room tournaments offered users a new and exciting experience, while PC room owners saw increased sales, creating a virtuous cycle that satisfied both PC rooms and their customers.

“It helped promote the store and improve customer service,” “Customers like it, and it’s a good opportunity to promote the PC room,” “This kind of competition was a great help to business during the off-season.” These are the words of the owners at the time.
---From "PC Room Mutual Growth Operation"

As is the ultimate goal of many companies, Riot Games planned to enter the global market even before launching League of Legends.
Riot Games is headquartered in Los Angeles, but its players are located all over the world.
Because the cultures and needs of the regions they live in are different and unique, Riot Games strives to reach and satisfy players in ways that are appropriate for each region.
Fortunately, it was a huge hit and successfully established its name in the global market.

Initially, we planned to partner with regional game publishers.
However, we felt that it would be difficult for the publishers we partnered with to provide the best experience to players.
So, Riot Games decided to publish it themselves, except for some regions.

Successfully publishing in other regions is extremely difficult and there are not many successful cases.
The biggest issue is the operational aspect.
As time goes by, confusion and conflict between headquarters and branches are likely to worsen.
Headquarters employees want to make decisions and lead at a global level, while branch employees want to be empowered as local experts.
If the game itself is so good that it is so fun that players cannot ignore it, it may succeed in the market in the short term, but in the medium to long term, internal issues may lead to external impacts.
Therefore, it is very important to clearly define the areas in which the headquarters has ownership and the areas in which the branch has ownership.
From the beginning, Riot Games has strived to clearly define the 'roles and responsibilities' between headquarters and branch offices.

Although we don't use it now, we used a framework called central and local in the beginning.
Central refers to the team at the Los Angeles headquarters that does global work, and local refers to each branch office (local also includes the North American publishing team).
Central was responsible for maintaining global consistency, while Local was responsible for areas that needed to vary by region.
For example, characters, skins, maps, and gameplay should be the same everywhere.
The headquarters development team is responsible for ‘in-game content’ that must be globally consistent.
And the positioning and assets of each character had to be the same globally.
This area was handled by the global marketing team located at headquarters.
We wanted players on the other side of the world to feel like they were still playing the same game.
And there were practical reasons too.
To run an esports tournament, players all over the world had to be playing the same game.
If the games, characters, and maps are different for each region, there are many more things to consider in a global competition.

The branch office was responsible for what needed to be localized and what needed to be different for each region.
For example, branches can utilize marketing guides and assets created by headquarters to conduct marketing tailored to each region.
For example, the Seoul office could create YouTube videos about new characters with Korean influencers, the Mexico City office could run a skin sale event, and the Paris office could host a player tournament.
---From "The 'Central and Local' Framework"

The early World Championship champions were a mixed bag, changing every season.
A professional gamer has appeared, putting an end to such a chaotic era.
He has won the World Championship three times, the Mid Season Invitational (MSI) twice, and the LCK ten times, and is ranked first in the world in cumulative prize money among League of Legends esports professional gamers.
It's Faker.
There is no one who has ever played League of Legends who does not know Faker.
This is true not only for Korea but for people all over the world.
Nearly 200 million people around the world play LoL and know Faker as the world's number one player.
This is enough to qualify as world-class.

The first match that made Faker, a rookie, famous overseas was the finals of the 'League of Legends Champions Summer 2013' held at the Jamsil Olympic Auxiliary Stadium.
At the time, with the score tied at 2:2 with KT, he was chosen as the blind pick in the 5th set.
Most of the audience thought that Zed, who was overpowered at the time, would come out, and as expected, the two teams' best players went Zed vs. Zed, providing a spectacular spectacle.
Here, Faker became famous as a video of him overcoming an unfavorable situation and killing the opposing Zed went viral around the world.
Riding that momentum, Faker went on to win the World Championship, and over the next 10 years, he enjoyed a reputation as the 'best pro gamer among pro gamers.'

A good example of Faker's status overseas is the World Championship qualifiers held in New York.
The game began with a large crowd, and several New York police officers entered the stadium.
The American police were very terrified of the fights because they could physically restrain anyone if they felt it was necessary and stop the fight at any time.
Eventually, the site manager came forward and cautiously asked, “What’s the problem?”
Then the police officer excitedly replied, "I'm here to see Faker."
The World Championships were being held in New York, so I couldn't miss the opportunity and stopped by in my work uniform.
Another rare scene occurred at the 2014 Paris All-Star Game.
That day happened to be Faker's birthday, and when someone started singing "Happy birthday to Faker," the entire crowd joined in, filling the stadium with songs celebrating Faker's birthday.

---From "Faker, the Birth of a Legend of LoL"