An Important Update about Riot’s Future

Surprisingly respectful for what I thought game companies would be.

He says there will be a town hall meeting about the portfolio.
 
I had to google them. I recognized the name, but I had no idea who Riot Games is or what titles they have released.

I looked at the list, and I have never played or had any interest in anything they've made.

Still, a shame that things did not work out the way they had hoped. Looks like they are trying to do what they can to right the ship.

Comixbooks said:
Unless you created Palworld.
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I have never heard of Palworld either...
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I had to google them. I recognized the name, but I had no idea who Riot Games is or what titles they have released.

I looked at the list, and I have never played or had any interest in anything they've made.

Still, a shame that things did not work out the way they had hoped. Looks like they are trying to do what they can to right the ship.



I have never heard of Palworld either...
Click to expand...
Just came out like 5 days ago still in Early Access. Sold 6 million copies check the thread in the games section.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I had to google them. I recognized the name, but I had no idea who Riot Games is or what titles they have released.

I looked at the list, and I have never played or had any interest in anything they've made.

Still, a shame that things did not work out the way they had hoped. Looks like they are trying to do what they can to right the ship.



I have never heard of Palworld either...
Click to expand...
It's funny you come in these threads and same the same thing. We know you haven't heard of any of their games or any games that have been released since 1995.
 
wizzi01 said:
It's funny you come in these threads and same the same thing. We know you haven't heard of any of their games or any games that have been released since 1995.
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I mean, the name "Riot Games" sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it, which is why I needed Wikipedia.

I mean, I've heard of League of Legends. I vaguely remember it being very popular in eSports in southeast Asia or something else completely irrelevant to my life, like that, but it wasn't like I had never heard of it at all.

I've also heard of Valorant. One of those twitchy fast paced F2P eSports FPS titles with loot boxes and microtransactions I believe. Also not something that is even remotely relevant to me.

Palworld on the other hand, that one was truly something I had never heard of before. Thanks for filling me in Comixbooks
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I mean, the name "Riot Games" sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it, which is why I needed Wikipedia.

I mean, I've heard of League of Legends. I vaguely remember it being very popular in eSports in southeast Asia or something else completely irrelevant to my life, like that, but it wasn't like I had never heard of it at all.

I've also heard of Valorant. One of those twitchy fast paced F2P eSports FPS titles with loot boxes and microtransactions I believe. Also not something that is even remotely relevant to me.

Palworld on the other hand, that one was truly something I had never heard of before. Thanks for filling me in Comixbooks
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Yeah Palword's ascent up the player charts is kinda crazy. PUBG took a year or so to get up there, CS has been around for decades at this point. This game cruised up there in like 2 weeks.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I mean, the name "Riot Games" sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it, which is why I needed Wikipedia.

I mean, I've heard of League of Legends. I vaguely remember it being very popular in eSports in southeast Asia or something else completely irrelevant to my life, like that, but it wasn't like I had never heard of it at all.

I've also heard of Valorant. One of those twitchy fast paced F2P eSports FPS titles with loot boxes and microtransactions I believe. Also not something that is even remotely relevant to me.

Palworld on the other hand, that one was truly something I had never heard of before. Thanks for filling me in Comixbooks
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League of Legends still pulls in more than 100 million players a month. It is still very popular. I am not interested in the game at all, or any MOBA for that matter, and I yet I am still aware of its existence and popularity. Valorant pulls in more than 20 million players a month.
Furious_Styles said:
Yeah Palword's ascent up the player charts is kinda crazy. PUBG took a year or so to get up there, CS has been around for decades at this point. This game cruised up there in like 2 weeks.
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8095e592c0117901819e5a086c139bfef41a6656.gif
 
Furious_Styles said:
Yeah Palword's ascent up the player charts is kinda crazy. PUBG took a year or so to get up there, CS has been around for decades at this point. This game cruised up there in like 2 weeks.
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I didn't realize PUBG was still up there. It was all the rage in like 2018 through summer of 2019 or so, but I thought Fortnite had pretty much stolen all of its thunder since like 2020 at this point. I never hear of anyone playing PUBG anymore.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I didn't realize PUBG was still up there. It was all the rage in like 2018 through summer of 2019 or so, but I thought Fortnite had pretty much stolen all of its thunder since like 2020 at this point. I never hear of anyone playing PUBG anymore.
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They're pretty different games. Pubg is much more tactical style and has no building. Fortnite is pretty much the opposite. Also the aesthetic is almost polar opposites.
 
toast0 said:
It's a well marketted knock off of NTSCworld. :p
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Can't claim to be familiar with that one either :p

I just went through the massive list of games released in 2023. Most of them elicit only blank stares with no recognition at all. I mean, some names are borrowed from gaming past (like Metroid and the like) but I can't say I'd heard about the titles.

I only really noticed a handful of them in 2023.

1.) Two that I knew I was going to play:
- Starfield
- Phantom Liberty. (technically expansion/DLC, but it is full game length, so)

2.) A couple also showed up in my feed as "low priority" titles I may play if I get bored or have some spare time to fill:
- System Shock Remake. ( I did play this, it was good. Still held up. Kind of disappointed I missed it the first time around in 1994)
- Atomic Heart (if the concerns of built in Russian malware were deemed to not be real)
- Dead Island 2 (though I'm not really into Zombies, and I've heard the franchise isn't very good)
- Counter-Strike 2 (eventually I'll test this new version for old times sake, but not today)

3.) I also heard of (but never played or ever had any interest in playing):
- Baldurs Gate 3
- Hogwarts Legacy
- Diablo IV (I don't feel like wearing out my MOUSE1 button)
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III (Yeah, I don't do "Call of Modern Battlefield: Online")
- Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora (beautiful tech demo from what I am told, but no, not really interested in "Blue Pocahontas in Space" no matter what James Cameron says. I ahvent seen any of the films, and I won't play the game.)

Most of the above admittedly came out of left field for me. I was not following their development, but suddenly heard everyone was playing them / talking about them.

4.) Games I was looking forward to that were delayed:
- S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 (was at one point due to be released in 2023, but was delayed for obvious reasons)

But that's it for gaming in 2023 for me.

There was the above, and then the rest was just noise. Countless titles of low effort licensed remake drivel or app/mobile titles, 2d titles platformer or fighting titles (lolwut, is this 1991?) third person console ports, F2P/Lootbox garbage, or unplayable Japanese trash.

On average 2023 was a slightly above average year in games. Two titles I was looking forward to play (most years have 1-3), a handful of backups if I get bored *I didn't wind up needing most of them), a handful of titles that make noise that I have no interest in, and countless releases of drivel.


As for 2024, I'm obviously still looking forward to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, but other than that, unless I am surprised by something, it looks like it is going to be a slow and uninteresting year in games, so maybe I'll need those 2023 backups to fill the time after all. This is what I always say though, then in a years retrospective it turns out one or two titles I wasn't paying attention to come out of the woodwork and become interesting.


If anyone finds my summary of the year in games interesting, let me know. I can do 2022 too :p Heck, I can do the last decade year by year.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Can't claim to be familiar with that one either :p

If anyone finds my summary of the year in games interesting, let me know. I can do 2022 too :p Heck, I can do the last decade year by year.
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What's the purpose in pontificating about your lack of gaming on modern games, in a thread about layoffs? I don't think most people care which games you ignore or whatever.
 
A friend and former SEGA employee said there was a giant hiring spree at his studio during COVID-19 lockdowns when there was a boom in demand for video games. Well that wasn't sustainable and the chickens have come home to roost. His unit has laid off approximately 15-20% of its workforce. Probably comes as a surprise to no one since it's not really just the video game industry that's been culling its "redundancies." My employer in the financial industry cut 5% of its workforce last year with another giant cut incoming in Q1.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I had to google them. I recognized the name, but I had no idea who Riot Games is or what titles they have released.

I looked at the list, and I have never played or had any interest in anything they've made.

Still, a shame that things did not work out the way they had hoped. Looks like they are trying to do what they can to right the ship.



I have never heard of Palworld either...
Click to expand...
1000005684.jpg
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I had to google them. I recognized the name, but I had no idea who Riot Games is or what titles they have released.

I looked at the list, and I have never played or had any interest in anything they've made.

Still, a shame that things did not work out the way they had hoped. Looks like they are trying to do what they can to right the ship.



I have never heard of Palworld either...
Click to expand...

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aK2XiCq7dqY
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I had to google them. I recognized the name, but I had no idea who Riot Games is or what titles they have released.

I looked at the list, and I have never played or had any interest in anything they've made.

Still, a shame that things did not work out the way they had hoped. Looks like they are trying to do what they can to right the ship.



I have never heard of Palworld either...
Click to expand...
Riot Games essentially pioneered E-Sports as we know it today; they were in no way a minor blip in the gaming landscape.
 
The name Riot Games doesn't really scream name brand, but League of Legends sure does.

I just want to see the MMO from them.
 
Will A. I. eventually start taking jobs, doing the programming or data entry stuff? How far off is that? 5 years, 10 years?
 
Zorachus said:
Will A. I. eventually start taking jobs, doing the programming or data entry stuff? How far off is that? 5 years, 10 years?
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AI is absolute balls at programming anything significant. It's not going to replace dev teams for the foreseeable future. The only thing it's doing is making developers' jobs easier, not taking their jobs away. AI is a helpful tool that many are taking advantage of to make their current jobs easier. There are certain things it will certainly excel at ... and if your skillset is so basic that AI can take your job, then you should probably start looking to increase your skillset. AI is not magic. It has a very, very, very, very, very, very long way to go before that possibility can be even remotely considered. All these sensationalist headlines saying AI will take 60% of jobs are written by idiots. And if anyone is scared of AI taking their job, then take up a skilled trade that AI can't possibly replace, like plumbing, etc.. (like that Panderverse South Park episode where all the handymen are getting rich cuz nobody knows how to do anything anymore).

The worries people are having are wildly overblown. If anything, AI is increasing jobs, not taking them away.
 
Tsumi said:
Riot Games essentially pioneered E-Sports as we know it today; they were in no way a minor blip in the gaming landscape.
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Did they? I thought Blizzard did. Quake and Counter Strike were also very popular. What has changed since the Quake/CS days that Riot started? I wouldn't know as I never had any interested in "e-sports". But there were many very popular competitive games before Riot was around, so I'm wondering what change they brought.
 
Zorachus said:
Will A. I. eventually start taking jobs, doing the programming or data entry stuff? How far off is that? 5 years, 10 years?
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It is a helpful tool for the foreseeable future and little else.

The latest and greatest are still not reliable programmers and will constantly fuck up the details on anything beyond very basic, hallucinate libraries, etc.

It's still way, waaaay off from replacing an actual developer.
 
Flogger23m said:
Did they? I thought Blizzard did. Quake and Counter Strike were also very popular. What has changed since the Quake/CS days that Riot started? I wouldn't know as I never had any interested in "e-sports". But there were many very popular competitive games before Riot was around, so I'm wondering what change they brought.
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They were the first to sponsor and host their own tournaments as well as making tournaments a core part of their game. Starcraft, Quake, and CS were all hosted by third parties. With the commitment, players were assured that their time and effort wouldn't be wasted due to the whims of a third party, allowing them to get more invested in the game. When the players were invested in the game, sponsors, coaches, and viewers would naturally follow.

You could argue that Riot Games and Valve were concurrent on the E-sports development as the first Dota 2 tournament held by Valve was just 2 months after League of Legends, but League of Legends was still first and remains one of the most watched E-sports games.

When Blizzard saw the success Riot Games was having, they tried to take a piece of that cake with SC2, Overwatch, and Heroes of the Storm. I think only Overwatch has any real amount of success; the layperson would have a hard time keeping up with the intricacies of SC2 while League of Legends is much easier to understand for the casual watcher.

FYI, this is info I got from Game Theory, so make of that what you will. I never really got into watching E-sports (or sports of any kind) myself.
 
Zorachus said:
Will A. I. eventually start taking jobs, doing the programming or data entry stuff? How far off is that? 5 years, 10 years?
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People still misunderstand AI as being some kind of actual intelligence. When It's just another tool in an array of tools for game development. I don't think it completely replaces any jobs, it only changes them, or creates opportunities for innovation which can even create new jobs.
 
Tsumi said:
They were the first to sponsor and host their own tournaments as well as making tournaments a core part of their game. Starcraft, Quake, and CS were all hosted by third parties. With the commitment, players were assured that their time and effort wouldn't be wasted due to the whims of a third party, allowing them to get more invested in the game. When the players were invested in the game, sponsors, coaches, and viewers would naturally follow.

You could argue that Riot Games and Valve were concurrent on the E-sports development as the first Dota 2 tournament held by Valve was just 2 months after League of Legends, but League of Legends was still first and remains one of the most watched E-sports games.

When Blizzard saw the success Riot Games was having, they tried to take a piece of that cake with SC2, Overwatch, and Heroes of the Storm. I think only Overwatch has any real amount of success; the layperson would have a hard time keeping up with the intricacies of SC2 while League of Legends is much easier to understand for the casual watcher.

FYI, this is info I got from Game Theory, so make of that what you will. I never really got into watching E-sports (or sports of any kind) myself.
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id has sponsored and hosted Quake tournaments at Quakecon since 1999. I think id fully took over Quakecon in 2002-2003.
 
Armenius said:
id has sponsored and hosted Quake tournaments at Quakecon since 1999. I think id fully took over Quakecon in 2002-2003.
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Game Theory probably missed that, not too surprising. I guess something about League of Legends or the timing of it coinciding with the rise in game streaming made it the big one in the industry. Maybe people enjoy watching team MOBAs rather than FPS?
 
Tsumi said:
Game Theory probably missed that, not too surprising. I guess something about League of Legends or the timing of it coinciding with the rise in game streaming made it the big one in the industry. Maybe people enjoy watching team MOBAs rather than FPS?
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There were plenty of gaming tournaments and leagues both sponsored and not sponsored by the companies creating the games before LoL even existed. But LoL was one of the first huge ones where there was a structured league and significant numbers of people made legitimate careers out of it.

There were only a handful of people who were able to live off being professional gamers before StarCraft: Broodwar, LoL, and StarCraft 2.
Sponsorships were not big back then. A lot of the tournaments you had to pay to enter which was used for both the prize money and running the tournament. You would have to win just to recoup your travel/hotel costs to a lot of tournaments which meant a lot of good people couldn't even afford to go.

I remember driving 5 hours to a Halo: CE tournament in 2004, we got some sponsorship money to pay for our hotel but that was about it. I had a couple friends that were extremely good and didn't go because they couldn't afford to and I probably could have won with them on my team.

There were only a few big tournaments for games each year and a huge tournament back then meant total prize money of $50,000 (usually much less). So you get 4 tournaments like that a year, even getting first place in every one was not a lot of money for the year.
 
sharknice said:
There were plenty of gaming tournaments and leagues both sponsored and not sponsored by the companies creating the games before LoL even existed. But LoL was one of the first huge ones where there was a structured league and significant numbers of people made legitimate careers out of it.

There were only a handful of people who were able to live off being professional gamers before StarCraft: Broodwar, LoL, and StarCraft 2.
Sponsorships were not big back then. A lot of the tournaments you had to pay to enter which was used for both the prize money and running the tournament. You would have to win just to recoup your travel/hotel costs to a lot of tournaments which meant a lot of good people couldn't even afford to go.

I remember driving 5 hours to a Halo: CE tournament in 2004, we got some sponsorship money to pay for our hotel but that was about it. I had a couple friends that were extremely good and didn't go because they couldn't afford to and I probably could have won with them on my team.

There were only a few big tournaments for games each year and a huge tournament back then meant total prize money of $50,000 (usually much less). So you get 4 tournaments like that a year, even getting first place in every one was not a lot of money for the year.
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That's probably the biggest difference there. The first LoL tournament in 2011 had a pool of $99,500 and today it's regularly over $2 million (peak of $6.45 million in 2018). In fact it's been almost regularly over $2 million since 2012, which I'm sure accounted for a lot of the success.

DOTA 2's prize pool is ridiculously massive though, hitting over $40 million in 2021 and starting with 1.6 million in 2011. Had a massive drop since then though, 2023 being only just over $3 million.
 
mope54 said:
this is like bizarre fanfic or a wikipedia entry written by someone under 35.

EDIT: just to be clear I wasn't shit posting:
https://muppetclan.com/history/

and I do believe Thresh is in Guinness as the first pro gamer but my memory is shaky since this all happened in the late 90's...more than a decade before League would award us early testers our King Rammus skin.
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Nah, it's shitposting.

Ether that or you have a very different idea of what a legitimate career is.
 
sharknice said:
Nah, it's shitposting.

Ether that or you have a very different idea of what a legitimate career is.
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I have no dog in this race as I have zero clue what people were making, but Thresh does have a Wiki with this quote:

At the peak of his gaming career in the middle to late 1990s, he earned approximately $100,000 (~$170,176 in 2022) a year from prize money and endorsements.[6] He retired in 1997 to focus on his business ventures.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Fong

I suppose, what level of money is necessary to sustain yourself and what level of money can be considered a career? Certainly $100k a year in the 90s was a good chunk of dough. Enough to seed multiple business ventures. The guy is a bit of a business guru.

EDIT: FWIW, I also take your point that making that level of money was rare. Certainly gaming wasn't built up enough at that time to support a large contingent of people making their money primarily from just playing games.
Thresh basically side-stepped that and rolled it into a PC gaming journalism career. And a startup/dev career spinning off multiple 100 million dollar businesses.
 
Last edited:
UnknownSouljer said:
I have no dog in this race as I have zero clue what people were making, but Thresh does have a Wiki with this quote:

At the peak of his gaming career in the middle to late 1990s, he earned approximately $100,000 (~$170,176 in 2022) a year from prize money and endorsements.[6] He retired in 1997 to focus on his business ventures.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Fong

I suppose, what level of money is necessary to sustain yourself and what level of money can be considered a career? Certainly $100k a year in the 90s was a good chunk of dough. Enough to seed multiple business ventures. The guy is a bit of a business guru.
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I already knew he he was. He replied to my post that contains this as the second sentence: "LoL was one of the first huge ones where there was a structured league and significant numbers of people made legitimate careers out of it."
 
sharknice said:
I already knew he he was. He replied to my post that contains this as the second sentence: "LoL was one of the first huge ones where there was a structured league and significant numbers of people made legitimate careers out of it."
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Guess you hit quote before I edited. Anyway, I take your point that Thresh was a bit of an outlier and that yes most of the systems in place to allow people to be professional gamers didn't exist.
 
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