Riot Games Cancels Development on Streaming Platform after 8 Years

Riot Games has reportedly ended the development of their internal streaming platform after eight years. News publication Bloomberg was one of the first to report on this development.

Named the Riot Esports Network (REN), it was originally conceptualized as an internal streaming platform that would allow fans to watch and engage with Riot Games’ competitive titles and professional players – that being League of Legends and Valorant primarily, as well as Teamfight Tactics.

The move was reportedly made as part of a wider effort by the games publisher to restructure following the massive layoffs that occurred and was reported on earlier this week, seeing 11% of their total staff laid off or 530 employees.

Riot President Speaks on Cancellation of REN Project

Conceptualized as both a viewing platform to reimagine esports broadcasting and compete with Amazon’s own streaming goliath Twitch, the project has now been scrapped in the face of Riot’s own refocusing of internal goals. John Needham, President of Esports for Riot Games, spoke on the decision.

‘We were testing some watch platform ideas,’ he said, ‘but opted to cancel our initiative REN last week.’ He had previously spoken about REN as recently as March 2023, in a Riot blog post. In a portion of the post, Needham spoke about the vacuum that currently exists in broadcast licensing revenue.

In comparison to traditional sports such as the NFL, NBA and F1, that drew their deals from content on linear television, it was not a suitable medium for esports. Riot has frequently spoken on their aspirations for the growth of esports of an entertainment medium and esports as a whole has frequently been compared to traditional sports in many focuses including tournament models, team models, broadcasting, coverages, etc.

Esports is Not Sports: Alternative Revenue Streams

However, most have come to the conclusion that esports is not sports, at least it can not be compared on a one-to-one comparison. The reason for this is that esports is fundamentally not a ‘good channel for esports content’ as Needham concluded. This is because he said, ‘there is a fundamental audience mismatch.’  

The majority of the viewerbase that consumes Riot’s broadcasted content would not be perusing ESPN or FOX Sports or any other sports broadcasting channel on the television. Instead, they populate the ranks of Twitch or YouTube viewers. The opposite is also true; regular viewers of ESPN rarely have cross-over followings with esports titles, meaning esports broadcasts become lost on them.

‘We want to be everywhere our players are with our content.’

Therefore, it is unsurprising to see Riot attempt to fill that gap. Needham lamented that while it is true, in the past Western streaming platforms had offered bigger licensing deals with game publishers as part of larger infrastructure deals, such as the Overwatch League.

In 2018, Twitch signed one of the largest streaming deals at $90 million USD to secure the streaming rights for the OWL – a highly-anticipated esports circuit at the time. However, this types of licensing deals failed to generate the projected earnings and as a direct result, streaming platforms have ceased offering such deals – even to proven multi-million-dollar generators such as Riot Games.

A Unique Strength of Esports

Needham then went on to elaborate that despite all the setbacks, one of the benefits and strengths of their products is the strong fan following. Their desire and efforts to create more inclusive and interactive experiences for the viewers has produced strong numbers and returns for Riot. This has encouraged them to continue along this line of thought and was a primary push behind the REN project.

‘Digital esports content is some of Riot’s best-selling game content. Three out of the top 6 selling LoL skins of all-time are esports-themed. A significant percentage of these sales went back to teams and players. In 2022, VALORANT sold $42 million of the VCT Champions skin pack and distributed half of that revenue to the teams who competed in the tournament. DOTA2’s The International Battle Pass is another great example of how fans will invest their hard-earned cash to support an esport tied to the game they love.’

Needham also admitted one of the early failings for their LoL Esports ecosystem was in how large it has been maintained, making it difficult to product team specific digital content. However, Riot Games has now been looking at ‘new and different paths’ to push digital esports content into the hands of viewers.

To that end, he concluded that in providing an avenue for players to enjoy digital goods and services outside of the game through watch experiences or virtual clubhouses, it opens up a wider variety of opportunities.

‘Having the ability to sell esports digital goods and services directly to viewers will provide a scalable revenue source that should fill the hole left by the lack of broadcast licenses.’

What Could Have Been: REN, Riot’s Ambitious Project

A live-integration of all of Riot Games’ esports titles, providing bonuses for watching games and offering in-game purchases during the title is akin to advertisements for sponsored products during traditional sport games. However, it appears it would be tailored to Riot’s specific goods and services.

That said, REN has now been cancelled, having reached the internal testing phase at the date of cancellation. Bloomberg’s report indicated that REN came into being as part of Riot’s 2021 acquisition of Kanga, a media startup that specialized in creating online ‘fan hubs’ for esports franchises and talents. It had also offered merchandising options and video content aggregation, a concept extremely similar to what REN would eventually be conceptualized as.

However, notable journalist and reporter Jacob Wolf has indicated in his own reports that REN had been conceptualized as early as December 2016. In a landmark deal that then fell through, Riot had reached an accord with BAMTech Media for $350 million USD. BAMTech Media is a media distribution company that delivers direct-to-consumer live and on-demand videos. It is now a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Company.

Through Riot’s series of layoffs on the 23rd of January that saw massive restructuring and reassignment, multiple projects and personnel from Riot have since been ceased/released. The Riot Forge, a project aimed at partnership between Riot Games and indie developers has since been ended indefinitely.

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Credit: Riot Games

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