LogInHow many people started playing League of Legends after the show?
Netflix
Nobody can question Arcane's success: millions of people cried their eyes out when the show ended, and many of them wanted to prolong the experience by joining League of Legends. I've seen a lot of "Should I play LoL?" questions from Arcane fans, but how many of them actually started playing?
I would love to say that Arcane was an outlet for creative energy only, but let's be real: Riot Games also wanted more revenue from the series. However, it seems it hasn't received what it likely hoped for.
According to Bloomberg, Arcane "went way over budget," with Riot spending $250 million on its two seasons, but the show hasn't become a financial hit, at least yet.
"Netflix paid Riot about $3 million an episode to air the show, with Tencent Holdings Ltd., the Chinese technology giant that owns Riot, paying an additional $3 million for the rights to show it in China, according to Variety. Those payments amounted to less than half the total cost."
The company "didn’t have a robust plan to recoup the cost of the show before it launched," Bloomberg's sources say. Riot's spokesman added that "while the show itself wasn’t profitable, it added to the business in other ways," in Bloomberg's words.
"Arcane was a success when we look across all our internal measures," the spokesperson said, adding that Season 2 is "on track to be at least break-even for us financially."
Netflix
At the beginning of the year, Riot saved costs by laying off 530 employees, which is 11% of its workforce, saying it was focusing on internal development and its games, including League of Legends, VALORANT, Teamfight Tactics, and Wild Rift.
Hopefully, Arcane will give Riot's games a boost. It has already changed Viktor's design in League and introduced Ambessa to the game to make it more appealing to the show's fans, and Mel might be the next in line.
If you have never played League of Legends and are now, inspired by Arcane's epic presentation, wondering whether you should, my honest answer is no. Leave those beautiful memories and go look at some art or something if you don't have at least a little toxicity to handle a MOBA like LoL. Sorry, players, but you can't deny it's true.
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