Exploring How League of Legends Spearheaded Gaming Innovations

Mobile gaming has become a colossal part of the gaming industry since the late 2000s. As with many innovations, a significant part of this success has been the genuine creativity and convenience it brought into the gaming world. However, those in the business did not take the whole concept of mobile gaming and free-to-play gaming models too seriously.

Obviously, in hindsight, this has proven to be a fatal error for those who were so dismissive. Still, you must remember that the PlayStation and XBOX were the two dominant forms of gaming back then. Companies were making money hand over fist, and live console gaming had only launched a few years prior. Hence, the idea that mobile games or free-to-play ones could become such a powerful force in the gaming world wasn’t something many believed would ever come to fruition.

Identifying & Adapting To A New Market

Another perceived hurdle the mobile gaming industry had to overcome was that many free-to-play games were also emerging online. So, there had to be a title that captured an audience and came up with an innovative new way to generate revenue—and League of Legends, for many, was the most pioneering game, the first to showcase this properly.

It also adapted to changing gaming attitudes and reinvented its model and design to continue branching into new parts of the gaming world.

Some experts believe that League of Legends explored other gaming areas that made noise around the mid-2000s. Many cite the casino industry as the first notable example of a prominent gaming subdivision that made the successful leap onto online platforms.

Although casino games overcame some stiff challenges, including facilitating secure payment methods and developing casino games that pay real money and appeal to a digital audience, they weren’t working with free-to-play models like the one League of Legends perfected.

Sure, the casino gaming world was incredibly innovative, and casino games that pay real money continue to be the leading light in an ever-increasing and profitable area of the gaming world. Still, League of Legends had to construct a gaming model that didn’t rely on people signing up and placing real money wagers.

Innovating The Free To Play Model

The initial designs of League of Legends date back to 2007. While the original design was for PC gamers, the surging demand for smartphones and mobile gaming meant that the company soon launched the mobile free-to-play model, which garnered the most success for the designers — Riot Games.

Some analysts have stated that League of Legends is profitable because of the sheer volume of users and not so much the free-to-play model. Truthfully, it’s probably a combination of the two.

By focussing on having a free game where gamers would have to purchase in-game upgrades, the whole advertising strategy of the game was that people would download it for free, see if they liked it, and if they did, the purchase of in-game currencies and tokens would pay off, and that’s precisely what happened.

Professional Video Gaming Pioneers

League of Legends is widely credited with the birth of the professional video gaming industry. Around the mid-part of the 2010s, it quickly established itself as the game with the most players, the highest audience, and the largest prize pools.

Despite the emergence of other eSports, such as Valorant, Dota 2, and Counter-Stike, League of Legends’ consistent drive to update and develop ideas and to attract the biggest audiences possible has attracted significant investment into eSports and resulted in many game design companies trying to replicate a similar design model.

Generating such success and the highest prize pools has meant that the top names in professional video gaming have tried to break into the League of Legends gaming leagues.

Some top players earn upwards of $250,000 for a single tournament, and now that the game has established itself at the zenith of the eSports world and has such a fervent consumer base, there’s every chance that it could still be sat at the top of the gaming pyramid ten years from now.

Conclusion

Any other gaming company would be ecstatic to have the same standing in eSports as League of Legends. They’d be equally pleased if they had such a longstanding and proven track record in the gaming community as well.

The fact that Riot Games can both boast with their landmark, game-changing title that has transformed the video gaming world forever are two things that they should be immensely proud of.

Even if the game begins to lose its appeal or influence at this stage, there’s no denying that it’s been an enormously successful project. Suppose those behind League of Legends claimed they’re the most significant mobile gaming and eSports pioneers. In that case, you’d say they’ve got a strong case – a fantastic blueprint on how to innovate genuinely and break new ground in an exciting way that appeals to the global gaming community.