In fact, League of Legends itself was a reimagining of the original Dota mod in Warcraft III. Legends of Runeterra was a reboot of Blizzard’s Hearthstone Valorant closely resembles CS:GO Team Fight Tactics followed Auto Chess. All three games were adaptations of already popular games or mods. To date, Riot launched three standalone games beyond League of Legends: Legends of Runeterra, Valorant, and Team Fight Tactics. One such finals tournament was held at the 45,000-Seat Seoul Stadium and was streamed by over 30 million people worldwide. It created regional league systems across continents and global championship tournaments. League of Legends also spent enormous effort building up its competitive community through esports. These tools enhanced play experiences and supported the continuous release of contents, events, and updates. Underneath the hood of League of Legends is a deep set of systems and tools: messaging and voice chat systems, social systems, matchmaking, internal development tools, event systems, cloud-based server infrastructure, post-game data analytics, and so on. Two factors helped in its success: live-service platform and community. ![]() It remains popular today, even as many competitors introduced similar gameplay. Riot’s League of Legends launched in 2009. Part III: The Emergence of Live Service Platforms ![]() ![]() As the business of producing hits became more unsustainable, companies looked for new ways to build steady, long-term revenue. Successful game concepts were endlessly copied. Thousands of new games were released on Steam and mobile App Stores every year. Double-A studios like Asobo (a Plague’s Tale) and independent developers (Rimworld, Stardew Valley) started to take more market share.īut more studios also brought more competition. Steam, App Stores, and other digital distribution erased barriers imposed by shelf spaces.Īs industry barriers disappeared, smaller independent studios proliferated. Over the past ten years, public engines in Unity and Unreal have caught up to (and in many cases surpassed) private engines in performance and tooling. This dynamic of bigger-is-better produced many of the gaming giants today: Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, Take-two Entertainment, Ubisoft, and so on. Bigger companies could invest more towards central engine technology and publishing spend. These limitations pushed the industry towards consolidation. Best Buy, GameStop, and other gaming retailers had limited shelf space, largely reserved for franchise titles with large marketing budgets. The second limiting factor was physical distribution. Few outside of the large studios and publishers had access to high quality engines. The first was access to engine technology: games engines were incredibly difficult to build. Two key factors gated the numbers of big releases each year. Game development was traditionally a slow process. To better understand why, we need to trace through the state of the industry. One interpretation is this: gameplay innovation is no longer a sustainable source of competitive advantage for the gaming industry. Drodo was the first mover in its category, but it accrued little of the first-mover advantages. Drodo became a sideshow in its own genre.ĭrodo’s story raises an interesting question for the gaming industry: who captures the value of gameplay innovation? Business theories often talk about “first-mover advantage”. So many copycat games entered the market that the genre got its own name: Auto Battlers.īy the time Drodo built its standalone Auto Chess game (divorced from Dota) in late 2019, the market was crowded with fast-followers. Blizzard introduced Hearthstone Battlegrounds. Riot redesigned Auto Chess for League of Legends, releasing Team Fight Tactics. Valve re-imagined Auto Chess as Dota Underlord. Competitors quickly flooded the market with Auto Chess clones. Unfortunately, Drodo’s decision did not pay dividends. After all, why let others capitalize on its success? When Valve and other large publishers approached Drodo with acquisitions offers, Drodo turned these offers in favor of building its own standalone game. Many saw Auto Chess as the most important gameplay revolution since Battle Royale.Īt the time, it seemed like Drodo struck gold. Over seven million players flocked to Auto Chess in its first three months of launch. It was a mod of the popular game Dota 2, and it became an instant viral sensation. Technically, Auto Chess wasn’t a standalone game. ![]() The game combined unique elements of strategy and deck building. Set on the classic chess board, Auto Chess provided a common pool of champions for battle. In January 2019, a small Chinese game studio called Drodo Studios released Auto Chess. This article explores the value of gameplay innovation and being a first-mover in gaming today.
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