League continues to be the benchmark for modern gaming, thanks to Rioters making this possible.
It's been 10 years, and we're about to enter the 10th season of League of Legends. We've come a long way from point-and-click Sion, AOE rek-all Ryze, and infinite-lives Yorick.
I wanted to shout out to the Rioters who have made this game fantastic year-over-year. Basically, this entire post boils down to four words:
This game is good.
It was revolutionary when it released. It was a broken MVP that had no goals other than to satisfy two burning questions: "What if?" and "What could...?" It succeeded at both. A few people came up with a shitty, low-resolution game that barely functioned but had charming characteristics and unique gameplay as an MVP that took the world by storm. The world fell in love with the characters and built a solid following, bolstering budget and ambition of the developers.
It has stood the test of time as a AAA game. It has answered the "How long?" question. No other game has managed a 10 year following that has been as passionate as the League of Legends community. Super Smash Bros. Melee and World of Warcraft come close, but both of these are considered by some as arguably the most iconic games of all time, and League not only continues to live with those games, but continues to thrive and evolve as those games fade or are "reborn" in "classic edition" variants.
It's a game in which the developers take risks. This makes people upset. It makes people angry. But despite the harassment and reviews, Rioters like you continue to push the boundaries of trying new things, whether it's failures like bottom-lane Mordekaiser or rework #4 Ryze or 420 #blazeit Warwick, all the way to fan-freaking-tastic elements like reworked Sion, the VFX update of Summoner's Rift, or, most importantly and unmatched by any video game company to date (in terms of timeline and budget), moving entire datacenters (and fighting ISPs) for the sake of literally dozens of milliseconds for a fanbase to enjoy the game.
And yet despite the criticism, despite the growth, despite the guarding of transparency that tends to get a little more opaque over time (I'm a SWE at Square, Inc., I know the startup --> corporate culture change and how it affects employees and consumers alike), every single year, without fail, you Rioters try something recklessly new, knowing fully well it can (and has previously) failed miserably, for one sole purpose--to make the players happy. To make them excited to keep playing this game. To make this game, that you love so passionately that you were willing to take a job in an underpaying market (for those outside the industry, video games tends to pay less than, say, fintech or software-as-a-service), fresh and new every single year. To introduce new games. To walk backwards on decisions you've made. To keep iterating, day over day.
To the Rioters here, please share this internally. Feel proud. Feel seen. Feel great. You have literally made careers for people. You've created hobbies. You've fostered friendships between players. You've played a role in people's real lives.
Thank you for all you've done these past ten years, and I hope to see you ten more years down the line.
