Riot Games – developer of popular MOBA title, League of Legends – has been wholly acquired by Chinese media company, Tencent Holdings Limited. Tencent has always been a majority stakeholder of Riot Games and it is now simply buying out all remaining equity to take complete control of the company.
According to Riot, the acquisition will offer compensation to its employees via a more cash based incentive program, moving away from equity share. Combined with the company’s already competitive salaries and employee benefits, this suggests that full-time Riot employees will be getting a large paycheck.
Riot Games was founded back in 2006 by Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill. With the US$8 million (about RM34.5 million) funding from Tencent and venture firms Benchmark Capital and Firstmark Capital, the company introduced “League of Legends”.
League of Legends is one of the world’s most popular multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games. Its annual tournament – Worlds – has even been broadcasted on national satellite pay TV, Astro channel 808. Tencent, on the other hand, is no stranger to the video game business as it also holds shares in Activision-Blizzard and Epic Games. The company also distributes Candy Crush Sage in China.
As of this writing, neither company has disclosed the total purchase price. Now that the Chinese company has fully acquired the North American gaming company, we’re excited to see League of Legends going to greater heights.
(Source: Riot Games via Inquirer.Net)
