American games developer and publisher Riot Games have just announced that their $1 billion revenue MOBA game League of Legends has had most of its stocks bought by the Chinese internet company Tencent.
Tencent’s influence will affect how Rioters (Riot employees) will be compensated for their work, moving away from their equity program towards a “cash based incentive program” which will “allow rioters to share in Riot’s success”. This comes along with their already “highly competitive salaries and open PTO, learning and development programs, 401K match, subsidized medical plans, and kitchens stocked with snax (poro and otherwise) all full-time Rioters get.”
League of Legends continues to dominate PC Gaming by continuing to be the most played online game in the world – so much so that an estimated 5% of Taiwan’s entire population are believed to be subscribed to their servers.
Riot are also looking to expand their servers to Japan sometime soon and have recently teased their voice-overs for champions which feature a number of famous names within the anime community. Exactly how Tencent will influence League of Legends is to yet to be seen, however right now they are only looking to improve employment within the company.