Riot Games is considering making premium titles, says co-founder

Bryant Francis,Senior Editor,GameDeveloper.com

September 8, 2026

4 Min ReadImage via Riot Games

As Riot Games moves on from its decision to end development on the fighting game 2XKO, developers and industry professionals have had plenty of reason to speculate about how the League of Legends and Valorant developer is strategizing for the future. At PAX West, chief product officer Marc Merrill teased a few elements of the company's future games during a fireside chat commemorating the company's 20-year anniversary. He described the Tencent-owned company's pursuit of a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) as "the Grail." But sharp-eared attendees viewers might have heard him mention another idea being considered at the free-to-play powerhouse: making premium, non-free-to-play games.

Merrill shared the news in an aside explaining Riot's philosophy for developing new games, saying that there's "no strategic imperative" that every game from the company has to be free-to-play. "We're working on some stuff that isn't [free-to-play]," he said, adding that whatever business model the studio lands on, it has to fit the vision of the game.

Such a game would be unusual for Riot, which built its war chest on the back of a library of free-to-play games like League and Valorant that monetize by selling deeply invested players an ever-expanding coterie of cosmetics. Though the strategy is common now, Merrill recalled that when he and co-founder Brandon Beck sought funding for the studio before its launch in 2006, publishers and venture capital firms told them that making a free game was "the dumbest thing" they'd ever heard.

If Riot's biggest wins have been in the free-to-play realm, why would the company consider returning to the single-purchase premium model? In a follow-up interview with Merrill after the panel, the co-founder elaborated on those comments, saying "not every game needs to be infinite."

"Free-to-play tends to work really well with long-term engaging games... with optional cosmetics where people play for a long period of time," he said. "In many other game types, it creates these sorts of challenges from a design standpoint that can impact the integrity of the experience."

But the free-to-play market has become exceptionally challenging, as evidenced by the fate of 2XKO. In describing that game's failure to connect with a large audience, Merrill said that unless developers make something "incredible," they face stiff competition not just from the hundreds of other games launching on a weekly basis, but the near-infinite amount of content on social media fighting for their attention.

"We're competing for people's attention and time. That's a really high bar, and you have to get so many things right to get enough critical mass to build the [game's] community and have it turn into something sustainable in the long-term," he said in the panel. "2XKO unfortunately didn't do that. That doesn't mean it's not a great game... that's why we're keeping the game live."

How would new premium games be different than those published by Riot Forge?

Riot technically isn't new to the world of premium games. It published a number of premium titles under the Riot Forge publishing banner—but wound down that initiative in 2024 in a move that also saw the company lay off 530 employees. However those games weren't made by Riot, but developed in partnership with studios like Digital Sun, Airship Syndicate, and Double Stallion.

What differentiates these potential new games from those made under Riot Forge? Merrill explained that Riot Forge was stood up to "go tell stories to acquire new customers."

"There's nothing wrong with that strategy from a macro standpoint, but as one example, one of the things that was really effective to acquire new players was Arcane," he said, referencing the 2021 Netflix show set in Runeterra, the fictional world of League of Legends. "The reason we did Arcane wasn't to go acquire new players. [It was] an outcome from doing something great."

He said that the company's view is that the world needs "things that are really excellent, really differentiating," because players already have an enormous amount of "content" to pick and choose from. He did seem to switch gears mid-sentence, stopping himself from describing what the world "doesn't need."

"We want to focus our efforts on those very-difficult-to achieve-things because we think, again, that the market does such a good job of meeting so many other needs."

In describing its planned MMORPG as "the Grail," Merrill certainly set a bar for what degree of difficulty Riot is willing to pursue in its future games. But while all eyes are on this title with ever-increasing expectations, it will be worth watching if smaller premium games become a major part of the League of Legends maker's strategy.

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About the Author

Bryant Francis

Senior Editor, GameDeveloper.com

Bryant Francis is a writer, journalist, and narrative designer based in Boston, MA. He currently writes for Game Developer, a leading B2B publication for the video game industry. His credits include Proxy Studios' 4X strategy game Zephon, Iron Anchor Studios' Down With The Ship, and Amplitude Studio's 2017 game Endless Space 2.

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