Riot Games Attempts to Refute Claims that League of Legends’ ‘Arcane’ TV Series Was Financially Unsuccessful

An easy assumption to make is that animated shows exist to market toys and games; this has been a truth for quite some time. However, Riot Games’ League of Legends animated series Arcane wasn’t created with the intention of bolstering sales for the MOBA, so says studio co-founder Marc Merrill.

Speculation arose from a piece in Bloomberg dubbing the show a “financial burden” for Riot, highlighting the cool $250M it took to make that has only recovered a fraction through Netflix and Tencent distribution rights. It also cites unnamed sources who voiced the studio’s lack of a stable plan to recoup production costs ahead of its release. Additionally, the coverage points to a layoff round in January that got rid of 11% of Riot’s workforce and a ruined movie deal .

This encouraged Marc Merrill to come forward to defend Arcane’s budget, expressing it as a tribute to the LOL fans and not as a cash cow for the game:

“The people who see the world through a short-term, transactional, cynical lens find it tough to comprehend Riot. […] These are the individuals who think we create things like Arcane to sell skins, but in reality, we sell skins to produce things like Arcane. Riot is a mission-oriented firm, where Rioters strive to constantly enhance the player experience.

“Do we always get it right? No. But we are not just about short-term profit extraction – we’re committed to providing outstanding value to our audience over an extended period, consistently.

“Let me make clear: Arcane was a success for the players and consequently a success for us.”

What Merrill fails to directly tackle is the question of whether the job cuts were factored into the series’ budget, nor the shorter runtime in the second season. The majority of responses appear to accept the notion of Arcane as a passion project without considering any fiscal impact on the broader Riot staff, not just the film and television teams.