Riot Games, the Santa Monica-based game studio behind League of Legends, unveiled a new publishing label that will work with “proven third-party developers” to create and develop titles that expand their flagship game’s universe.
The first initiative of its kind at Riot, Riot Forge will enhance the Riot Games Research and Development efforts. Riot recently announce eight big game and media projects under way to launch new internally developed games beyond its 10-year-old League of Legends online strategy game. And now Riot is planning on publishing games made outside of Riot.
These new games will be developed on different platforms and in different genres, but always in the spirit of the announcements made during the 10 years of LoL in order to bring new experiences that will be integrated into the LoL universe.
“We are humbled by our partner developers who are so passionate to work on games set in the LoL IP, which offers limitless potential with its expansive world and deep champion pool.We are sincerely committed to our developers’ long term success and together we aim to deliver great experiences for players of all types,” said Riot Forge head Leanne Loombe in a statement.
The Los Angeles company has 2,500 employees, but clearly not all of them are working on League of Legends, which after a decade still has 8 million concurrent players.