The Netflix show reportedly did not make profits from Season 2 despite being a Netflix hit.
Riot Games hit Netflix show, Arcane, is one of the most popular TV shows in the world. The second season of the show garnered almost as much viewership as the record Season 1. However, as per reports, Riot Games didn’t exactly make a lot of money from Arcane. Riot’s co-founder has also responded to these ‘allegations’ emphasizing Riot’s vision and motivation for making such shows.
The Los Angeles-based League of Legends maker is popular for its focus on quality - be it in the form of video games, music collaborations, skins, or now Netflix shows. However, the pursuit of excellence has come at a price for the company leaving employees questioning the decision to produce Arcane Season 2 as per a Bloomberg report by Cecilia D'Anastasio.
Riot Games received over $12 million per episode
The report also highlights a glimpse of what Riot received as revenue from the show. Netflix paid Riot $3 million per episode while Tencent also gave them an equal amount per episode. Despite receiving over $6 million, the report indicates that it made up less than 50% of Riot’s cost of making an episode.
Riot’s main objective in making the show was to encourage more users to sign up for League of Legends. While there was surely an uptick in the number of users, most of the new signings to the game have since stopped logging on. Despite being one of the most popular games on the planet, League of Legends is slowly seeing fewer players. The number of players is shrinking regularly despite the game receiving critical success. The first season of the show received more than 4 Emmy awards, however, it still wasn’t a resounding success for the company.
This is not an isolated incident as we have seen game companies venture into entertainment and streaming as a means of potentially improving their player numbers. The difference has not been as per expectations highlighting the need to focus more on the game itself as the primary driver. There are two big titles in MOBA - League of Legends and Dota 2. While Riot went the route of Netflix, pouring nearly a quarter billion dollars into two seasons, Valve has focused on curating special events such as Crownfall to improve its player numbers.
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Riot spent over $250 million across two seasons of Arcane
However, despite receiving such a significant amount of money per episode, Riot also did spend a lot. Riot Games spent about $250 million on two seasons of the series, League of Legends Executive Producer Paul Bellezza said in an interview with Bloomberg. The company ran Arcane at a loss - and took a hit financially to produce the two seasons of Arcane.
Riot Co-Founder Responds
People who look at the world through a short term, transactional, cynical lens, really struggle to understand Riot. This has been true with various people trying to claim that high quality free games won't work, that esports will never work, that our music was insane, are now saying that Arcane wasn't awesome and worth it.
Merrill went on to specify what Riot wanted from Arcane.
These people think we make things like Arcane to sell skins, when in reality we sell skins to make things like Arcane. Riot is a mission-driven company where Rioters are constantly striving to make it better to be a player. That is why we have successfully done that repeatedly across multiple games and now multiple businesses/mediums - games, sports, music & animation. Do we get everything right? Nope. But we are not focused on the short-term extraction of profits - we are focused on delivering exceptional value to our audience over the long term, again and again and again.
To be clear, Arcane crushed for players and so it crushed for us.
For League of Legends fans, they absolutely loved the two seasons of Arcane. While the first season did not see Riot capitalize on the success of the show, they had a bit more time to do so in Season 2. Riot came out with better preparation for Season 2, with more opportunities to convert Arcane viewers to League of Legends players to even monetizing them.
Stay tuned to esports.gg for the latest League of Legends news and updates.
