League of Legends Origins

Ever wondered how League of Legends was created? Take a quick look at how LoL made money and defined a generation of video games.

To understand how this game became the world-reaching hit that it is, we’ll need to look back at the origins of League of Legends. This is important for two reasons. First of all, the game’s rise to prominence deeply affected the gaming landscape to this day, and we’re still feeling the effects. Secondly, LoL’s development can help you understand how the game ticks.

The League of Legends story is long and quite interesting. However, our trip down memory lane will be short and easily digestible.

The Birth of the MOBA Genre

The beginning of League of Legends is closely tied to a plucky little fan-made mod called Defence of the Ancients, or DOTA. DOTA is a small map, a community-run mod for Blizzard Entertainment’s 2002 hit strategy game Warcraft III. While Warcraft III is pivotal for the gaming industry in its own right, we won’t spend too much time on it. All you need to know is that it had a dedicated following of fans who were free to create their own content using a set of advanced yet user-friendly modding tools.

As the years went by, the DOTA map started becoming so intensely popular it threatened to overshadow Warcraft III itself. There was a clear market appeal for the new genre of MOBA games. How MOBA games became so popular, however, is another matter.

For all the fan-driven spirit of DOTA and its underdog success story, it had its limitations. It was always going to be just a part of WC3 – a game DOTA’s creators had no control over. Its level of polish was always going to be limited, as was its growth and reach.

However, the MOBA game genre was not the only thing DOTA proved could be effective. It also brought around the birth of games-as-a-service. Games that survive on constantly improving and tweaking themselves over years of development are a common sight these days. But back in circa 2005, it was virtually unheard of. Games got updates, yes, but the typical process included them being developed and released as a whole, complete product. The spread of high-speed internet had a profound effect on how games could work, though. The original Dota map took years to reach its recognizable level, and it's still developed to this day. That is why Dota and LoL history is closely entwined.

How League of Legends Was Created as an Idea?

This leads us to 2005 and two business advisors and Riot Games co-founders Brandon Beck and Marc Merill. Although they were not engineers or programmers, they shared a love of games that allowed them to see the potential. As they put it:

“DOTA proved that games as a service is something that can really work because it grew virally due to the efforts of great creators, a community of moderators, and a community of volunteers with zero advertising dollars spent. It was just this direct relationship with players and this willingness to evolve and grow the game over time.”

And this little quote illustrates perfectly what makes League of Legends so good. Riot Games was never going to make a giant, sprawling video game that could compete with industry giants. Their time and resources were very limited. Additionally, the ideas behind Dota flew in the face of every game design trend at the time.

Most importantly, it was deep instead of wide. Few investors believed that anyone would enjoy a game that repeats virtually the same scenario over and over again. Even fewer were willing to pay full price for a game with such limited content. And the League of Legends free-to-play model was very unusual in Western games at the time.

Still, despite the shoddy office and team of fewer than 10 people, an idea started to form. Beck and Merill made some key hires in these early days that proved instrumental to League of Legends history. The game’s current producer Jeff Jew is one of them, alongside Steve “Guinsoo” Feak. Feak was one of the original designers of Dota Allstars and a huge hire for Riot.

The Making of League of Legends from Scratch

It’s important to understand just how little the team had to work with during these early days. They had to create a completely new League of Legends game engine. Though based on Warcraft III’s, tons of work had to be done, and time and funding were extremely limited. Moreover, the overarching League of Legends ideas were still not fully formed. For example, most of the heroes and characters from Dota were Blizzard’s intellectual property. Riot had to make a world, universe, and story from nothing. All the while balancing the technical side of things, too.

Although they had something to show for the 2007 Game Developers conference in San Franciso, investor meetings didn’t go well. No one quite understood how a game could not have single-player gameplay. The so-called freemium monetization model was also completely unproven in the Western market.

And so, Beck and Merill had to travel the country looking for angel investors. They gathered $1.% million, but Riot Games already seemed to be bursting at the seams. The team wanted to both innovate and make a Dota clone that would draw in the fans of the mod.

By the ream’s own admission, early League of Legends was quite bad. Iy had barely any direction and QA testing was rushed and incomplete. There was an interesting saving grace to it all – the team members forced themselves to keep playing LoL. No matter how bad it was, they focused on player experience by being players themselves. This went on until they no longer had to play it. They wanted to play it.

Rough Beginnings And Meteoric Rises

There are other things to note about the launch of League of Legends. By this time, competitors were starting to pop up, noticing the potential of MOBA games. The most notable at the time was Heroes of Newerth. As opposed to LoL’s innovation, HoN stayed true to its DOTA inspiration. Most of the Riot team saw it as a better game than their own.

The League of Legends free-to-play model almost didn’t happen, too.

However, it ended up propelling the game into stardom, simply because neither the Dota mod nor HoN were actually free.

Driven by the massive markets of Asia and Southeast Asia, the player count shot to levels beyond Riot’s wildest expectations. Few were convinced the sale of League of Legends skins would be enough to make it profitable, though. They are purely cosmetic, after all, and most people underestimated players’ willingness to buy skins.

We’ll let the numbers do the talking at this point. League of Legends officially launched on MS Windows in 2009. Riot Games reported $1.29 million in revenue that year. The following year? $17.25 million. The rest, as they say, is history.

That pretty much ends the League of Legends origin story. If you would like to know more straight from the horse's mouth, we wholeheartedly recommend the League of Legends: Origins documentary from 2019.