Riot is finally making some moves to gain some money from their eSports games.
They have announced new revenue streams for their League of Legends tournaments such as new ad sales, better collaboration with teams on merchandising, and selling in-game content. The new streams are set to begin at next month’s World Championship, with 25 percent of sales from Championship skins now contributing to the event’s prize pool, which is currently at a staggering $2.13 million.
The World Championship won’t be the only event to take advantage of this new system. The money from the in-game challenger skins bought by players will now go to the prize pool of the Mid-Season Invitational. Team Championship skins, which are based off the signature champions of the World Championship winners, will now share 25 percent of their sales to both the player and their team. In addition to this, Riot wants to expand their amount of team-branded merchandise in-game.
The system is very similar to the one used by other MOBA-style eSports games, like Smite and Dota 2. Smite gives teams multiple ways to generate revenue through in-game sales, and Dota 2 was able to almost $20 million to the prize pool for their The International 2016 tournament through in-game item sales using the same 25 percent system that Riot is introducing with the sale of their in-game sales for League of Legends.
Riot eSports told Polygon in 2014 that crowd funding is “begging” and later that year Dustin Beck told the Daily Dot that crowdfunding just wouldn’t work long-term.
“As for what we’re doing, we’re trying to create a sustainable ecosystem similar to any other sport, where the monetization and revenue is really fueled by sponsors and partners and advertisers and broadcast rights and all that stuff,” Riot eSports’ Dustin Beck told the Daily Dot. “We think that’s a great model that we want to aspire towards.”
