Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Strictly Business, the podcast in
Speaker 1: which we speak with some of the brightest minds working
Speaker 1: in the media business today. I'm Andrew Wallenstein with Variety.
Speaker 1: Riot Games is the company best known for the hugely
Speaker 1: popular League of Legends, but it's also making a name
Speaker 1: for itself as a TV show producer. The Netflix series
Speaker 1: Arcane is just the first step in Riot's bid to
Speaker 1: traverse the risky nexus of entertainment and gaming. For Riot's
Speaker 1: vision of the future. I spoke with Mark Merrill, co
Speaker 1: founder and president of Games at Riot, and SHAWNA. Spenley,
Speaker 1: head of Entertainment, in a joint interview recorded last month
Speaker 1: at the Variety Gaming and Entertainment Breakfast presented by Pixel United.
Speaker 1: It's all coming up on this episode a Strictly Business.
Speaker 1: We're back with Riot Games executives Mark Merrill and SHAWNA. Spendley.
Speaker 1: Welcome everyone, looking forward to have a great conversation with
Speaker 1: you guys. I'm sure you're familiar with Riot Games just
Speaker 1: because you've driven by that really cool logo on Olympic Boulevard.
Speaker 1: But there's more of a company, so as the co founder,
Speaker 1: once you set us up, and for those who don't
Speaker 1: know explain riot. Yeah right, it's a little difficult to
Speaker 1: explain actually, because you know, our roots and focus as
Speaker 1: a company really isn't gaming, but we do a lot
Speaker 1: of things, including sports, which of course there e sports,
Speaker 1: a lot of music, and now you know we've dipped
Speaker 1: our toe in the water with entertainment with our cane. Clearly,
Speaker 1: you guys are not you know, just the average game studio.
Speaker 1: A lot of different pieces of the puzzle. And we're here,
Speaker 1: of course to talk about this gaming and entertainment convergence
Speaker 1: and our cane and what that represents. But I still
Speaker 1: want to do some more table setting. League of Legends
Speaker 1: is obviously the biggest piece of this puzzle, so I
Speaker 1: want to make sure everyone understands that sort of underlying
Speaker 1: property before we talk about the I p um so,
Speaker 1: the legal legends phenomenon. Just give the scope for this thing. Sure,
Speaker 1: um So, the easiest way to contextualize what leagal Legends
Speaker 1: is is really to compare it to a sport, because
Speaker 1: the game itself is relatively simple, and that there's essentially
Speaker 1: what you do as a player is you join up
Speaker 1: with another four players and you play against another team
Speaker 1: of five players. And you essentially are choosing what we
Speaker 1: call a champion to be for that game session, which
Speaker 1: last ednywhere from thirty to forty five minutes. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then the depth of engagement really comes from the fact
Speaker 1: that you're leveling up, you're trying to kill other players essentially,
Speaker 1: if you it's sort of analogous to say basketball, where
Speaker 1: you know, the the court and the rules are relatively simple,
Speaker 1: but every game is different because they're so much player
Speaker 1: expressed creativity um. And so League has you know, little
Speaker 1: over three billion monthly hours of engagement uh, you know,
Speaker 1: just playing the game. And so one of the things
Speaker 1: that's also important to understand about League is that it
Speaker 1: is a very hardcore game and that it is it's
Speaker 1: you know, we always thought about it as a targeting
Speaker 1: a niche UM and it turned out that, especially on
Speaker 1: a global stage, you know, that niche was much larger
Speaker 1: than we ever anticipated. And so the game operates as
Speaker 1: a service. It's completely free, and you know, you never
Speaker 1: have to spend any money in the game if you
Speaker 1: don't want to. Uh. And our business has really premised
Speaker 1: upon actually selling cosmetic virtual goods, and so it was
Speaker 1: incredibly difficult to raise money back into thousand six until
Speaker 1: seven when Brandon I Are and twenty five start in
Speaker 1: the company. Because you know, two as one VC put
Speaker 1: it like, wait, you're gonna have a multiplayer online battle
Speaker 1: arena game where college age kids are killing each other online.
Speaker 1: And then the way you're gonna make money, they're gonna
Speaker 1: play dress up doll and we're like, kind of but
Speaker 1: not really, and they're, yeah, good luck with that. Uh,
Speaker 1: and so you know, but it turned out to work.
Speaker 1: And the e sports market, I mean, in that report
Speaker 1: that Variety Intelligence just put out, we crunch the numbers
Speaker 1: on the size of this market. Uh, it's not just
Speaker 1: about playing the game, it's the people watching it. So
Speaker 1: that's like a whole secondary market that comes into this
Speaker 1: for sure. And so we always thought about investing in
Speaker 1: the sports as sort of a feature of League of Legends,
Speaker 1: where it really enhances the experience of being a legal
Speaker 1: Legends player and fan um in a similar way to
Speaker 1: you know, oftentimes the way somebody will learn how to
Speaker 1: play American football is you first start throwing the ball,
Speaker 1: you know, with your parents or friend in the backyard
Speaker 1: or whatnot, and then you see it on TV and
Speaker 1: then there's leagues where you can start to learn and
Speaker 1: you know, understand the complexity. League of Legends has all
Speaker 1: of that complexity, so it's very very difficult to learn.
Speaker 1: And so the way that the game really grows is
Speaker 1: once people get over the hump, you know, of learning
Speaker 1: how the game works, right, they start to appreciate how
Speaker 1: many layers of are and how fun it can be
Speaker 1: to replay it. And so a lot of players love
Speaker 1: watching people who are incredibly good at the game perform
Speaker 1: at the highest level because they can pull off moves
Speaker 1: that you know, most of us normal humans are simply
Speaker 1: you know, can simply dream about, and so it's incredibly
Speaker 1: fun to watch. Got it now, Shaana, you're over at
Speaker 1: a little company called Netflix. Is everyone you've heard of that, right,
Speaker 1: So that's a little bitty thing you're over there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're looking at the gaming market, you're looking at League
Speaker 1: of Legends. You saw a certain potential in terms of that,
Speaker 1: I p I take it. Well. Yeah, So, so my
Speaker 1: role at Netflix was to run marketing for the all
Speaker 1: the English language content, all of the titles across film, TV, animation, everything,
Speaker 1: And so when you're looking at roughly a thousand titles
Speaker 1: a year, and I was there for fifteen years, so
Speaker 1: I I saw everything performed, whether it was our originals
Speaker 1: or or every frankly everything that we licensed to. And
Speaker 1: it's really a rare that you see I I mean,
Speaker 1: we all know this, but but i P of this
Speaker 1: caliber that is completely untapped cinematically. So with over six
Speaker 1: million people interacting with League of Legends since its inception,
Speaker 1: it's it's incredibly rare that you would not have film
Speaker 1: or TV adaptations UM already in existence, and and League
Speaker 1: of Legends as an i P is so massive. Again,
Speaker 1: being at Netflix, we started to see what was performing
Speaker 1: across all of Southeast Asia, UM, in Japan and in Korea,
Speaker 1: and so I started to pay close attention to this
Speaker 1: i P because it was pretty clear to me that
Speaker 1: there was this massive demand UM and and no supply.
Speaker 1: And so I'm curious back at Riot what the decision
Speaker 1: making was like in terms of, hey, let's go do
Speaker 1: this convergence thing, let's transition the i P. What what
Speaker 1: kind of uh conversations went on internally that made you
Speaker 1: we gotta do this. You know, I would be lying
Speaker 1: if I said it was incredibly strategic. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: what it really was was organic and sort of birthed
Speaker 1: from love of the i P. Where you know, Riot
Speaker 1: has like nine people who paint all day long, and
Speaker 1: you know, so we have we're probably one of the
Speaker 1: largest you know, creative employers in the world, and so
Speaker 1: we have this incredible amount of this wonderful creative talent,
Speaker 1: and everybody at the company is very aligned around the mission,
Speaker 1: which is we aspired to the most player focused game
Speaker 1: company in the world. And so for us, you know,
Speaker 1: as players are engaging with the game and loving it,
Speaker 1: and we're building the sports and they're developing these characters
Speaker 1: and people are playing. Everybody loved these characters, but you
Speaker 1: could only interact with them from this sort of third
Speaker 1: person isometric view. They were sort of tiny, but we
Speaker 1: all viewed them as creators, and our players viewed them
Speaker 1: as these real characters, and they were curious where they from.
Speaker 1: And you know, so we wanted to start to build
Speaker 1: the muscle and other mediums to elevate our players are
Speaker 1: relationship with the i P and with these characters, and
Speaker 1: a lot of that started with music, and then it
Speaker 1: started with some storytelling and some cinematic trailers and whatnot.
Speaker 1: And then you know, Christian Link, who is one of
Speaker 1: the individuals who helped to build our music team, um,
Speaker 1: you know, had this crazy idea. Well, first we started
Speaker 1: doing music videos, which was another crazy thing UM where
Speaker 1: he said, well, back in what if we made a
Speaker 1: full animated series, And we didn't even have dialogue in
Speaker 1: any of our trailers at that point. And so going
Speaker 1: from where we were to trying to create something that
Speaker 1: would be great and meet our players expectations in script
Speaker 1: entertainment was a massive leap. And so but then we
Speaker 1: started just to experiment and do some tests and figure
Speaker 1: out what would it take and sort of work backwards
Speaker 1: from that goal of if we were to try to
Speaker 1: create something great that did justice to the league I
Speaker 1: p but was in well executed in the medium that
Speaker 1: other people could enjoy too, what would that be? And
Speaker 1: really that was the journey of Our Cane. And I
Speaker 1: would be remiss to to you know, to mention or
Speaker 1: to not mention the our incredible partners with Fortish, which
Speaker 1: is our animation studio in Paris, our partners that did
Speaker 1: Our Cane. We worked at them on many of the
Speaker 1: music videos and a lot of different collaborations you know,
Speaker 1: earlier on and had this deep trust uh and you know,
Speaker 1: we had to figure out how to build this great
Speaker 1: animation pipeline with them in parallel. It took six short
Speaker 1: years to the screen. But but again, I think it
Speaker 1: speaks to Riot's willingness to experiment and to there's just
Speaker 1: a ton of entrepreneurship, create an entrepreneurship inside the company.
Speaker 1: So in order to create something of that caliber, you
Speaker 1: really have to give it a ton of space to
Speaker 1: figure out its identity, and that's what they did. But
Speaker 1: it's interesting to me that you guys entrusted people who
Speaker 1: didn't really know TV animation to do this. I mean,
Speaker 1: when you first heard that, what was your reaction? You know,
Speaker 1: to me, it's not that strange, because again I sort
Speaker 1: of felt like, you know, I was at Netflix for
Speaker 1: a long time and we did a bunch of stuff
Speaker 1: we didn't know how to do. And so the idea
Speaker 1: that they that they did the same thing, it's actually
Speaker 1: the d n a of a company that I love,
Speaker 1: And so it wasn't that strange to me. I'm sure
Speaker 1: it's strange to others. But but there was no market
Speaker 1: for animation of this caliber, like the let's leave the
Speaker 1: budget to one side. We don't have to talk about that,
Speaker 1: but but just the ambition of it, it doesn't really
Speaker 1: exists in adult animation at all, and so I just
Speaker 1: was really inspired frankly that they were willing to do
Speaker 1: something that nobody does. And part of that is really
Speaker 1: enabled by the fact that we're able to go long
Speaker 1: term and our business model, like you know, it's really
Speaker 1: centered around games and keeping players engaged, and then we
Speaker 1: build these around game businesses e. Sports, music, you know,
Speaker 1: consumer products, et cetera, and broader entertainment to keep people
Speaker 1: engaged and to elevate. But it's really centered around reinforcing gaming.
Speaker 1: Got it? And SHAWNA At some point, I guess you
Speaker 1: knocked on the door at your old friends at Netflix.
Speaker 1: And what was the process of selling them on doing this? Well,
Speaker 1: it was fairly easy. I know a couple of people
Speaker 1: over there, so it wasn't wasn't as challenging as it
Speaker 1: might seem. But I think they it was for us, yeah,
Speaker 1: like who do you guys? Yeah, but I think, um,
Speaker 1: they understood as soon as we came in. One of
Speaker 1: the things that really helped them get because they didn't
Speaker 1: really know the i P either, but was to understand
Speaker 1: how big our audience was in markets where I think
Speaker 1: Netflix wanted to grow, so I happen to know some
Speaker 1: of those markets, and so it was helpful I think
Speaker 1: to show um just our reach in Korea for example,
Speaker 1: and and not surprisingly Arcane's done exceptionally well around the world,
Speaker 1: but in markets where I think Netflix really was looking
Speaker 1: to grow their subscriber based so I think it was
Speaker 1: just a perfect fit. Well, that would imply you saw
Speaker 1: data with regard to how this show performed. What was that.
Speaker 1: Now we get little snippets, you'd be surprised. I mean
Speaker 1: for somebody who was in that data for years, I
Speaker 1: we don't get much more than you all get. But
Speaker 1: they definitely gave us indications that it was a success
Speaker 1: and that it was doing well well. Also part of
Speaker 1: it was that you guys brought something to the table
Speaker 1: in terms of getting the word out to talk about that. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean we have an enormous platform, like I said,
Speaker 1: so with you know, and eighty million people playing uh
Speaker 1: our games that are in this room terror, in this
Speaker 1: League of Legends sort of universe. We have um enormous
Speaker 1: UH platforms at our disposal too, So I think it
Speaker 1: allowed us to experiment in promotion to our base, which
Speaker 1: I think was why Netflix was so willing to disrupt
Speaker 1: their all at once model. UM. Typically on Netflix, you
Speaker 1: would the show would be released all at once, and
Speaker 1: for our Cane, we released them in three tranches, which
Speaker 1: is very rare, but it was in large part because
Speaker 1: we had a bunch of promotional platforms that we were
Speaker 1: able to leverage on the game side and through the world.
Speaker 1: And it was a huge credit to Netflix and to
Speaker 1: Amazon Twitch where uh to not shoot down the idea
Speaker 1: also around us doing a free broadcast for the first act,
Speaker 1: leveraging Twitch as well to allow our streamers to do it,
Speaker 1: because that really helped build hype an awareness in our
Speaker 1: community because again even our players like rioters, were skeptical
Speaker 1: about our evolution into entertainment. A lot of our players
Speaker 1: where people were nervous as heck, like please don't screw
Speaker 1: up our I p you know that they love you know,
Speaker 1: when we're trying to move into uh you know or
Speaker 1: announce the animated series. Um. And then once people saw
Speaker 1: the show and it was great, big I really excited,
Speaker 1: which of course then hopefully helped to drive a lot
Speaker 1: of subscriptions over to UH the Netflix. Yeah, Netflix broke
Speaker 1: rules there's to do it. But I mean huge credit
Speaker 1: to Amazon Twitch to let us do co streaming. I mean,
Speaker 1: we were able to really partner with a ton of
Speaker 1: different folks and getting this launched. So you launched the
Speaker 1: show almost a year ago now, right, yeah, just about
Speaker 1: and I'm just reous, Like, how do you feel now
Speaker 1: that you've done this and in terms of your readiness
Speaker 1: to do more validated? Is that is that the right word?
Speaker 1: And relieved, you know, I mean delighted ye yeah, And
Speaker 1: just honored, I mean, and just so so proud of
Speaker 1: in particular Christian and Alex that the showrunners and just
Speaker 1: rioters in general who have poured their hearts to this
Speaker 1: hole in building this world in the c I P.
Speaker 1: And it's just really meaningful to them and to our
Speaker 1: players to not feel the oftentimes sort of skepticism and
Speaker 1: or stigma by sort of the broader mainstream, you know,
Speaker 1: how our gaming. You know, it's like when people embrace like, wow,
Speaker 1: that's actually really cool what you're doing. It's like that
Speaker 1: is that's something It feels different than the daily experience
Speaker 1: of being somebody who loves games and where oftentimes, you know,
Speaker 1: people will be like hey, that thing you love doesn't
Speaker 1: have any worth, which we don't think is true. So
Speaker 1: I also think, look, I might be biased too, so
Speaker 1: I'll own that. But because this was built by rioters
Speaker 1: for players, it wasn't an adaptation that sort of Hollywood
Speaker 1: rolled in and said, here, what we know, what we're doing,
Speaker 1: We're going to figure this out for you. It was
Speaker 1: very much a homegrown project that was built for players.
Speaker 1: And you know, I think at the time our employees
Speaker 1: would have been happy if it was on YouTube and
Speaker 1: just sort of they're out there for free. The idea
Speaker 1: was that it was a gift to our players. So
Speaker 1: for us to feel like it's actually getting you know,
Speaker 1: winning Emmy's and it feels like it's part of the
Speaker 1: conversation was bigger than we could have ever imagined. Um.
Speaker 1: But I think to Mark's point, any whenever you're in
Speaker 1: a game company and you dip your toe into entertainment,
Speaker 1: there's this game curse that everybody talks about. So it's scary.
Speaker 1: It feels like you're going to somehow upset your players
Speaker 1: in trying to delight them, you you upset them, And
Speaker 1: we're just really lucky in this case that we did
Speaker 1: the opposite well, and I think one of the key
Speaker 1: elements to balance is around that passion and deep understanding
Speaker 1: and love of the I P and sort of creativity,
Speaker 1: but augment with expertise and and you know, sort of
Speaker 1: like great experience and finding the right team composition to
Speaker 1: be able to pull something off is you know, I
Speaker 1: think one of the most important things to building anything great.
Speaker 1: We'll be back in just a minute with more with
Speaker 1: Mark Merrill and SHAWNA. Spendley. We're back with Riot Games
Speaker 1: executives Mark Merrill and SHAWNA. Spendley. I'm sure a lot
Speaker 1: of people in this room could testify to it. Yes,
Speaker 1: we've seen that this world of gaming is massive in Hollywood,
Speaker 1: understands its importance. But transitioning that I P whether to
Speaker 1: the big screen or the small screen, it's a very
Speaker 1: tortured history. I came up in this business covering television.
Speaker 1: I remember, I think NBC Universal, I saw them twice
Speaker 1: try this and failed that. No one remember defiance on
Speaker 1: the Sci Fi Channel? Yeah, I mean a lot of
Speaker 1: So were you not daunted by all that? We were
Speaker 1: incredibly daunted, uh and intimidated. Um, you know, But I
Speaker 1: think the thing that has often given rioters this sort
Speaker 1: of drive and perseverance to overcome a lot of obstacles.
Speaker 1: Is that deep dedication and passion and mission orientation, and
Speaker 1: that we all share the same dream of sort of
Speaker 1: like what wouldn't it be great if you know and
Speaker 1: you know, just over this love of the I p
Speaker 1: um and you know, I think when you have incredible
Speaker 1: people and you know, a lot of constraints are difficult challenges, right,
Speaker 1: you can you know to quote of course, you know,
Speaker 1: you can give a uh, you know, great idea to
Speaker 1: a mediocre team and they'll make a videocre You can
Speaker 1: give a mediocre idea to do a great team and
Speaker 1: they'll make it great. Okay. I also think, you know,
Speaker 1: these are not commercial objectives necessarily. They really are coming
Speaker 1: from this place of of building a better experience for players.
Speaker 1: And so Mark, who is steeped in gay times, and
Speaker 1: and me and my team some of them were here,
Speaker 1: are steeped in the storytelling. We're really connected in in
Speaker 1: what we're trying to do. I also think that's rare.
Speaker 1: It's not sort of this separate P and L. It's
Speaker 1: not a separate business unit that has to kind of
Speaker 1: um recoup exactly so that ethos. I imagine it's fairly
Speaker 1: rare and it's important to us to keep that strong.
Speaker 1: Will there be a season two? Yes, we're already in production.
Speaker 1: Doesn't it doesn't happen quickly, So I'm just gonna set
Speaker 1: expectations now, hopefully quicker than six years. We think, we
Speaker 1: think the pipeline exists now, so yeah, we think half
Speaker 1: the time. So I think in twenty four we will
Speaker 1: have season two. That is amazing and made all of
Speaker 1: us cry. We just finished the scripts, and just a
Speaker 1: few days ago we learned in a Variety exclusive that
Speaker 1: you guys hired a live action executive Geture. So clearly
Speaker 1: there's some broader ambition sins here. I know you're not
Speaker 1: necessarily going to speak to particulars, but do you guys
Speaker 1: have a sense now of like, Okay, we're going to
Speaker 1: ramp up a whole slate in the next ten years,
Speaker 1: Like what are you thinking? Well, one of the things
Speaker 1: that's exciting is our Kane takes place in one area
Speaker 1: in our world and with eight characters, and we have
Speaker 1: close to a hundred and six characters now in a
Speaker 1: much larger world, and so the storytelling possibilities to develop
Speaker 1: who these characters are in the relationships and sort of
Speaker 1: the timeline is, you know, we think are vast and
Speaker 1: events and part of our challenges, you know, how do
Speaker 1: we do that well? Um, And it's been really exciting
Speaker 1: for us to cultivate this again incredibly rich animation pipeline.
Speaker 1: But that's one that's one medium, and you know there
Speaker 1: are other, of course mediums that may be able to
Speaker 1: do an incredible job of telling these stories also, and
Speaker 1: those are things that we're committed to explore. You say that,
Speaker 1: and I immediately think of two words, cinematic universe or
Speaker 1: Marvel this field of characters, Like are you looking to
Speaker 1: companies like that in terms of like, Okay, we've got
Speaker 1: to build this bible over X number of characters and
Speaker 1: wine number of years. We hear that phrase a lot
Speaker 1: inside our company too, and I think we try to
Speaker 1: just stay patient and pace it because we're obviously inspired
Speaker 1: by Marvel and Lord of the Rings and and Harry
Speaker 1: Potter and Game of Thrones. They're they're incredibly inspired and
Speaker 1: clearly audiences are are asking for these interconnected, intertwined universes,
Speaker 1: so we we can only aspire to tell you know,
Speaker 1: phenomenal and great stories with this vast world that we've
Speaker 1: that you know, they've created that that I get the
Speaker 1: pleasure of working inside of UM our team. It's interesting.
Speaker 1: It's like we're not trying to tell too big of
Speaker 1: a story too quickly. We really like these little pockets
Speaker 1: of the universe UM. But I think I think we
Speaker 1: have a very long runway with with i P like this.
Speaker 1: As you all know, Star Wars is fifty years old.
Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings, it's older and UM and so
Speaker 1: multigenerational i P like this should go on for years,
Speaker 1: and so we want to be really patient and treated
Speaker 1: with care, and a lot of that goes into cultivating
Speaker 1: the internal organizational competency around how to have so many
Speaker 1: different creators and teams work effectively in a coordinated way
Speaker 1: within the i P. And that's quite a challenge, and
Speaker 1: you know, as we continue to grow, you know, we're
Speaker 1: finding different ways to do that. But you know, I
Speaker 1: think we're benefited again by the ability for us to
Speaker 1: really think long term and UH and try to be
Speaker 1: focused on again investing in the i P rather than
Speaker 1: exploiting the i P for sort of the short term benefit.
Speaker 1: There's no immediate plan for you know, three pictures any
Speaker 1: year kind of a thing. I mean, we're not we're
Speaker 1: not in a pipeline way of thinking. We want no,
Speaker 1: we really want high quality X silent um, and we're
Speaker 1: okay if it takes time. So you talk about the team,
Speaker 1: I'm curious what the infrastructure is. Do you have now
Speaker 1: a separate TV division, or you're bringing in lots of
Speaker 1: Hollywood types or you're like, you know, we don't want
Speaker 1: to be infected by the conventional wisdom. Well, no, we
Speaker 1: definitely want to learn from the tremendous expertise. So we
Speaker 1: brought in a lot of great people who have great
Speaker 1: backgrounds in Hollywood as well. But getting the blend right,
Speaker 1: of course is very important. But yeah, look, I think
Speaker 1: it's funny. I remember being in a position being in
Speaker 1: a tech company and then bringing in a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of Hollywood and so it's sort of weird joining another
Speaker 1: company and being the Hollywood running in Like that was
Speaker 1: weird for me. But um, but I think our focus
Speaker 1: is really clear. Games right now are such a massive
Speaker 1: part of the entertainment ecosystem, and we all signed up
Speaker 1: to be a part of that ecosystem. So I think
Speaker 1: from from our perspective. We're really excited to learn and
Speaker 1: develop together with game executives, and we're coming into it
Speaker 1: with a partnership frame of mind. So it's not it
Speaker 1: doesn't feel um odd at all, doesn't. I mean, it
Speaker 1: feels like we we are building a really strong team
Speaker 1: that partners together across both dimensions well, and when we're
Speaker 1: creating scripted entertainment, it's like our players expectations of course,
Speaker 1: and the audiences expectations aren't just set by what we do.
Speaker 1: I mean they watch lots of TV and great movies,
Speaker 1: and so they're set by what everybody in this room
Speaker 1: does and what the whole industry does. And so you know,
Speaker 1: our challenge has been how do we create something that
Speaker 1: can you know, stand shoulder to shoulder with these other
Speaker 1: incredible properties, which of course is just is really hard.
Speaker 1: And so that's where you know, again, I think the
Speaker 1: luxury being able to take the time and find the
Speaker 1: right team and sort of experiment and learn has been
Speaker 1: tremendously helpful. And in terms of those learnings, how do
Speaker 1: you study your audience and their consumption now that it's
Speaker 1: sort of bridging two different mediums or are you learning
Speaker 1: much about uh, how the best program to that audience. Yes, um,
Speaker 1: you know, it's sort of the short answer. And you know,
Speaker 1: we've learned a lot also over the years around how
Speaker 1: e sports impacts the ecosystem and people's desire to play
Speaker 1: games or whatnot, how music does and um, you know,
Speaker 1: and and sort of adding in of course now TV,
Speaker 1: you know, animated with an animated series has has developed
Speaker 1: a lot of learnings as well. And you know what's
Speaker 1: fascinating and perhaps unsurprising you know many in this room is,
Speaker 1: but also really exciting is a lot of people now
Speaker 1: want to work at Riot, like some of the best
Speaker 1: talent in gaming because of our came So it's not
Speaker 1: just what we've done, you know, from a gaming standpointy
Speaker 1: sports and people are like they're they're excited to work
Speaker 1: at a company that would have the perspective to do
Speaker 1: something like that or great and and that's really really
Speaker 1: cool from a respective And so because you know, TV
Speaker 1: and film is just it's such great storied mediums with
Speaker 1: such you know, such rich history, such high expectations and
Speaker 1: like more established in a lot of ways as an
Speaker 1: art form, you know, compared to gaming. And I think
Speaker 1: many people are still starting to understand gaming or trying to,
Speaker 1: because it's a really big diverse industry that whether there's
Speaker 1: just very different different platforms and different business models and
Speaker 1: different game types. And you know, my my business partner,
Speaker 1: Brandon Uh, you know, I used to talk about how
Speaker 1: playing games. You know, when people would ask like, hey,
Speaker 1: like should I allow my kids to play games? It's like, well,
Speaker 1: I think about games as having different types of nutritional value.
Speaker 1: You know, some games can be junk food, right, and
Speaker 1: others can actually be incredibly nutritious. And that's that's true.
Speaker 1: And so you know, lumping at all into into sort
Speaker 1: of a big bucket of gaming that doesn't do justice
Speaker 1: to the nuance, which I think is probably true as
Speaker 1: it relates to entertainment. And so you know, we're just
Speaker 1: trying to learn and and align with you know, great
Speaker 1: people who again want to share that dream of elevating
Speaker 1: the experience and meeting these incredibly high expectations of the
Speaker 1: audience we're trying to serve. Well. Uh, it's an interesting
Speaker 1: growth story and progress and we're looking forward to following
Speaker 1: it in the future. Thanks for coming in and talking
Speaker 1: to me. This has been another episode of Strictly Business.
Speaker 1: Tune in next week for another helping of scintillating conversation
Speaker 1: with media movers and shakers, and please make sure you
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