2XKO Will Not Be a Revolution, and That’s Good

Riot Games has been a household name in the industry for quite some time now. Long gone are the days when they were being made fun of for having “Games” in the name without any games in their portfolio other than League of Legends. Now, they have super successful VALORANT, ever-evolving Teamfight Tactics, dying Legends of Runeterra, League of Legends: Wild Rift, the mobile equivalent of their main title, and a plethora of games released under the Riot Forge banner (all of them are good by the way, and it’s a shame that they will no longer be made). It’s hard to argue that any of these games broke some new ground, but they’re all very solid, implementing their ideas well enough. The development studio amasses some palpable goodwill at this point, which was further reinforced by the hit Netflix series Arcane, which will receive its second season this Autumn.

None of these projects were random or not perfectly calculated.

Two of the most anticipated releases from Riot are the mysterious MMORPG that coming sometime in the future, as reconfirmed recently by Mark Merill himself, and Project L, a fighting game set in the League of Legends universe. The official name for the latter was recently revealed to be 2XKO, much to everyone’s chagrin. While the name might have been a miss, their approach to the game and everything that surrounds it is not.

You have probably seen a lot of people being really hyped for 2XKO’s release and mainly its esports scene for various reasons. Many hope that Riot will open the FGC’s door with a heavy kick and will start throwing money around. If you’re hoping for this to be the case and you aim to get your fingers into this figurative pie, I’m sorry, I’ll have to disappoint you. Riot Game will not come into the FGC with the prize pools you expect. They won’t be anywhere near the $2 million that Capcom gave away the last CPT season. Honestly, if you want to get rich fast – better get good at Street Fighter.

What Riot will do instead is focus on sustainability. As of now, we don’t know what the monetization for 2XKO will look like. We don’t know if it’s a free-to-play game or not, we only know that it’s confirmed for the console release. It’s quite improbable that it will be a full $60 release like all the other major games were. You see, that $2 mil that Capcom spent on the CPT – well, it more than likely came from the marketing budget. And as far as marketing exercises go, this was a bargain. Look up how much these companies spend on promoting their games – it’s hundreds of millions. And this $2 mil made the whole world talk, so it’s money well spent.

Riot Games isn’t known to pay out way more than the industry standards. They’re focused on sustainability and less top-heavy spreads. Instead of giving out tens of millions for the winners like in Dota 2, they instead have most of the players on decent salaries so that they’re not as dependent on the winnings. Obviously, this isn’t something that’s going to happen in the FGC, but what you should expect is the higher baseline, not the top. Again, we don’t really know what will be the structure Riot Games goes for, but it’s safe to assume that their esports know-how is going to help them stand out, and the knowledge of the Cannon brothers and the rest of the development team will help them steer clear of some of the pitfalls any new publisher can face when entering this scene.

I do hope the game is a great success when it’s out, and the esports scene created around it only benefits the FGC as a whole, but I think people are building castles in the air and are bound to be hugely disappointed in the end. It’s better to temper your expectations, so if we’re wrong in the end and Riot does revolutionize the FGC, everyone is pleasantly surprised.