Meet Riot Games, the Video Game Studio Creating High Profile Music

A heavy metal band, a K-Pop trio, and a hip hop group, all created in the past six years

Video games and the music industry are no strangers to each other. From the emotional Gears of War trailer set to Mad World to the epic opening scene of Saints Row 3 where you and your gang rob a bank while Kanye West’s “Power” plays in the background.

Traditionally this relationship is very one-sided. The video game company approaches an artist for permission to use their music either in a trailer or in the game. Rarely is the game studio or publisher putting out their own music that competes with the music industry, unless that studio is Riot Games.

Meet Riot Games

Riot Games is no small operation, as they made a staggering $1.8 billion in 2020 and employ nearly four thousand staff.

For over a decade they have built and supported the uber-successful, trendsetting League of Legends, a MOBA that’s played by over a hundred million players. In 2019, they announced a myriad of new titles on the way, including 2020’s smash hit Valorant, but League continues to be their cash cow.

This game's success and revenue-making ability should start to paint a picture as to how a video game company can afford to break into the music industry. However, the “why” isn’t immediately obvious.

Like any game developer, Riot has its own sound design team responsible for making sure the game's sound is in harmony with the emotion of its key moments and acts as an aide to how you interface with the medium.

League of Legends is overflowing with great sound design, from the ‘lock-in’ sound that plays when a game has been found, to the individual sounds crafted for each individual character, to which there are over a hundred characters who each have at least four unique spells. However, the actual game part of League of Legends, where you and nine others are fighting in an arena utterly void of music as it would be pretty distracting.

So where does the music come in?

The art of the announcement

Being free to play, League of Legends keeps itself afloat on in-game transactions.

You can purchase new characters, various cosmetic additions that change the look and feel of the character, and other in-game items.

Over the past decade, Riot has churned out hundreds of characters and thousands of skins. In the early days, the announcements took the form of multi-minute long “Champion Spotlight” videos where a new character or skin was shown off the same way you walk through a recipe: high information, low emotion.

But that all changed in 2013 where a champion was announced by way of a music video. Riot launched the Harley Quin-esque character Jinx with her own song performed by Agnete Kjølsrud from the band Djerv.

The music video, currently sitting on 97 million views, did well and it’s clear Riot games never looked back. Since then they have announced new characters over a myriad of bombastic mediums spanning music videos, mini-movies, and in-game events.

But the music didn’t stop there.

Meet Pentakill

In 2014, Riot Games stepped into their first (but not last) attempt at creating a fictional musical act.

They created Pentakill, a heavy metal band made up of five champions from within the game: Karthus, Mordekaiser, Olaf, Sona, and Yorick. The name is sourced from the act of getting five kills in a row.

They released the album Smite and Ignite consisting of eight tracks and featured cameos from the likes of Mötley Crüe and Nine Inch Nails. The album genuinely rocked as it paid homage to a myriad of sources like glam rock, the early days of Metallica, and Iron Maiden.

The album was released as a promotion for a series of “metal” looking skins available only for the members of the band.

In 2017, the band reformed and added a sixth member, Kayle, and launched their second album Grasp of the Undying which charted number one on the iTunes metal charts.

All six members got new Pentakill skins in-game available for purchase and in 2020 it was announced a third album was on its way.

Meet Imagine Dragons

Despite esports, now, being a multi-billion dollar industry, it spent many decades bubbling away quietly in the background offering minor prize pools to small audiences.

League of Legends meteoric success in the early 2010s was undoubtedly a driving force behind where esports is today.

While the first League of Legends World Championship in 2011 had a prize pool of a hundred thousand dollars and was only watched by two hundred thousand people, the 2012 championship had a prize pool of a million dollars and was watched by over a million people.

By 2014 the League of Legends World Championship was the esports event of the year and Riot knew it.

They approached up-and-coming musicians Imagine Dragons to create the theme song for the World Championship. This was the same group that had seen their music used for an Assassin's Creed game and a Transformers movie.

The band produced Warriors which they debuted in September 2014 and then performed the song live in the Seoul World Cup Stadium to a total audience of 27 million people.

It’s clear Riot still likes what Imagine Dragons created for them as in 2020 they collaborated with producer 2WEI to create a dramatic remix of Warriors.

Meet K/DA

Despite the renown of Imagine Dragons and the continued success of the game, it wasn’t until 2018 that Riot hit gold with a fictional K-pop band known as K/DA. The name is a nod to the in-game short-hand for a player’s Kills, Deaths, Assists.

Just like Pentakill, K/DA is visually comprised of characters from within the League of Legends universe: Ahri, Akali, Evelynn, and Kai’Sa.

The characters were voiced by two American singers, Madison Beer, Jaira Burns, and two Korean, Cho Mi-yeon and Jeon So-yeon (both members of girl group (G)I-dle). This was a clear acknowledgment by Riot that the girl group represented their two biggest audiences, America and South Korea.

The group was debuted on stage at the 2018 League of Legends Championship in front of 90 million viewers as they performed their new single Pop/Stars on stage while their virtual representatives danced holographically alongside them.

The song became an instant hit, its seamless mash-up of Korean and American pop stylings something bands like Black Pink are excelling at today.

Reaching 100 million views on YouTube in its first month, the song also climbed the Billboard charts, and today is sitting on over 400 million views (I can be credited for at least 50 million of those views).

The four characters in-game also received their own K/DA skins available for players to purchase.

In 2020 the girl group reunited to release an EP titled All Out containing five tracks.

Of note is the track More which debuted late October 2020 and was also present at the 2020 World Championships. It added a fifth member to the group, the games 152nd champion, Seraphine, voiced by Chinese singer Lexie Liu. The song is currently heading towards another 100 million views on YouTube, and its entry on both the Billboard Global 200 and Global Excl US makes it the first title by a virtual band to do so.

Meet True Damage

Following on from the success of K/DA, Riot established Hip Hop group True Damage, the following year. The name is yet another in-game reference.

The group represents five in-game champions; Akali, Ekko, Qiyana, Senna, and Yasuo. The keen-eyed among you will recognize that Akali was also in K/DA and Jeon So-yeon reprises her role.

Debuted at the opening ceremony of the 2019 World Championships, the group performed their single Giants alongside their virtual counterparts. The song has gathered over 150 million views on YouTube so far.

As expected the launch of the band coincided with the release of new in-game cosmetics. Of note this time around is Qiyana’s skin is a collaboration with fashion label Louis Vuitton.

What’s next for Riot

Despite not inventing a new musical act for the 2020 World Championships, instead opting to create the single Take Over featuring Jeremy McKinnon from A Day To Remember, Riot is adamant that they have a shot as a fully-fledged music label in the future.

They’ve indicated that we can expect more music from Pentakill and K/DA as well as their obvious continued partnerships with established bands. It will be very interesting to see what Riot comes up with next!

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