Riot Games has thrived off a player-focused mentality with its flagship global sensation League of Legends. During its 10th anniversary in 2019, the developer announced several new game genres, including its first foray into the mobile gaming space.
At Adweek’s Elevate: The Future of Mobile Gaming summit, Riot’s global head of marketing for League of Legends Eric Krause discussed the gaming giant’s thoughtful approach to bringing a massive and passionate PC-first audience to the mobile platform.
Making the switch
Krause has been with Riot Games for more than five years, driving the company’s efforts to expand its massive PC-focused ecosystem into the world of mobile—one of the biggest challenges facing legacy gaming brands.
“For us, it’s about embracing trends as they come along, not predicting the future,” Krause said. “What we can do is really listen to our consumers. Right now, that’s doubling down on mobile while also hyper-serving our core audiences on PC.
“It’s about thinking of ourselves as a larger entertainment ecosystem,” he added. “It’s not just about forcing people to play the game but about finding different ways to express your fandom for the game—whether it’s by watching a movie, reading comics or playing a game.”
Putting authenticity first
On its quest to attract its fanbase to the mobile side of games, Riot has emphasized brand authenticity as it launched League of Legends’ next chapter, Wild Rift, on mobile in October.
“Consumers are smart,” Krause said. “They’ll notice changes. They’ll call you out. And that’s especially true for League of Legends with its massive global community that’s very vocal. So first and foremost, we needed to make sure we brought them onto this journey, that they feel Wild Rift is deserving of carrying on League of Legends and its name, that it isn’t a break in our promise to them or threatening their world as they knew it today, but an extension of it.”
Understanding your audience
As with any significant change, Krause noted, in order to get PC gamers to embrace mobile, it all came down to truly knowing—and understanding—the audience. Brands should ask themselves what their existing audiences crave and what motivates them, and then find creative ways to service them along with new audiences.
“Know your audiences. All of them. They have all different needs, and you have to be creative to get where you want to go to connect the dots between the problem and opportunity spaces that you see through that,” he said.
Embracing mobile
Krause said it’s not about merely copying what works on PC and applying that to mobile gaming. To be successful and convert PC gamers to mobile gamers, it’s about embracing mobile as part of everyday life and looking at how, what, when and where mobile content is being consumed.
“What are the technologies that mobile offers as a platform? Make use of it and have fun with it. Because when you have fun with it, guess what? Your consumers will also have fun,” he said.
