July 12th, 2008 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Companies & M&A | No Comments »
Two years after their entry into the mobile games market, Riot Games
has pulled in a $ 7 million investment from Benchmark Capital and
FirstMark Capital in order to continue and increase business.
At the same time, the company added two new board members, Mitch Lasky and Rick Heitzmann. Mitch Lasky has already gained a lot of experience in the mobile gaming market which should be pretty positive to the company.
Now, looking back at the mobile games industry, let’s hope Riot Games does better then Riot Entertainment ever did.
“The online game industry is ripe for new ways to bring products to market and new ways to acquire customers,” said Mitch Lasky, partner at Benchmark Capital. “Riot’s unique approach to building customer relationships and its innovative content strategy will make Riot an online publisher to watch.”
Riot Games is the brainchild of Beck, 26, and Merrill, 27. Beck was formerly a consultant at leading global business and strategy consulting firm Bain & Company, where he specialized in media, entertainment and private equity; Merrill previously managed corporate marketing at Advanstar Communications, one of the largest business to business media companies in the US. The two founders bring to the company the unique combination of an authentic love for games and business savvy.
“Tremendous opportunities continue to emerge in the online games industry as distribution and business models evolve,” said Brandon Beck, CEO, Riot Games. “As independent, direct-to-consumer developers with the vision of treating games as services, we are focused on delivering first-rate game experiences to highly targeted online audiences.”
Riot’s titles will combine premium online multiplayer session-based games with best-of-breed online services, powered by the company’s own leading technology platform. Beck and Merrill plan for the Riot platform to provide robust community services that surpass the current industry standard in tools such as matchmaking, stat-tracking, ladders and more.
“Online gamers are not shy about asking for what they want,” Marc Merrill, president and CMO, commented. “Riot is responding with a commitment to creating premium titles that focus on gameplay and replayability in order to build deep, ongoing relationships with gamer communities.”
