Episode Details

The dramatic tale of how Marc Merrill and Brandon Beck set out to make a better video game, and changed the industry with League of Legends.

Marc Merrill and Brandon Beck were typical college roommates. They went to class. They studied. They played video games. OK, a lot of video games.

But they also shared an avid interest in business, including the business of their favorite hobby. So while other gamers helplessly yelled at their screens when a glitch popped up or they felt burned by an expensive new sequel, Merrill and Beck thought up ways they could fix these shortcomings—ways they could make the industry and the gaming world better.

Today, the duo co-chair Riot Games, a video game company that places a unique focus on the needs and experiences of gamers. As their signature game League of Legends approaches its 10th anniversary, it operates in 19 languages worldwide, has inspired a line of Marvel comics, and holds competitive tournaments, with the latest championship drawing nearly 100 million viewers.

How does a free game that can only make money through selling virtual goods become such an enormous business? The answer is in the radical vision for gaming that Merrill and Beck strongly believed in, and were determined to realize—even if it meant challenging game publishers, investors, developers, and themselves.

As Merrill tells it, the story of how they pulled it off is legendary.

From Passion to Plan

“We had two shared passions,” Merrill says. “One being gaming—we were both incredibly hardcore gamers, and we loved playing games with each other—and the other being business.”

Merrill and Beck were studying business at USC and, although they spent every spare second gaming, they never imagined it would lead to a career. Even as they worked toward their “responsible, adult jobs,” they constantly bounced ideas off of each other, dreaming up ways to solve the problems that irritated them most as gamers.

After they graduated, and Merrill moved into a career in banking and Beck went into consulting, they continued the conversation in their West Hollywood apartment.

They, and many other gamers like them, found the current model of game development frustrating. The industry ran on new releases, sending gamers to retailers to buy endless $60 sequels to beloved games. Meanwhile, those who played the games didn’t actually want a brand new game or a sequel to what they were playing. Instead, they would have preferred updates, new features, and new adventures to appear in the game they already loved.

Was there, Merrill and Beck wondered, a way to create a game that first and foremost served the wishes of gamers, rather than the needs of retailers? One that could grow over time with the players?

They sensed that the video game industry was headed toward a significant disruption, and as the days passed, they began to realize they might be the disruptors.

“We, as passionate players of games, had identified that we felt really underserved at the time,” Merrill says, “and so had a whole thesis about how to go create a company that solved a problem that we deeply felt.”

So, when the twentysomethings weren’t working diligently away at their respective day jobs, they drafted a business plan for a new kind of game. But they were nervous about taking the plunge, and they wanted to be sure this was something they could see all the way through before moving forward. So they asked themselves three crucial questions.

Was there a demand for what they wanted to build?

Could they build it?

Would they be able to find the necessary capital to turn their dream into a reality?

The moment they felt comfortable answering yes to each of these questions, they charged forward and, in 2006, Riot Games was formed.

Establishing Credibility

The creation of something revolutionary is never easy.

“We’ve had many catastrop