On July 10, 2008, it was announced that Riot Games, founded by a pair of industry veterans with a long list of credentials, had secured $7 million in funding from Benchmark Capital and FirstMark Capital to work on a new, as-yet-unnamed title. New board member Mitch Lasky had this to say about the transaction:
“There’s never been a better time for an online games company to succeed. It’s one of the truly dynamic sectors of the games business. I believe that Riot is creating a unique offering for a unique customer.”
Sadly, Lasky’s prediction was incorrect, as the intervening years have seen online gaming activity drop to nearly zero — what with the collapse of World of Warcraft, which was “killed” multiple times by competing MMORPGs — and Riot Games never amounted to anything. That’s not hard to understand, considering some of the radical ideas Lasky was floating around, like:
“New business models, like advertising, subscriptions, micro-payments, and the sale of virtual goods offer flexibility over the traditional retail model.”
It’s tempting to speculate what Riot’s little game would have played like. Sadly, we’ll never know.
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8 Readers Commented
Join discussionFunny to see people missing the sarcasm. Da Bomb to Jason Winter.
I know sarcasm doesn’t translate that well through text but some of these comments are pretty amazing.
When people simply don’t understand why ” is used. People Read and forget to comprehend.
What do you mean wow was killed multiple times, i don’t think you know what you are talking about lol.
lol who ever wrote this for your site has no clue what he or she is talking about. Just take this garbage down cause its completely false.
Is this a joke article? Online gaming nearly zero? Wow defeated multiple times? Wow is still the top played mmo.
True really pointless
Was this article really needed?