League of Legends

League of Legends (LoL) is a multiplayer online battle arena video game developed and published by Riot Games for Microsoft Windows and macOS. Inspired by the Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne mod Defense of the Ancients, the game follows a freemium model and is supported by microtransactions. In League of Legends, players assume the role of a "champion" with unique abilities and battle against a team of other player- or computer-controlled champions. The goal is usually to destroy the opposing team's "Nexus", a structure that lies at the heart of a base protected by defensive structures, although other distinct game modes exist as well with varying objectives, rules, and maps. Each League of Legends match is discrete, with all champions starting off relatively weak but increasing in strength by accumulating items and experience over the course of the game. Champions span a variety of roles and blend a variety of fantasy tropes, such as sword and sorcery, steampunk, and Lovecraftian horror. Although the discrete nature of each match prohibits an overarching narrative in-game, the various champions make up a large and ever-evolving fictional universe developed by Riot Games through short stories, comics, cinematics, and books.

Riot Games was founded by Brandon "Ryze" Beck and Marc "Tryndamere" Merill, former business students and roommates at the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles in September of 2006. Citing a dissatisfaction with their post-college careers and the business practices of contemporary video game developers, they decided to create their own company dedicated to making free-to-play games that constantly evolved and developed through player feedback. Beck and Merill recruited Defense of the Ancients veteran Steve "Guinsoo" Feak, as well as several other experienced developers, to help them build and refine the game that would later become League of Legends. Development, originally under the name Onslaught, was difficult, owing to technical limitations and Beck and Merill's conflicting visions with many publishers at the time. They eventually partnered with Chinese conglomerate Tencent, which now fully owns the game and a majority share of the company's stock. Three years after the company's founding, League of Legends was released with 40 champions on October 27, 2009. Development of the game continued during its early years based primarily on player feedback from online forums. An abridged version of the game called League of Legends: Wild Rift for mobile and console, was announced on October 15, 2019.