Riot’s $250 Million ‘Arcane’ TV Series Was a Netflix Hit, Financial Miss

When Riot Games first decided to make a TV show inspired by its hit game League of Legends, the video game publisher took the unusual step of developing and financing the project on its own. While most of its peers license titles to Hollywood studios that have experience making TV, Riot wanted to maintain full control.

The company envisioned the show, which streams on Netflix, as a gift to fans, one that would also drive more people to play League of Legends. Now 15 years old, that game remains one of the most popular titles on the planet, but its player base is slowly shrinking. Riot believed the show would be the first of many produced by its new entertainment division, which would transform the Los-Angeles based company into the next Walt Disney Co.

But Arcane went way over budget. Riot invested unprecedented sums and years developing the project. In addition to the production costs, the company put tens of millions of dollars more into marketing the show, as well as on a campaign for awards. All told, Riot spent about $250 million on two seasons of the series, League of Legends Executive Producer Paul Bellezza said in an interview with Bloomberg. Netflix paid Riot about $3 million an episode to air the show, with Tencent Holdings Ltd., the Chinese technology giant that owns Riot, paying an additional $3 million for the rights to show it in China, according to Variety. Those payments amounted to less than half the total cost.