Bloomberg called “Arcane” a commercially unsuccessful project, but Riot Games co-founder Marc Merrill disagrees

Bloomberg published an article claiming that the animated series Arcane based on the League of Legends universe was a commercial failure. The publication noted that around $250 million was spent on the development of the show, making it one of the most expensive projects on Netflix. However, according to Bloomberg, the release of the series did not result in an increase in the number of players for League of Legends and did not motivate active users to spend more money on microtransactions in the game.

Some Riot Games employees expressed dissatisfaction with the redirection of internal resources to the production of Arcane, believing that the project negatively impacted the League of Legends universe. However, the executive producer of the game, Paul Bellezza, commented to Bloomberg that the company did not expect a huge commercial success for the first season of the series, which is why they were unable to immediately create more in-game activities. For the second season, Riot Games was better prepared, and League of Legends continues to bring in millions of dollars from microtransactions.

In response to this article, Riot Games co-founder Marc Merrill commented on Reddit, explaining that journalists misunderstood the company’s strategy. According to Merrill, Riot does not create projects like Arcane to sell in-game skins. Instead, the company produces such projects to enhance the experience for players, and the sale of cosmetic items is just a part of the strategy.

Arcane was successful in the eyes of the audience, and that means it was successful for Riot Games, Merrill concluded.