Riot Games announced that it will take over the publishing of League of Legends (League) and Teamfight Tactics (TFT) in Southeast Asia and Taiwan starting from January 2023.
This brings Riot’s total number of self-published titles in the region to five, including VALORANT, League of Legends: Wild Rift, and Legends of Runeterra.
Whilst self-published by Riot Games across Southeast Asia, Riot will appoint Taiwan Mobile and VNGGames will be appointed as the new publishers of League and TFT in Taiwan and Vietnam respectively.
League first launched in Southeast Asia in 2010, with Riot awarding the publishing rights of the game to Garena, a leading global online games developer and publisher.
Garena has grown both League and TFT from strength to strength, ushering in League’s milestone 10th anniversary in 2019.
Meanwhile, Riot Games has gone on to launch and self-publish new game titles with corresponding esports leagues, including VALORANT and the VALORANT Champions Tour, League of Legends: Wild Rift and Wild Rift Esports, and has also expanded its entertainment offerings including new EPs from virtual bands K/DA and Pentakill under Riot Games Music, as well as the release of animated series Arcane.
Riot has also since steadily expanded its capabilities with a new operating model that focuses on the fast-growing Asia Pacific (APAC) region, where the company has extended its publishing reach to include Japan and India.
Riot is in the midst of establishing local offices in key markets such as the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia, to deepen its native presence and better provide hyper-localization to players in-market.
We are grateful for Garena’s partnership and publishing support over the past decade. Their efforts have built an incredible community of League of Legends and Teamfight Tactics players across Southeast Asia, and the games’ success would have been impossible without them. Over the past few years, Riot has also worked hard to expand our capabilities across the region, building strong local teams and a deep network of partners. We now feel that this is the right time for us to own the publishing of League and TFT in Southeast Asia, as part of our expansion into Asia Pacific. As we further our focus on being the most player-focused game company in the world, we are excited to bring our players immersive and meaningful experiences, both in and out of the game. We are looking forward to seeing our players benefit from a unified Riot ecosystem and look forward to writing the next chapter with them.
Riot Games Managing Director for APAC Alex Kraynov
We would like to thank Riot and the League of Legends and Teamfight Tactics communities for their tremendous support and partnership in growing both games to the successes they are today in Southeast Asia and Taiwan. We are honoured to have worked together with Riot over the past decade to create the best possible experiences for players, and wish the team every success in this next chapter.
Garena Regional Producer of League of Legends Kevin Huang
What’s gonna happen next
As part of the publishing transition, Riot will launch new League and TFT servers, and Garena servers will cease operations by January 2023.
To ensure that players transfer and retain their existing account data in time, Riot and Garena are working closely on the account linking process that will open for all from 18 November 2022.
After players kick off the account linking process in November they can continue to play League via the Garena client until early January 2023.
However, starting in January, Riot servers will open and all players can access League on the Riot multi-game client.
Once players confirm their instructions and login for the first time via the Riot multi-game client in January, their game history will be fully migrated. Confirmed relaunch dates will be announced at a later date.
A full account migration tutorial and FAQ are now available on Account Migration Microsite. Players are encouraged to migrate their accounts as early as possible, to enjoy the full Riot experience with minimal disruption.
Players who migrate their account data early will also be rewarded with a suite of welcome in-game rewards. Personal data provided to Garena will not be migrated.
They are also encouraged to follow Riot’s new League and TFT social channels for more updates on the migration, and to stay abreast of all game news moving forward:
The publishing relationship between Garena and Riot will officially conclude in January 2023.
Once the publishing transition between both companies is complete, players can look forward to a suite of exciting welcome events and rewards, access to regional Riot publishing services including Localization, Billing, and Player Support, as well as local marketing activities and the continued publishing of League esports.
In the long term, players can expect to enjoy deeper content integration within the Riot ecosystem, with in-game and cross-franchise campaigns.
League and TFT will be published in Taiwan and Vietnam by Taiwan Mobile and VNGGames respectively, and players in those markets can continue to enjoy the suite of publishing services by both publishers as presently offered for Legends of Runeterra, VALORANT and League of Legends: Wild Rift.
