Updated on 06/15: If nothing had been yet confirmed by riot Games or by anyone else regarding a mobile version of League of Legends, Steve Arhancet, the CEO of Team Liquid, has tweeted a photo of what seems to be the mobile version of Riot Games' MOBA.
Of course, this piece of information should be treated cautiously as it could be a fake or an emulated version of the game.
Original article
The press agency Reuters just revealed the news. According to several sources, Tencent and Riot Games have been working side by side for over a year to develop a mobile version of League of Legends. The idea isn't new, Riot Games had rejected it several years ago but would have finally yielded.
Tencent is THE Chinese leader of the mobile games market. The company releases the MOBA Honor Kings in November 2015 (mobile clone of LoL) and the game quickly becomes profitable. In 2016, the game is renamed Arena of Valor in order to be launched on the western market, but its release literally flops. One needs to keep in mind that the Chinese market is deeply different from the western one. The Asian public gives overwhelming support to mobile games, which by the way represented 57% of video game income in China in 2018 (against only 36% on the American market).
After the failure of Arena of Valor, Tencent would be aiming at launching a mobile version of League of Legends to conquer the western mobile games market (the Chinese market already being saturated by AoV and other similar offers). It would also allow the two companies to create move international tournaments.
As a reminder, Tencent became the majority shareholder of Riot Games in 2011 and finally bought the remaining shares in 2015. For now, neither Riot Games nor Tencent accepted to answer these rumors. Nevertheless, if this piece of information holds any truth, the mobile version of LoL should not be released this year. Business to follow.
Written by Charlotte "Cthulhu" Rognant. Translated from French by Millenium.us.org
After the Spring Split finals in Rotterdam, Riot Games has finally announced the location of the Summer Split finals. They will be held in Athens, Greece.
