The developer and publisher of popular free-to-play MOBA League of Legends, Riot Games, announced the acquisition of Wargaming Sydney, an expert studio in live service games and network technologies. Following the acquisition, the studio will be renamed Riot Sydney and will help boost Riot’s development of live games and services. The companies didn’t disclose the acquisition price.
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The studio is experienced in creating next-gen game development tools and servers and on top of that, it’s known for ports to other platforms, adding and testing new features, and creating add-ons for existing titles.
Marc Merrill, Co-Founder, and President of Games at Riot said, “We are really excited to bring these talented developers and teams to Riot. The Rioters that have had the opportunity to work with members of the Sydney team are confident not only in the tech they’ve built over the years but, more importantly, in the people who’ve built it,”
Merril then added, “Naresh Hirani, Head of Development, Riot Sydney, and the dev teams at the studio have a long history of working in ways that will complement Riot’s ability to deliver value to our players and we really look forward to collaborating with them.”
The makers of League of Legends and Valorant will use the studio’s experience and expertise to augment existing titles’ performances across a variety of metrics, says the official press release.
Riot Sydney is one of the largest dev studios in Australia
The newly established studio will work under Riot’s Head of Development Studios Molly Mason-Boule‘s leadership. The team at Riot Sydney worked on Wargaming’s hit games such as World of Tanks and World of Worships and some other titles across both PC and consoles. The studio stands out as one of the largest game development studios in Australia and Riot intends to grow it further.
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Naresh Hirani, Head of Development, Riot Sydney, also commented about the acquisition and said, “Being part of Wargaming has been a phenomenal journey for us over the last 10 years, and it’s helped our studio grow and thrive,” and added, “We were really impressed by the cultural fit we’ve experienced in our dealings with everyone at Riot, and we can’t wait to bring our expertise in global development to the respective teams. I know I speak for the whole team when I say how excited we all are to become part of Riot and help deliver amazing experiences to players.”
Riot says the studio’s entire development team will now work for Riot Sydney and keep their jobs, but the publishing team will remain as part of Wargaming’s operation.
