Its publishing arm, Riot Forge, oversaw the production of League of Legends spin-offs by other developers until its shutdown in January 2024.

Brandon "Ryze" Beck and Marc "Tryndamere" Merrill, the founders of Riot Games, became friends while roommates at the University of Southern California, where the two studied business.

[34] Riot acquired Hypixel Studios in April 2020, which they had been investing in over the previous eighteen months to help them publish Hytale, a voxel-based sandbox game.

The series was released worldwide in November 2021 on Netflix, and by parent company Tencent in China, and received a favorable critical reception.

[41] That same month, Riot also hired executives from Netflix, Paramount, and HBO Max to head development of film, TV, and music endeavors built around the company's intellectual property.

[45][46] In 2023, several games under the Riot Forge label were released, including The Mageseeker by Digital Sun, and Song of Nunu by Tequila Works.

[5] In 2012, Riot Games held its tournament at University of Southern California's Galen Center, offering $1 million in prize money.

[5] Riot Games has since held tournaments in Berlin, Seoul, Madison Square Garden in New York City, and the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

[5][60][61] Inc. cited the growth of the leagues and high-profile ownership as part of its reasoning for making Riot Games its 2016 Company of the Year.

[5] Following debates over whether pro players and coaches should have a greater share of Riot Games' esports revenue and concerns raised about the company making in-game changes prior to matches, the company issued an open letter in 2016 promising higher revenue shares and more collaboration with professional teams.

[5] In 2017, Riot Games held the League of Legends World Championship in China, with the finals taking place in Beijing.

[59] The same year, the company announced it would franchise its ten-team North American League of Legends Championship Series, which cost at least $10 million to enter.

The three locations were chosen as their time zones are each eight hours apart, allowing them to "work a full shift and then shut down and throw control for the next productions to the next facility."

[67] Kotaku speculated that this came from Riot's history of generally catering to "core" gamers both in products and in hiring practices, causing the company to favor male employees over females.

[67] Some Riot employees approached by Kotaku asserted these accusations were not true or were already being addressed; for example, according to the head of the platform, Oksana Kubushyna, efforts to improve the hiring process to be more diverse and inclusive toward women started nine months before article's publication.

[68] In the week following Kotaku's article, several more current and former developers came forward to speak on their own experiences at Riot, which included claims of sexual harassment and misgendering.

In response to a shooting at a video game tournament in Jacksonville, Florida, in August 2018, Riot planned to increase security at its upcoming events.

[73] In December 2018, Riot's CEO Nicolo Laurent sent an email to all employees stating that following the company's internal investigation, their COO, Scott Gelb, was suspended for two months without pay for workplace misconduct and would take training classes before his return.

[74] By January 2019, Riot updated the company values on its website, the first time since 2012, to reflect the apparent "bro culture" mentioned in the Kotaku report,[75] and by February 2019, had hired Angela Roseboro as the company's chief diversity officer to further help improve their culture by managing all activity related to diversity and inclusion as well as guiding the recruiting team in promoting inclusivity for new hires.

A proposed settlement was reached in the class-action suit in August 2019, which would include at least US$10 million in damages to women that had been employed at Riot Games over the prior five years.

[80] California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) had been investigating claims of gender discrimination at Riot Games since October 2018.

[84] In response, Riot said they found the US$10 million figure "fair and adequate under the circumstances" after analysis, but were remaining committed to reaching a resolution.

[94] Additionally, Riot established a 90-day plan starting in May 2019 to continue to address internal issues related to diversity and inclusion.

[96] About two weeks following the walkout, Riot reverted their position, saying that they will not change forced arbitration in existing agreements while the current litigation against the company is ongoing.

[99] In June 2020, Ron Johnson, Riot Games' global head of consumer products, shared a Facebook post that claimed George Floyd had been killed by police "because of his criminal lifestyle".

Shortly after the announcement, fans of the game, as well as Riot employees, criticized the company over social media and their streaming channels over the partnership, citing Saudi Arabia's record on human rights and the violent attempts to evict the Howeitat tribe from the area during the city's construction.

[104] Riot was criticized for marketing a new League of Legends character, Seraphine,[105] by creating an in-character Twitter account in which they alluded to her struggles with her mental health, including low self-esteem, anxiety, and impostor syndrome.

[105] Creative director Patrick Morales said that, although he was "proud" of the members of the team who worked on the campaign, it had "an unintended impact outside of the narrative we wanted to tell".

[105] After Russia launched an invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Riot Games did not withdraw from the Russian market after being asked to do so by Ukrainian politician Mykhailo Fedorov.

[107] In March 2022, Riot donated the proceeds from battle passes sold in several of its games, as well as profit from some in-game items, to humanitarian relief organizations operating in Ukraine.