League of Legends is the largest PC game in the world enjoyed by over a hundred million people worldwide. Over time, the game has developed a deep IP with beloved character stories. Despite outside interest in adapting League of Legends to film and television, Riot Games opted to develop the show and the experience around the show itself completely in-house. In the pursuit of creating the most player focused television show ever created, Riot Games approached the challenges of bridging the cultural divide between games and Entertainment by challenging every convention about how a show should be consumed by players.

In this experience, Riot not only wanted to wow players with best-in-class animation and storytelling, but also wanted to give players a glimpse of a different future where their game became part of their watch experience.

The RiotX Arcane event spanned over 3 weeks, kicking off with an unprecedented Premiere featuring a simultaneous, interactive global broadcast of the first Arcane episodes. These events broke convention by incorporating community influencers as co-streaming partners all over the world giving players direct access to previously closed Premiere events. It was also the first Netflix series to allow co-streaming.

Traveling pop-up OOH expositions in 6 cities worldwide followed the storytelling arc of the television series, drawing in new viewers and exciting fans with clues on what was to come in the show.

For the Season Finale, the RiotX Arcane event launched another unprecedented experience, Undercity Nights, which blended live theater, live music, and gaming.

Riot strategically selected distribution partners recognized for their audience reach and high-quality services, who were also aligned to delivering a global, synchronized launch for its players and fans. Debuting simultaneously on Netflix globally as well as Tencent Video in China, Riot created a shared moment for its global fanbase, placing the traditional, closed-door Premiere experience back into the hands of its most loyal fans.

Arcane was released in three separate “Acts”, spanning over the course of three weeks. This allowed fans enough time to continue the conversation and evangelize the moment, helping propel it to the top of the Netflix charts and reach broader entertainment audiences, a challenge Riot anticipated and planned to overcome.

One strategic layer down, Riot leveraged the intervening two weeks between release days to create a unique trans-media engagement behavior. Riot Games intentionally aligned its in-game experiences by creating Arcane related content, releasing alongside the episode.

Act 1 (Nov 4-7): Arcane's Global Premiere brought talent and fans together in-person and virtually for a first-of-its-kind interactive viewing experience, with a 70ft tall, geodesic dome housing over 30 projectors & 360-degree creative viewing extension of the show. Broadcasted by influencers on Twitch and simultaneously released globally on Netflix & Tencent Video, the event netted over 8 million global viewers online and #1 on Netflix worldwide.

Act 2 (Nov 8-14): ‘Hextech Expo’ storefronts appeared across six cities, bringing the magical technology of Arcane to fans around the world. AR interactive windows and lenses offered the opportunity to "test" out tech from the show.

Act 3 (Nov 15-21): Season Finale/Undercity Nights. Riot invited players and influencers to LA for an Arcane-themed event, where attendees could be a part of a fully acted, theatrical experience. All activities were streamed live on Twitch, including music performances and live talent interviews.

Fan response to these shared experiences shattered records across viewership and online engagement. In addition to hitting the #1 spot on Netflix’s Top 10 charts in over 50 countries, over 10 million total hours of Arcane content was viewed on Twitch across Premiere and Undercity Nights events. Related social content drove over 130 million views on owned channels and user generated content drove a staggering 2 billion+ views on TikTok alone.

This resulted in 3+ billion hours of games played in November 202; the equivalent of every American playing Riot's games for 9 hours. This was an increase in play time by over three times of the average American gamer, further equating to 22.7 minutes played by everyone on Earth.