When Riot Games announced their popular PC game, League of Legends, was coming to mobile, gamers were divided.

League fans doubted a mobile game was ‘truly’ League. Mobile game fans found League imposing and hard to get into.

We wanted to unite our divided community using the most dangerous space in gaming - the comments section.

To launch Wild Rift, we turned YouTube Live into a multiplayer story experience that weaponised YouTube comments.

Players could use the live chat functionality of the platform to battle Baron Nashor, a legendary League monster.

If they beat the beast, Wild Rift would be released in the app store.

Basically, we launched a game with a trailer you could play.

Interviews with gamers revealed a division in the community about a League of Legends mobile game. PC gamers thought that it would be low-quality and inauthentic. Mobile gamers thought the community was hostile and inaccessible.

To unite and win them over, we called on them to come together as a team to fight a common enemy - Baron Nashor. Defeating him would launch the game.

Instead of telling gamers what to think of Wild Rift, we let them experience a part of it. An authentic experience for protective fans, and a welcoming one for new players.

Implementation: To battle Baron, gamers didn’t just randomly mash buttons, they had to tactically choose attacks, mirroring Wild Rift’s gameplay mechanics. They also had to collaborate to unlock champions to trigger abilities that were critical to victory. Baron was rendered live to respond dynamically to player choices.

Timeline: In the 2 weeks leading up to the launch, we released teasers to build excitement and teach gamers how to play. The event itself took place hours before the launch, so it directly drove people to download the game. After the launch, we released in-game rewards to players for defeating Baron, continuing to drive players to the game.

Placement: The Battle was held on YouTube Live to be mobile-friendly and accessible across markets.

Scale: We united League players from six markets to experience a shared moment in League history.

The Battle of Baron drove a huge response amongst the League of Legends community from six different markets, with a staggering 1.65 million comments sent in-game in just ten minutes and over 459,000 having viewed the gameplay.

We also successfully converted the skeptics. Compared to other PC-to-mobile game launches, we beat sentiment benchmarks by 7x. We received an overwhelmingly positive buzz around the game’s launch and turned doubts into support for the new game.

The success of the activation helped to propel Wild Rift to the top of app stores around the world.

And let’s not forget we killed one seriously unlucky legendary purple super-predator.