Riot Games buy big part of Arcane animation studio

Riot Games have acquired a “significant” stake in Fortiche, the French animation studio they’ve worked with on League Of Legends music videos and the spin-off Netflix series Arcane. Riot’s unspecified share isn’t large enough to buy control of Fortiche, but they say “this agreement ensures we’ll be working closely for decades to come.” Fortiche’s League animations have been better than Riot’s games so yeah, go on, I’ll take more. They’re currently working on a second season of Arcane.

Fortiche are best known for Arcane, the unexpectedly good Netflix series which tells the origins of several League wizards. They’ve been working together for years, first partnering for trailers and music videos. They’ve done the videos for Imagine Dragons’ Warriors, the best League song, and K/DA’s Pop/Stars, the other best League song, as well as Enemy and others.

Now, Riot have invested an unspecified chunk of cash in Fortchie and thereby gained “significant non-controlling stake”. They’re business buddies.

“Fortiche has been an integral partner for a long time, but this agreement ensures we’ll be working closely for decades to come,” Riot CEO Nicolo Laurent said in today’s announcement. “We hold a high bar for everyone we work with and insist they understand players deeply and focus on them relentlessly, and from day one, Fortiche has exemplified Player Experience First. In working with Fortiche, we collaborate to push the boundaries of what’s possible and raise expectations for how games can be represented in media. As proud as we are of Arcane, we know the best is yet to come.”

Lord, grant me the strength to make it through a Riot press release without rolling my eyes at them going on about how all-important players are after years of neglecting their employees.

Arcane scooped a giant armful of trophies over the weekend at the 49th Annie Awards, a celebration of animation organised by the International Animated Film Association. Winning every category it was nominated in, Arcane scooped TV/Media prizes (as opposed to Feature) for: Best Writing, Best Voice Acting, Best Direction, Best Character Design, Best Character Animation, Best FX, Best Production Design, Best Storyboarding, and Best – General Audience. That’s 9 out of 31 total awards, most of which it wasn’t even eligible for. Sheesh.