Riot Games acquires Wargaming Sydney to boost development on live games

Riot Games has just made its latest studio acquisition – but not the kind you might be expecting. Rather than going out and picking up a new studio and IPs, Riot has simply bought out Wargaming's Sydney-based studio. That office will now become part of the Riot family and aid in the ongoing development of Riot's games. 

Wargaming Sydney was previously known as BigWorld Technology and worked on various MMOs and online games over the 2000s. As PCGamer points out, the studio was acquired by Wargaming in 2012, and from that point, it has primarily worked on games like World of Tanks, Warships and Warplanes. Now after this acquisition, the company will now be known as Riot Sydney and will be working to support the development and online services for League of Legends and Valorant, as well as Riot's company-wide technical team.

Speaking on the acquisition, Riot Games President, Marc Merrill, said that the company is “excited” to bring on a new group of talented developers. This particular studio is one of the largest in Australia, and many of those responsible for building various tools are still working there. With that in mind, the talent present at the studio seems to be the main thing Riot was interested in getting.

Riot Sydney will be headed up by Naresh Hirani, who previously worked as a Game Director at Sony, and then rose up the ranks to Head of Development at Wargaming Sydney. All employees will be retained post-transaction, which is always nice to see, particularly in an industry where developer turnover is very common.

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KitGuru Says: Riot has a lot of projects in the works. Not only will flagship games like League of Legends and Valorant continue to get new content, but new titles like Riot's League fighting game, and an upcoming MMO, are also on the way.  

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