Whether its in-game tech, business relations, or esports, Riot Games has done things nobody else has done before. Even as the company grows older and its seminal game, League of Legends, gets bigger, Riot still tries to invoke a sense of small-company adventure among its employees.
The latest effort to promote that spirit is a 48 hour hackathon called “Thunderdome.” Riot has hosted events like this in the past to demonstrate and build on its tech. They’re not meant to relate to business projects and are mainly intended for developers to be creative.
This time, its pushing the envelope by involving the community in a unique way—crowdsourcing the development of a game. No, Riot is not soliciting code from random techies. Rather, its soliciting community opinions as to what to do.
One of the first questions asked was “What type of game to build?” The community settled on a 2D platform adventure in the style of League’s Arcade skins. The initial results are stunning:
Because the event only lasts 48 hours, it’s actually close to wrapping up. But check into the Discord server and Instagram account for updates. Who knows—the game is looking good enough that it could actually ship one day.
