Riot Games To Self-Publish League Of Legends, Teamfight Tactics In Southeast Asia From 2023

Riot Games announced that it will be publishing League Of Legends and Teamfight Tactics in Southeast Asia and Taiwan starting January 2023.

The two games, developed by Riot, are currently published by local publisher Garena. Riot awarded them the publishing rights to launch the MOBA in the region back in 2010, and TFT when that launched.

After 12 years, the relationship between Riot and Garena will end as the former continues to make a presence here in Southeast Asia.

“We are grateful for Garena’s partnership and publishing support over the past decade. Their efforts have built an incredible community of League of Legends and Teamfight Tactics players across Southeast Asia, and the games’ success would have been impossible without them,” said Alex Kraynov, Managing Director for APAC, Riot Games.

“Over the past few years, Riot has also worked hard to expand our capabilities across the region, building strong local teams and a deep network of partners. We now feel that this is the right time for us to own the publishing of League and TFT in Southeast Asia, as part of our expansion into Asia Pacific.”

Riot will directly handle publisher duties for League and TFT in all of Southeast Asia except Taiwan and Vietnam. Riot will appoint Taiwan Mobile and VNGGames to publish League and TFT in Taiwan and Vietnam respectively.

The change in publisher means players of League and TFT in SEA will need to migrate their Garena account to a Riot ID. If players already have a Riot ID used for other Riot Games games like Valorant, data can be transferred to that existing account as well.

The account migration process will begin on November 18. You can find the FAQ on how the account migration works here. The Garena servers will be shut down by January 2023.

Also, Riot will also be operating the Pacific Championship Series and Vietnam Championship Series. Garena’s effort of growing the regional esports scene will be carried on by Riot.

Since League and TFT, Riot has self-published new games in the region, outside of Taiwan and Vietnam which they still rely on external partners. Valorant, League Of Legends Wild Rift (League but for mobile devices) and Legends Of Runeterra requires the use of a Riot ID and runs on Riot’s servers rather than Garena’s.

The change in publisher should unify all the games by Riot in SEA under one umbrella. Riot is also committing to “deepen its native presence and better provide hyper-localization to players in-market.” In other words, expect more targeted marketing that celebrates the local cultures of the various countries in Southeast Asia.