Riot Games opens 4 new offices across SEA

Gaming company, Riot Games has unveiled its plans to set up offices in Southeast Asia, as it seeks to expand its market in the region. Riot Games previously ran the Southeast Asia business out of its Singapore hub office and had an office in Japan. With a focus on hyper localisation, the gaming company will be opening new publishing offices in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, India, and the Philippines.

To lead the publishing efforts in APAC, the gaming company has brought in former manager director of emerging markets, Alex Kraynov (pictured below) as the new managing director for APAC. According to Riot Games, this move will also see a diversification its operating model, with publishing being at the forefront. Other business pillars alongside would include games, entertainment, eSports and enterprise. Since re-establishing its Singapore HQ in 2018, Riot Games has significantly grown its workforce and is now doubling down on publishing in the region, said Riot Games. As a result, this has led to the decision to hire country managers in key markets such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, India, and the Philippines. 

As managing director for APAC, Kraynov told MARKETING-INTERACTIVE that Riot Games was focused on building out its teams this year. With this move, it would be able to better hyper-serve players and local communities, while enhancing its hub capabilities. "With Riot Games' new operating model, our teams have also been restructured to focus on respective game genres, so these subject matter experts can focus fire on optimising the product experience, be it games in the MOBA or Action genres, or Esports itself," he explained. Kraynov also added that the company will continue to build exciting programmes around upcoming game beats and esports leagues, so players have plenty to look forward to.

Currently, the Singapore office has over 40 team members, with some of the team members belonging to other pillars such as eSports or enterprise. Eventually, the Singapore publishing hub will have close to 80 team members, said a company's spokesperson to MARKETING-INTERACTIVE. Whereas in Malaysia and Indonesia, the company intends to focus on filing four to five critical roles in brand marketing, business development and community. This move was to strengthen core publishing capabilities, the company's spokesperson added. Afterwhich, the company will extend its hiring process further, Eventually, it is looking to hire more than 10 positions. 

When asked the type of skills the company is looking, the spokesperson explained that Riot Games was always in search of player-focused subject matter experts from whom they could learn a thing or two from. "Publishing, in particular, delivers experiences directly to Riot Games' players through marketing and communications, tech, localisation, player support, business development, insights and product management, among others," the spokesperson added. 

Attempting to beef up its physical presence in its key APAC markets, Riot Games has also had a series of regional and local appointments. On the regional front, it saw the appointment of Shinji Komiyama as director of country management, Jennifer Poulson as head of publishing partnerships, Alasdair Gray as head of marketing, Derek Winder as head of business development. Meanwhile, on the local front, the company has appointed Resha Pradipta as country manager for Malaysia and Indonesia, Joel Guzman as country manager for the Philippines, and Yasushi Fujimoto as the country manager for Japan. 

Aside from the names mentioned above, the gaming company also saw the addition of Francine Li in November last year, as its VP for brand management and marketing. In this newly created role, Li reports to CMO Jason Bunge. Riot Games told MARKETING-INTERACTIVE that the role was created to keep up with the company's product portfolio. As Riot Games continues to expand, the global marketing team has developed a need to increase the breadth of its marketing approach with the intention of reaching new players and ensuring current players continue to have a great experience in-game. While these appointments were made, Riot Games is still hunting for a country manager for Thailand and India respectively, as well as a head of regional tech.

Beyond the gaming space, Riot has also released Netflix series, Arcane, as well as expanded efforts within the Riot Games Music group with the releases of royalty-free music under Riot Sessions, and virtual metal band Pentakill’s comeback EP, Lost Chapter. Riot has also continued expanding its space within fashion, working with brands such as Uniqlo to release a collection of League of Legends UT t-shirts. More recently, Riot also collaborated with Filipino urban streetwear brand Team Manila on an exclusive capsule collection to celebrate the launch of Neon, the first Filipino agent in its tactical shooter VALORANT.


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