Riot Games founders Marc “Tryndamere” Merrill and Brandon “Ryze” Beck will step back from managing the company to focus on making games.
“We haven’t been on this journey alone of course, and have been lucky to assemble a very capable and driven leadership team of gamers over time who believe in our mission just as much as we do,” they wrote Wednesday. “In our new roles we’re going back to focusing on what is ultimately the most important thing we do: making great games.
Dylan Jadeja (CFO), Scott Gelb (CTO), and Nicolo Laurent (President) will take over the company’s operations.
“All three are longtime Rioters who have been integral to shaping our company’s vision, strategy, and culture over the last decade,” Merrill and Beck wrote. “We are thrilled to be able to have a great team of such capable leaders and look forward to working with them to finally put the ‘s’ in Riot Games.”
As League of Legends’ popularity blossomed, the two founders wrote, their responsibilities shifted from creating the game to managing Riot, a company that expanded to have 20 offices around the world. They described that they will be going back into the “trenches” of game development.
As for their next project? Merrill and Beck didn’t specify on what it could be, but Riot Games acquired the rights to free-to-play fighting game Rising Thunder last March, and there’s been no developments about it since then. That would be an interesting place to start.