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Riot co-founder Marc Merrill says there are sound reasons not to make a new MMO: the genre is difficult to build, player expectations are high, and its audience can be hard to define. Riot’s counterargument, as he described it in a September 2026 interview, is that it has spent 20 years building Runeterra and has the fans, team, revenue and technical capacity to take on the challenge. That is Riot’s rationale—not evidence that the game is certain to succeed.
Why Merrill says an MMO is a risky bet
Asked why Riot believes its MMO can succeed in a difficult market, Merrill did not dismiss the obstacles. “MMOs are insane: the scale; the expectations; the challenges; the argument that they’re niche,” he said, according to GamesRadar+’s October 2, 2026, report.
Those challenges compound one another. A large online world must be built and operated at scale, while players arrive with strong expectations about what an MMO should offer. At the same time, the genre’s audience may be perceived as niche, making it difficult to attract and retain enough players. Merrill acknowledges those concerns as real rather than claiming Riot has already solved them.
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Riot’s case for taking the risk
A world with years of development behind it
Merrill’s first argument is Runeterra itself: “One thing is that we’ve been building this world of Runeterra for 20 years, and pouring our hearts and soul into it.” Riot’s existing setting and its established fandom give the company a foundation for an MMO, but they do not establish how many fans will want to play one.
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He also described Riot’s threshold for taking on the genre as waiting until it had “a global fanbase of hundreds of millions of people.” That is Merrill’s explanation of the company’s decision, not an independently verified player count or a measure of demand for this particular game.
Resources and capability
In GamesRadar+’s account, Merrill also cited Riot’s strong revenue streams, team and technical capacity. These are advantages he believes make the undertaking possible; the interview does not independently measure whether they will be enough to meet the MMO’s development and operating demands.
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A defined audience, not a diluted game
Merrill argued against trying to appeal to everyone: “It’s a mistake to try and make something for everybody because you often end up making something for nobody by trying to make it too watered down.” That expresses a design principle, but Riot has not publicly identified the audience or play style this MMO will serve.
What the interview does—and does not—tell players
The Lemonade Stand interview, published September 30, 2026, prompted Merrill’s response to the host’s question: “So when you consider the fact that you’re launching an MMO into that market, why do you believe it will be successful?” His answer explains why Riot thinks the bet is worth making, not what the finished game will be.
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In the available coverage, core product details remain unspecified. It does not establish the MMO’s gameplay, release date, platforms or business model. Merrill also said there is “a lot of stuff that we’re doing that nobody knows,” while acknowledging: “I don’t disagree with a bunch of your concerns, right? There’s all sorts of smart reasons as to why we shouldn’t do what we’re doing.”
He named Riftbound among the ways fandom for Runeterra appears, but that physical card game is adjacent to the setting rather than evidence about the MMO’s features or prospects.
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How to read Merrill’s confidence
Merrill’s case is a clear explanation of Riot’s confidence: a world built over many years, an existing global fandom and company resources that Riot believes can support a demanding project. The other side remains unresolved: the interview supplies no game details with which to judge its design, and a fanbase for Runeterra is not proof that those fans will choose this MMO. Until Riot reveals more, his comments are best understood as a rationale for the bet, not a forecast readers can verify.
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