Arcane was Riot Games' first TV show based on its massively popular League of Legends game. While Arcane was a hit with fans and critics, a new report about its financial returns might cause concern for any spin-offs.
The Netflix animated series ended in November after just two seasons. Audiences were invested in the story of Jinx and Vi, two siblings from the undercity who aspired to make their mark on Piltover.
The creators of Arcane were adamant that Season 2 was the end of Jinx and Vi's story, but not the end of their plans for future League of Legends adaptations.
Arcane's Financial Returns Cause Concerns For Future Spin-Offs
Arcane's production budget raised eyebrows earlier this year when it was revealed to be the most expensive animated series of all time. Initially, the budget for two seasons was reported to be in the $250 million range (although Riot Games' co-founder Marc Merill told Gizmodo later that the number was closer to 60-75% of that estimate).
More recently, Bloomberg released an article reporting that Arcane was a "financial miss" for the company. A spokesperson for Riot confirmed to the outlet that Arcane was not profitable, but that it added value to the company in other ways.
Another element of Bloomberg's report highlights that Riot has recently "scaled back" its TV and film plans, as well as pausing movement on its other League of Legends shows:
[Riot Games] scaled back its Hollywood ambitions in recent months, ending Arcane and pausing development on other adaptations.
This seemingly goes against recent quotes from Arcane's co-creator Christian Linke, who confirmed to The Direct that they have been "pretty aggressively developing" further products out of the Arcane IP.
In another interview with streamer Necrit94, Linke even revealed that one particular Arcane spin-off has been in development for around a year.
Are Riot's Future League of Legends Shows In Trouble?
With reports like this indicating that Arcane was not profitable for Riot, it naturally raises concerns about whether any future sequels or spin-offs in the League of Legends world have a chance of happening.
It's worth noting that many of Linke's quotes about future spin-offs were from interviews conducted before Arcane Season 2's release. However, Bloomberg's report does not specify when exactly Riot paused development on its future series and it's possible things may have restarted in the time since.
Merrill took to Reddit recently to address Bloomberg's report, commenting that "people who look at the world through a short-term, transactional, cynical lens, really struggle to understand Riot."
The co-founder added that Riot is more concerned with "delivering exceptional value" rather than the "short-term extraction of profits:"
"These people think we make things like Arcane to sell skins, when in reality we sell skins to make things like Arcane. Riot is a mission driven company where Rioters are constantly striving to make it better to be a player. That is why we have successfully done that over and over again across multiple games and now multiple businesses / mediums - games, sports, music & animation.
Do we get everything right? Nope. But we are not focused on the short term extraction of profits - we are focused on delivering exceptional value to our audience over the long term, again and again and again."
Merrill's comments seem to reiterate that Riot does not see Arcane as a loss, despite what it may have earned financially, which is a promising sign of the company's commitment to future adaptations.
With Linke adamant that more League of Legends spin-offs are in development currently at Riot, it seems likely that these shows will continue to move forward as planned. What is more likely to change is how Riot approaches the monetization of these adaptations, now that the company can take what it's learned from the release of Arcane.
Arcane is now streaming on Netflix.
