Riot Games’ League of Legends has become an unstoppable juggernaut in the world of esports, and despite being a free-to-play game, it has become one of the most lucrative titles on the market today, bringing in over $1.3 billion in revenue in 2014 alone. On top of that, Riot Games recently became the only game developer listed on Glassdoor’s top 50 best places to work, coming in at number 18, which places it ahead of companies like Apple, Twitter, and Salesforce.

One of the ways Riot sets itself apart is in the way it focuses on the entire player experience, not just the gameplay itself. In a recent interview with Rock Paper Shotgun, Jeffrey Lin, Lead Game Designer of Social Systems at Riot, explained how Riot goes about developing features that improve player’s experience outside of the base gameplay mechanics.

“You might call our Social Systems team just the ‘Systems’ team or ‘Features’ team because we’re really focused on the League of Legends experience outside of the core gameplay,” Lin said. “But, in modern gaming, the experience outside of a core game is a very social experience that crosses many mediums – web, mobile, experiences like chat and streaming are everywhere and a compelling social experience around a game can be as important as within it.”

“We’re really urging teams to push the envelope and try their hand at riskier innovations”

“There’s two core strategies we use to pick our target areas of focus,” Lin added. “We often look to other games (especially games in other genres) to see where innovation is occurring. For example, is a game doing a really cool quest system, or a crafting system, and could that be incorporated in a natural way into League?”

In the upcoming 2016 season, Riot will be introducing a new crafting system to League of Legends, which will allow players to “pick up randomized loot at large discounts … [and] earn their way toward champions or skins for their in-game accomplishments. Free.” The system shares many similarities to other multiplayer games with crafting systems, such as Valve Corp’s team-based shooter, Team Fortress 2.

“Alternatively,” Lin continued, “we focus within on our own research and data and try to see what areas of the game we could try something innovative that no other game has tried before. In the past few years, we’ve leaned slightly more on the first approach, but this year, we’re really urging teams to push the envelope and try their hand at riskier innovations.”

Lin explained that one of Riot’s current focuses is improving League of Legends’ end-game experience, giving players clear goals to work toward.

“Games like World of Warcraft have an extremely rich end-game raiding experience that most players can aspire to experience and enjoy,” Lin Said. “What does a truly top notch end game experience look like for a MOBA? That’s something we’d like to try to answer one day.”

Image credit: Riot Games (c)