I never thought this day would come. But Riot Games has formally announced that they are going to self-publish both League of Legends and Teamfight Tactics in the SEA and Taiwan region starting next year January 2023.
It took exactly 4 years, 6 months, and 17 days ago since I reported that Riot Games has publicly announced (through Christian Tran) their trust of Garena (and Globe) in handling their games in the region.
However, it seems like, just like the mad titan Thanos, Riot Games will now do this themselves with this announcement.
There are a few caveats however to the announcement. Number 1, while Riot maintains that it is self-publishing in Taiwan and Vietnam, they have appointed Taiwan Mobile and VNGGames as new publishers of LOL and TFT in Taiwan and Vietnam.
The release also mentions:
Riot is in the midst of establishing local offices in key markets such as the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia, to deepen its native presence and better provide hyper-localization to players in-market.
What does this mean however to our current accounts? Here’s what’s in the pipeline for us players.
What happens next?
One of the biggest concerns players like us have is with our accounts moving forward. Riot has announced that they will launch new League and TFT servers. While Garena servers will cease operations by January 2023. Riot and Garena is working closely for a smooth player transfer by adding an account linking process for Garena players to the new servers which opens starts on November 18, 2022.
Players can still play with their Garena accounts up until early January 2023. However, starting that month, Riot servers will open and all players can now access League/TFT on the Riot multi-game client. Once players confirm their instructions and login for the first time via the Riot multi-game client in January, their game history will be fully migrated. Confirmed relaunch dates will be announced at a later date.
You can check out the full account migration tutorial and FAQ here. We are all encouraged to migrate their accounts as early as possible, to enjoy the full Riot experience with minimal disruption. Players who migrate their account data early will also be rewarded with a suite of welcome in-game rewards as a bonus.
Just as an FYI, Personal data provided to Garena will not be migrated.
Players are also encouraged to follow Riot’s new League and TFT social channels (click on the links per game to be directed there.)
Riot promises that we can look forward to a suite of exciting welcome events and rewards, access to regional Riot publishing services including Localization, Billing, Player Support, as well as local marketing activities and the continued publishing of League esports.
In the long term, players can expect to enjoy deeper content integration within the Riot ecosystem, exciting in-game campaigns and cross-franchise campaigns to enjoy.