If you ask people, some may say the Arcane is one of the best video game series ever produced. The animation, story and voice acting are among the best. The show even sits proudly on IMDb with a 9/10 rating. However, according to Riot, it was a massive financial failure.
Also, read – New Fatal Fury Game Coming After More Than 25 Years
How Arcane Lost More Than $100 Million
According to Bloomberg, the production and marketing expenses for Arcane’s two seasons came to $250 million. According to the report, Netflix paid $3 million for each episode, and Tencent, the company that owns Riot, also paid $3 million for each episode in order to broadcast Arcane in China. That is less than half of the $250 million Riot spent to launch Arcane.
It was hoped that Arcane would encourage more League of Legends players, which would increase spending. According to Bloomberg, Riot was unable to leverage the popularity of Season 1’s Arcane-themed merchandise.
Riot maintained that even though the show wasn’t profitable, the event should be viewed as a success overall because the most recent month was one of the highest-grossing revenue periods in the company’s history.
It’s important to note that Merrill does not specifically refute any of Bloomberg’s findings. However, it is evident that he is adamant that Riot found the expensive Arcane to be worthwhile. In response to a Reddit poster who implied that the show wasn’t successful enough for Riot to produce other animated spin-offs of League of Legends, Merrill said, “Except it was.”
