#61 Pentakill Rock League Of Legends: How Riot Games Created A World-Leading Computer Game Music Strategy

Disruptors and curious minds! Get your joypads out, load up your games, and hit start! Because we've got a barnstorming episode for you on music strategy for video games from League of legends and former head of music at Riot Games, Toa Dunn. Let's unpack the box: You'll learn about: 🎮How do game companies like Riot Games think, build and execute their music strategy for games? How did League of Legends give you virtual bands like Pentakill and K/DA... and more importantly, why did they do it? 🎮 From Music, development, distribution and A&R, to marketing, storytelling. In-house musicians, DJs, bands, video games are the perfect example of interdisciplinary teams. And it is a complex and fine edge to get the balance and trust right, to get the strategy right. Without it there is no Pentakill, no e-sports, no Fortnite. 🎸 On this episode of Thinking on Paper, we speak to Toa Dunn, former head of music at riot games. For over a decade, Toa managed the music strategy and developed a new core business model around music experiences at Riot Games, helping to take #leagueoflegends - and the virtual bands created from characters in game - to 200 million monthly players. Now he is taking that vast well of experience and focusing on generating meaningful impact across entertainment and technology as a music and gaming strategist. Please Enjoy The Show. - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Disruptors and curious minds 0:36 The Book Club 1:29 Tech V Music 2:09 Our Sponsors Wripple 2:36 Who Is Toa Dunn? 4:15 Music Strategy For Riot Games 7:28 Music In Lacrosse (wtf?) 8:19 Hiring The Right Partners At League Of Legends 10:23 Understanding Your Players 12:23 Decision Matrix: New Songs or Back Catalogues? 13:53 Virtual Bands - LOL & Pentakill 19:39 Building Teams At Riot Games 25:05 K/DA 27:46 Building Trust Between Teams 33:58 How Music Is Shaping Video Games 39:25 Video Games Shaping The Future 45:14 Old Men V The Next Generation 49:25 Jazz Lessons And Improvisation 52:02 Final Thoughts - - - - - - - - - - - - - Quotes from the show “For more narrative driven games music can have more of an upfront kind of role in that experience. So the #musicstrategy can be quite different.” “We started off kind of trying to figure out what music's role could be in League of Legends.” “I approached it from the lens of how music could add to the experience.” “We had reached out to The Crystal Method and ended up producing a song to help launch and release this new character Lucian.” “I used to be nervous because you never know if the players are actually going to like what you're about to deliver until they get it in their hands and they play.” “Our first band was #Pentakill, a heavy metal band.” “We treated them like a real band and that was kind of an Experiment. But it resonated really well with our players.” “K/DA did not exist, there were many characters to select from so we went through this creative and strategic process to figure out the roles (and characters) of this band.” - - - - - - - - - - - - - This episode is brought to you by Wripple - Marketing’s On-demand talent platform. - Get your company matched with vetted freelancers in real time. - If you’re talent, get qualified opportunities with top brands. - Now featuring AI, Web3 and blockchain talent across verticals. - - - - - - - - - - - - - Jeremy is a futurist, writer, and nexus thinker working at the intersection of technology, entertainment and brand. He is the co-founder of Tunewelders and SoundObjects and creator of the Write To Know You program. Mark is a creative writer, futurist thinker and trainee Nexus thinker. He writes, researches and thinks about web3 and emerging technology for LVMH and Culture3. Links To The Show: Join the book club - http://www.thinkingonpaper.xyz/bookclub Connect With Mark - https://linktr.ee/markfielding Connect With Jeremy - https://www.jeremygilbertson.com/