Riot Games’ recent Linkin Park Anthem release broke streaming records in the first five hours. In an interview with Downtown Music, Maria Egan, the Global Head of Music at Riot Games, reframes the idea of how music impacts audiences: “Music primarily serves as a community-building tool. It’s a memory machine. Where there’s music, there’s memories.”
The following recaps an interview with Maria Egan as part of Downtown Music’s series, The Music Industry Lives Here. Downtown Music is a company DMN is proud to be partnering with.
“Nothing can galvanize a community like music,” says the Global Head of Music at Riot Games, Maria Egan.
Despite the company’s creative spin on music management and remarkable ability to drive streams, Egan insists Riot Games’ core mission remains gaming. “We’re not trying to compete with music companies — not trying to be a music company,” says Egan, adding, “We end up being a music company because Riot is very unique with music.”
Egan explains exactly how Riot’s strategic goals keep gaming at the center. “We don’t put music out just to put music out. We’re not signing artists to a label. Everything we release amplifies something that’s happening in the games — and [is meant] to draw players back to the game.”
“League of Legends has been around for 15 years. Maybe people played it ten years ago and haven’t played in a while. [Now] they see Linkin Park, they’re like, oh yeah, I’m going to reinstall the game and get playing again.”
Egan talks about joining ‘this incredibly unique creative studio,’ Riot Games, and catering to a ‘captive audience that’s highly passionate’ about music. “No one builds community in the way Riot does,” she states.
“There’s an incredible mission and focus on Riot’s community and games. [When I joined in 2022] Arcane [Riot Games’ Netflix show] had just come out. I was obsessed with the TV show and the music.”
Now working in what she calls a ‘really interesting role’ with a supervision team and composer team, Egan is ‘making music and helping the team make music.’
“Gaming is a sophisticated form of entertainment and community building — especially now that we have social and multiplayer games. There’s a profound overlap between gaming fandom and music fandom.”
Egan talks about ‘the biggest music fans in the world’ — Valorant players — who ‘stream more music than almost anybody else.’
“We’re introducing hundreds of millions of players to some of the best new music in the world. And it’s my team’s job to curate those experiences and connect our products to music artists.”
Under the broad gaming umbrella, Egan lists many ways to engage gamers with music. “The soundtrack for our TV show Arcade, the thematics for alt universes that we create — the right player with experience plays most of their music around the game.”
For an audio-based game like Valorant, where listening to footsteps and sounds is a big part of gaining a competitive edge, Egan reveals gamers still consume music while playing.
“[Players are] turning off the in-game sound and listening to Spotify. We see dynamic and novel music consumption behaviors among serious gamers. Music is being used in interactive ways that are really different.”
Speaking about launching Linkin Park’s ‘Heavy is the Crown’ as the official anthem for the 2024 League of Legends World Championship, which broke all streaming records in the first five hours — for Riot Games and Linkin Park — Egan says, “Music primarily serves as a community building tool. It’s a memory machine. Where there’s music, there’s memories. [This is] going to be a peak memory.”
“We’ve been really fortunate to partner with artists at this kind of epic scale. From Imagine Dragons to Lil NAS X, New Jeans, now Linkin Park — they’re genuinely beloved artists for our players.”
“People look at Lil NAS X or Imagine Dragons or Linkin Park, and they might think we’re just chasing superstars. But Dan Reynolds plays League of Legends and is a hardcore gamer. Lil NAS X is invested in esports and very connected to gaming. Before he worked with us, he’d worked with Roblox. ”
Egan emphasizes that all these collaborations are highly strategic for Riot Games. “We’ve had the privilege of working with Linkin Park because Mike Shinoda was working on [Riot’s Netflix show] Arcane. Mike is a massive Valorant player, loves the League of Legends IP — and has been friends with Riot Games’ founders for a long time. All of the worlds meet at this moment — with this one artist that’s very authentically connected to our culture.”
“These aren’t random choices,” says Egan.
But Egan clarifies that Riot Games can work with any artist of any size, of any label, of any background. “We look for an artist that gets it. The process is all about looking for engagement and finding out where the fans are.”
“[An artist] manager will call and ask, how do I get my songs in your game? How do I get my artist working with League? [We say], maybe League is not the right game for your artists!”
“We find out what games [the artist’s audience] plays. We find out what games their fans play. If they don’t play games, canvas your fans. Figure out what communities your fans are a part of. Then go there and try to make that overlap.”
This wide array of working parts — data, insights, music, etc. — come together to form Riot Games. “And this is why Riot works with FUGA,” Egan says, adding, “FUGA has proved to be a label-in-a-box solution for us. They allow us to outperform.”
“We rely on partners like FUGA and the suite of services they build for companies like ours. They have a really great understanding of our complexity.”
“Resourcing, headcount, and strategy are always really leaning toward how the games get resourced and how the games get what they need to thrive and survive and grow.”
“So, what it would take for us to staff a label — that’s probably not the right way for Riot to build a music business.”
“Where we have a music catalog, we have music IP — we have pretty significant engagement with that music. It’s not small amounts of money — it’s millions of dollars a year. And we need trusted partners [to bring] that infrastructure that we won’t build for ourselves.”
“This partnership we have a FUGA is the best way to do a release because they know us, and just snap to our process.”
Egan explains that the wider Downtown ecosystem has ‘services and a great team that we can plug into as we need them.’
She adds, “We’ve had some big records come through the system. It’s exciting to see how the Downtown ecosystem is growing, and its global reach is important to us.”
About The Music Industry Lives Here: Downtown Music’s interview series allows powerful conversations with the voices shaping the music industry. To gain weekly access to exclusive interviews with music executives, artists, record label owners, and influential figures who drive the rhythm of the industry, join here.
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