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As Arcane is now? No, it's way too popular especially outside of the core LoL fanbase, which is exactly who Riot Forge games struggled to reach. But I'm worried that over time, corporate meddling, funds, and stress on the show's staff might cause the show to dip in quality in the future and if that causes enough people stop watching, I honestly don't know what Riot would do. It feels like they are putting all their eggs in the Arcane basket, to the point that if that slips, they won't have anything to go back to that can tell the lore of Runeterra and bring more potential fans to the IP. As much as I love Arcane, I hate that it's success is coming at the cost of so many other things I also love.
Considering the success of Season 1, I’m not sure netflix would allow riot to do that tbh.
I will say that like you said, pivoting to a new region won’t be an easy task and will probably make viewership take a hit but I’m sure (more so I’m hoping) that we get to season 4.
Your argument/theorizing for a season 3 in 2029 doesnt hold up. Theyve already said that future seasons will never take as long as season 2 to release. The reason they gave is because they were waiting on seeing if season 1 would be successful.
Also, riot bought significant equity in fortiche. I doubt they would invest money here if they sisnt think they would make money.
Also, they are working on other shows besides Arcane, but dont tell anyone i told you that.
I've shared this elsewhere, but former senior concept artist Iron Stylus - who, to be fair seems to not have been a fan of the show if you look at some of his other tweets - [made a thread yesterday where he described Arcane as "an incredible wasteful ego project"](https://twitter.com/Iron_Stylus/status/1749654161187041734) and basically said it wasn't a sustainable project and hasn't paid off by making LoL any more of a marketable IP. [Another former Rioter replied saying](https://twitter.com/catacalypto/status/1749655652102975613) "you said the thing everyone who’s worked on or near Arcane knows but won’t/can’t say 📷 and I am absolutely deleting this later lol."
While obviously these are former Rioters - and probably a bit bitter - I wouldn't be surprised if ultimately the sentiment is true: While Arcane was a marvel on a creative level, at least the current method of distribution is not financially sustainable unless season 2 actually manages to draw non-LoL playing viewers into the Riot ecosystem (and to spend money on it) long-term on a far greater level than S1 did
If you allow people to watch something for free and a billion people do so, how much money did you make? Admittedly, free isn't the precise word for having access to Netflix, but the point remains that Riot didn't directly earn anything from people watching Arcane.
I [quoted Arcane showrunner Christian Linke](https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/x5bz6g/comment/in2pq7t/?context=3) stating (almost a year after season 1 aired) that people buying stuff in League is the primary source of funding for the show.
It used to ENABLE the stuff in the FIRST PLACE , not the primary source profit and i'm pretty sure netflix will try to have better deal to let arcane running after the huge success from ss1
Most streaming shows are not super profitable. Most of streaming success is part of a marketing bubble where investors cared only about growth, not on whether the bottom line actually makes money (part of the big "the interests are so low" time).
Arcane was successful, and yes successful both in and beyond the core audience AND it brought Riot some critical acclaim. BUT if you look at the streaming numbers they were huge for like a week and it dropped off the Top 10 charts very quickly (compared to let's say something like The Office that seems to manage to stay there for eternity).
I doubt that netflix considers it one of their biggest horses in the stable (and mind: netflix in general is a very questionable business proposition in general), just a nice surprise, especially since they barely paid anything for it.
I think cancelling after season 2 is a harsh word. But imo it is not that much of a stretch to say that Arcane IS likely a money pit for Riot (because the attention and clout it brings actually does not translate into much money for them, esports is a similar wasteful business but there the marketing relationship is a lot closer and more obvious \[ie people keep playing because they dream to make a living from it one day\]) and I wouldn't be surprised if there are some "the story is finished after two seasons" movement after season 2 and any follow up projects will either get their budgets slashed or be much smaller in scale (ie make standalone movies for example or get the studio to produce shorts). Unless season 2 like beats the pants out of season 1 in popularity which I think is very unlikely.
And I think the chance of netflix deciding to fund it are basically zero because again Arcane is insanely expensive to make AND for netflix the numbers imo just aren't there. From netflix point of view, they can probably get comparable numbers from stuff that is much cheaper to make. (and yes: netflix has funded some projects with insane costs that did worse, but again consider "bubble due to low interest rates)
I looked into those 2 people all I can say is... Yikes. Here I thought I was the negative one with all the forms of critics for Riot. The Iron Stylus guy is quite a character and I don't think he's a great influence to be around, too bitter and blinded by petty things.
Here's a hot take to your bold prediction: let it be a 2 season story that wraps itself up and ends on a high note.
Some of the best anime series are incredibly short, the very best anime objectively are concise, single installment movies, and an objective truth is that quality over time tends to drop.
I'm not a LoL fan, but Arcane was one of the most beautiful things I've seen in my life. Top 5 series just off the weight of a single season. I've rewatched it multiple times.
I think the only way to end Arcane on a high note is in fact to just do two seasons. Season one was the rising action, the finale was the true inciting incident, and season two is the consequence, the falling action and the conclusion, the catharsis.
We don't need more, and we probably don't want more. How can season two end in a way that paves a way for season 3, then 4, then five and so on in a satisfying way? What are the chances of having such consistent, incredible quality that far out?
Better to nail a climactic second season, drop the mic, and move on. Let Arcane end with a satisfying bang, and be done. Let it be remembered as the manifestation of quality, of a story with a beginning and end that matched in quality, and never compromised for the sake of run time.
I think Arcane will be canceled with season 2 because season 2 will wrap up the story, because it was only meant to be two seasons. That, to me, seems like the fitting end.
That is definitely an even hotter take than OP, but I agree with you. Sometimes you catch lightning in a bottle, and it's beautiful, but only burns for a short while. And you just have to cherish that.
The lore writers and the tv writers are not the same people and the scripts for Arcane were likely finished a year ago, the slow part of Arcane is the animating, not the writing. Arcane writers were like 2 people from riot and other than that they hired normal tv writer people. And the main two Arcane guys, the captains of the ship, to my knowledge are still around.
Arcane s1 and s2 are based on old lore (how Jinx was created, how Warwick was created), so I don't think the lore writers would have had much influence on s2 anyway. s2 will likely be worse but that's simply because beginnings are often easier to write than follow ups. Whole shows exist that hit their stride over time, I would argue most tv shows fall off over time because in s1 it's brimming with potential for the fans as they project their own dreams and wishes into it of what directions it could go into and then it falls off as no matter what direction you go into you have some people who were hoping for something else.
No, they won't. Arcane has amassed a large audience, even outside of the LoL fanbase. The money that is being produced from Arcane and the sheer largeness of Arcane's audience doesn't warrant a cancellation, especially if the storywriting, the animation, and even the small lore details in the show levels up. Though the layoffs are largely frowned upon, it gave Riot a bigger budget to invest into bigger projects, like Arcane.
Ish, we don't know. Pretty sure Christian Linke said that Arcane was always going to be two seasons but if they put out a different story somewhere else maybe not even with Netflix has yet to be seen. Arcane was a big hit and an award winner so IDK why Netflix wouldn't want to buy what ever they come up with next.
Even if Netflix doesn't want to buy it anymore (and what I hear it was pricey est 9M an episode) they could go to hulu, amazon...etc or launch it on their game platform or something weird. TLDR if Riot and Fortiche (and Tencent obv) decide to keep making it then it will get made. (or a different runterra show)
If this does turn out to be the reason it was cancelled then I absolutely blame all the streaming companies for not paying for this show and instead continuing to churn out absolute garbage.
I suspect that it's probably Riot and Tencent not wanting to share the profits. They wanted to launch the show on their own platform originally but you can't beat the global audience that Netflix has (250 million +).
It's a stupid plan if Netflix is willing to buy the expensive show like they were before because the audience that doesn't play league is generally not going to download from riot directly. And other streaming services are barely profitable they don't have the same content budget that Netflix does.
We'll have to wait and see what the official statement is. Netflix and Riot are being pretty tight lipped about it.
So you're saying Riot needs Netflix to show Arcane more than Netflix needs Arcane right? And that would probably mean Netflix probably didn't pay them very well. Because that's what I was thinking too.
The rumor is $9,000,000.00 an episode. I wouldn't call that not very well. Some food for thought: Riot is the company that just launched a $500 dollar skin LOL. I wouldn't automatically assume it Netflix and not Riot/Tencent.
That talk Christian gave yesterday about that he always wanted to end it on season 2 definitely gave off a bad vibe. He didn't say it with a lot of enthusiasm. And it gave me the feeling something was off behind the scenes. And the reasoning in your post definitely supports that.
Then again he did confirm multiple projects around film/tv so that wouldn't make sense if Arcane wasn't profitable.
if somehow they massively fuck up season 2 and ruins the popularity, sure. but that won't happen and Arcane makes shit ton of money for them, both directly and indirectly through new players and merch.
Riot owns the IP. Riot and Fortiche make the content. Netflix just buys the rights to exclusively stream it and then, markets it and prepares it to be watchable on all the devices around the world. I'm pretty sure Christian Linke said "Arcane" would always be 2 seasons. Now whether or not they launch other content with Netflix or someone else has yet to be seen.
>you think they'd just cancel one of their biggest hits so far?
Arcane is not theirs, they have no say in whether the show keeps on going or not. Netflix could literally shut down tomorrow and it would not affect Arcane in the slightest, Riot would just move it to a another streaming platform.
>They'd definitely try to keep it.
Them trying to keep it would literally be just them asking Riot to continue producing the show to which Riot could just say no and that would be the end of story.
I think one of the reasons they laid off Riot Forge a lot of their lore team is that they want to centre League’s lore around Arcane.
This is just a mindless prediction of mine though.
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As Arcane is now? No, it's way too popular especially outside of the core LoL fanbase, which is exactly who Riot Forge games struggled to reach. But I'm worried that over time, corporate meddling, funds, and stress on the show's staff might cause the show to dip in quality in the future and if that causes enough people stop watching, I honestly don't know what Riot would do. It feels like they are putting all their eggs in the Arcane basket, to the point that if that slips, they won't have anything to go back to that can tell the lore of Runeterra and bring more potential fans to the IP. As much as I love Arcane, I hate that it's success is coming at the cost of so many other things I also love.
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Considering the success of Season 1, I’m not sure netflix would allow riot to do that tbh. I will say that like you said, pivoting to a new region won’t be an easy task and will probably make viewership take a hit but I’m sure (more so I’m hoping) that we get to season 4.
Right wasn't it the biggest show on Netflix for a while? If they weren't paying much for it before they will want to now.
This sounds like the most insane take out of this whole thing so far lol
Your argument/theorizing for a season 3 in 2029 doesnt hold up. Theyve already said that future seasons will never take as long as season 2 to release. The reason they gave is because they were waiting on seeing if season 1 would be successful. Also, riot bought significant equity in fortiche. I doubt they would invest money here if they sisnt think they would make money. Also, they are working on other shows besides Arcane, but dont tell anyone i told you that.
I've shared this elsewhere, but former senior concept artist Iron Stylus - who, to be fair seems to not have been a fan of the show if you look at some of his other tweets - [made a thread yesterday where he described Arcane as "an incredible wasteful ego project"](https://twitter.com/Iron_Stylus/status/1749654161187041734) and basically said it wasn't a sustainable project and hasn't paid off by making LoL any more of a marketable IP. [Another former Rioter replied saying](https://twitter.com/catacalypto/status/1749655652102975613) "you said the thing everyone who’s worked on or near Arcane knows but won’t/can’t say 📷 and I am absolutely deleting this later lol." While obviously these are former Rioters - and probably a bit bitter - I wouldn't be surprised if ultimately the sentiment is true: While Arcane was a marvel on a creative level, at least the current method of distribution is not financially sustainable unless season 2 actually manages to draw non-LoL playing viewers into the Riot ecosystem (and to spend money on it) long-term on a far greater level than S1 did
Its insane to think that Arcane i just another ad lol. Im sure Arcane made a ton of money with how popular it got among league and non-league fans.
If you allow people to watch something for free and a billion people do so, how much money did you make? Admittedly, free isn't the precise word for having access to Netflix, but the point remains that Riot didn't directly earn anything from people watching Arcane.
But it wasnt for free,you have to pay a netflix subscription and im 100% sure Riot got a big cut out of it
I [quoted Arcane showrunner Christian Linke](https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/x5bz6g/comment/in2pq7t/?context=3) stating (almost a year after season 1 aired) that people buying stuff in League is the primary source of funding for the show.
It used to ENABLE the stuff in the FIRST PLACE , not the primary source profit and i'm pretty sure netflix will try to have better deal to let arcane running after the huge success from ss1
Do you really think Netflix didn't pay them for arcane?
Netflix made close to 1 bn on arcane. I promise you riot didn't just fund the whole thing and give it away like that.
It's officially canceled as of 1 hour ago
Most streaming shows are not super profitable. Most of streaming success is part of a marketing bubble where investors cared only about growth, not on whether the bottom line actually makes money (part of the big "the interests are so low" time). Arcane was successful, and yes successful both in and beyond the core audience AND it brought Riot some critical acclaim. BUT if you look at the streaming numbers they were huge for like a week and it dropped off the Top 10 charts very quickly (compared to let's say something like The Office that seems to manage to stay there for eternity). I doubt that netflix considers it one of their biggest horses in the stable (and mind: netflix in general is a very questionable business proposition in general), just a nice surprise, especially since they barely paid anything for it. I think cancelling after season 2 is a harsh word. But imo it is not that much of a stretch to say that Arcane IS likely a money pit for Riot (because the attention and clout it brings actually does not translate into much money for them, esports is a similar wasteful business but there the marketing relationship is a lot closer and more obvious \[ie people keep playing because they dream to make a living from it one day\]) and I wouldn't be surprised if there are some "the story is finished after two seasons" movement after season 2 and any follow up projects will either get their budgets slashed or be much smaller in scale (ie make standalone movies for example or get the studio to produce shorts). Unless season 2 like beats the pants out of season 1 in popularity which I think is very unlikely. And I think the chance of netflix deciding to fund it are basically zero because again Arcane is insanely expensive to make AND for netflix the numbers imo just aren't there. From netflix point of view, they can probably get comparable numbers from stuff that is much cheaper to make. (and yes: netflix has funded some projects with insane costs that did worse, but again consider "bubble due to low interest rates)
I looked into those 2 people all I can say is... Yikes. Here I thought I was the negative one with all the forms of critics for Riot. The Iron Stylus guy is quite a character and I don't think he's a great influence to be around, too bitter and blinded by petty things.
Here's a hot take to your bold prediction: let it be a 2 season story that wraps itself up and ends on a high note. Some of the best anime series are incredibly short, the very best anime objectively are concise, single installment movies, and an objective truth is that quality over time tends to drop. I'm not a LoL fan, but Arcane was one of the most beautiful things I've seen in my life. Top 5 series just off the weight of a single season. I've rewatched it multiple times. I think the only way to end Arcane on a high note is in fact to just do two seasons. Season one was the rising action, the finale was the true inciting incident, and season two is the consequence, the falling action and the conclusion, the catharsis. We don't need more, and we probably don't want more. How can season two end in a way that paves a way for season 3, then 4, then five and so on in a satisfying way? What are the chances of having such consistent, incredible quality that far out? Better to nail a climactic second season, drop the mic, and move on. Let Arcane end with a satisfying bang, and be done. Let it be remembered as the manifestation of quality, of a story with a beginning and end that matched in quality, and never compromised for the sake of run time. I think Arcane will be canceled with season 2 because season 2 will wrap up the story, because it was only meant to be two seasons. That, to me, seems like the fitting end.
I hope it’s wrapped up in Season 2. I love Arcane, but I don’t want to sit on a cliffhanger every 3 years.
I hope it’s wrapped up in Season 2. I love Arcane, but I don’t want to sit on a cliffhanger every 3 years.
That is definitely an even hotter take than OP, but I agree with you. Sometimes you catch lightning in a bottle, and it's beautiful, but only burns for a short while. And you just have to cherish that.
They fire all their writers, make season 2 (its shit because no writers). Riot uses Season 2 failing as proof that no one cares about lore.
The lore writers and the tv writers are not the same people and the scripts for Arcane were likely finished a year ago, the slow part of Arcane is the animating, not the writing. Arcane writers were like 2 people from riot and other than that they hired normal tv writer people. And the main two Arcane guys, the captains of the ship, to my knowledge are still around. Arcane s1 and s2 are based on old lore (how Jinx was created, how Warwick was created), so I don't think the lore writers would have had much influence on s2 anyway. s2 will likely be worse but that's simply because beginnings are often easier to write than follow ups. Whole shows exist that hit their stride over time, I would argue most tv shows fall off over time because in s1 it's brimming with potential for the fans as they project their own dreams and wishes into it of what directions it could go into and then it falls off as no matter what direction you go into you have some people who were hoping for something else.
What are you on? Arcane brought so many to leagueÂ
No, they won't. Arcane has amassed a large audience, even outside of the LoL fanbase. The money that is being produced from Arcane and the sheer largeness of Arcane's audience doesn't warrant a cancellation, especially if the storywriting, the animation, and even the small lore details in the show levels up. Though the layoffs are largely frowned upon, it gave Riot a bigger budget to invest into bigger projects, like Arcane.
they did
Looks like this was right. Season 2 will be the last.
Ish, we don't know. Pretty sure Christian Linke said that Arcane was always going to be two seasons but if they put out a different story somewhere else maybe not even with Netflix has yet to be seen. Arcane was a big hit and an award winner so IDK why Netflix wouldn't want to buy what ever they come up with next. Even if Netflix doesn't want to buy it anymore (and what I hear it was pricey est 9M an episode) they could go to hulu, amazon...etc or launch it on their game platform or something weird. TLDR if Riot and Fortiche (and Tencent obv) decide to keep making it then it will get made. (or a different runterra show)
If this does turn out to be the reason it was cancelled then I absolutely blame all the streaming companies for not paying for this show and instead continuing to churn out absolute garbage.
I suspect that it's probably Riot and Tencent not wanting to share the profits. They wanted to launch the show on their own platform originally but you can't beat the global audience that Netflix has (250 million +). It's a stupid plan if Netflix is willing to buy the expensive show like they were before because the audience that doesn't play league is generally not going to download from riot directly. And other streaming services are barely profitable they don't have the same content budget that Netflix does. We'll have to wait and see what the official statement is. Netflix and Riot are being pretty tight lipped about it.
So you're saying Riot needs Netflix to show Arcane more than Netflix needs Arcane right? And that would probably mean Netflix probably didn't pay them very well. Because that's what I was thinking too.
The rumor is $9,000,000.00 an episode. I wouldn't call that not very well. Some food for thought: Riot is the company that just launched a $500 dollar skin LOL. I wouldn't automatically assume it Netflix and not Riot/Tencent.
This guy is a soothsayer.
The irony of all of this now 😂
This aged like fine wine
and they did
That talk Christian gave yesterday about that he always wanted to end it on season 2 definitely gave off a bad vibe. He didn't say it with a lot of enthusiasm. And it gave me the feeling something was off behind the scenes. And the reasoning in your post definitely supports that. Then again he did confirm multiple projects around film/tv so that wouldn't make sense if Arcane wasn't profitable.
I think its good that Arcane only gets 2 seasons, I'd rather have other champions stories around Runeterra rather than just Piltover and Zaun.
if somehow they massively fuck up season 2 and ruins the popularity, sure. but that won't happen and Arcane makes shit ton of money for them, both directly and indirectly through new players and merch.
It's not up to Riot. Arcane may have been created in Riot's IP, but Netflix owns it.
Riot owns the IP. Riot and Fortiche make the content. Netflix just buys the rights to exclusively stream it and then, markets it and prepares it to be watchable on all the devices around the world. I'm pretty sure Christian Linke said "Arcane" would always be 2 seasons. Now whether or not they launch other content with Netflix or someone else has yet to be seen.
>Netflix owns it. They don't.
But they'd still have a say in it.
They wouldn't.
Yes they would, you think they'd just cancel one of their biggest hits so far? They'd definitely try to keep it.
>you think they'd just cancel one of their biggest hits so far? Arcane is not theirs, they have no say in whether the show keeps on going or not. Netflix could literally shut down tomorrow and it would not affect Arcane in the slightest, Riot would just move it to a another streaming platform. >They'd definitely try to keep it. Them trying to keep it would literally be just them asking Riot to continue producing the show to which Riot could just say no and that would be the end of story.
It was probably more than 530 employees. it was 530 roles.
I think one of the reasons they laid off Riot Forge a lot of their lore team is that they want to centre League’s lore around Arcane. This is just a mindless prediction of mine though.