Sheep Esports – “We’re the Taylor Swift of gaming,” Riot Games’ Global Head of Music discusses the artwork of constructing gaming’s largest musical second

Riot Games’ method to music has redefined how leisure and esports intersect. In a dialog with Sheep Esports, Maria Egan, the corporate’s Global Head of Music, explores the rising cultural weight of its annual Worlds Anthem and the inventive philosophy behind it.

With “Sacrifice” launched simply sooner or later earlier than the 2025 League of Legends World Championship begins, Egan displays on how these songs have advanced from the competitors’s themes into world cultural moments that join gaming and music past the League’s group partitions.

Maria Egan: “Well, I’m biased, but I think we’re in a very exciting position. We have two of the best IPs in the world. The League of Legends universe is extraordinary — it’s like a Pandora’s box full of incredible corners, characters, and worlds. You can go really deep into just one character like Jinx, and there are still over 160 others you haven’t even explored. It’s an incredible, multi-generational, hundred-year IP that could go on forever because it’s so deep and so well-crafted.

The more we release cinematics for VALORANT, the more story and depth begin to form — like with Ego. You can see how much people want more of that. I’ve even seen fans using AI tools to make live-action VALORANT clips, and I think, “Oh my god, this is going to be amazing,” when we start telling stories from that IP in new ways.

So yes, I think we have two of the best IPs in the world — not just in gaming, but in entertainment as a whole. They’re full of incredible stories waiting to be told, and we care deeply about making great things. That’s the key to long-term success. There isn’t a “money mindset.” Obviously, we’re a business, but in creative meetings, no one says, “What’s going to make us the most money?” Or “What song will be the biggest hit?” We’re responsible business owners, of course, but that’s never the reason behind creative choices. The belief is that if we do the right thing — if we make players fall deeply in love with these worlds and characters — then the economy and engagement naturally follow. That’s the reward for creating genuine delight.

It’s almost a spiritual mission, and I know that sounds cheesy, but it’s true — from the very top of the company. Even our CFO, whose job is literally to watch the money, is always high-fiving me about the music work we do. I’m sure it doesn’t make a big difference to Riot’s financial results, but he’s excited about it. Everyone’s excited about the art, the passion, and the emotion our work generates — through cinematics, music, live events, and esports. We’re even starting to create music events not tied to competition, and those are incredibly powerful.

When you see a thousand people singing along to Die for You from VALORANT, just celebrating, with the game at the center of that peak, a euphoric moment in their lives — it’s super, super fun.

Maria Egan: The anthem is always very linked to the story we’re trying to tell around the video, and obviously, the journey that the pros have been on this year. The title is “Sacrifice,” and you’ll see the theme really is about that sort of struggle and what you have to give up to be the best. And that’s obviously in any sport, but particularly for our pros, that feeling of you sacrificing a normal life. You sacrifice relationships often to climb to the top. And so just honoring that struggle then, so there’s this sort of thematic enforcement that it does, and then there’s the immunity moment. It’s a memory, it’s a container.

So people really remember the esports moments through these anthems. The Korean fans love the “New Jeans” moment and the song really anchors it in time. And then there’s the benefit that songs have to be able to pierce through pop culture. When we work with artists like Linkin Park or G.E.M., who are superstars in their own right, it just brings a lot of attention and reminds people that Worlds is happening and Worlds is here. And even if you’re not so actively playing the game anymore and fans of these sports in general just kind of calls them back into our ecosystem and it’s like sending a flare gun up into the sky to let everyone know that Worlds is happening. So it does a few different things. It sort of, music is uniquely powerful in that way.

Maria Egan: She had spoken to our team before Bob on my team, worked directly with her and Iris, who’s in our China office, have really managed that relationship. And for a long time there’s been discussion about what would be the right thing for her. But she’s a superstar, so we had to find the biggest possible stage. So Worlds in China is the biggest possible stage we have, and she was amazing throughout the recording process and I think is excited about the collaboration that we’re going to see some really special things at the OC that she was excited about creatively doing.

So it’s been great and I think we were very focused to see it on finding an artist that really had that deep resonance for our China players in the same way that Linkin Park really had that for American, European players. So I think this is just a pattern that we’ve established over the last few years of really thinking deeply about the home country. We did it with New Jeans in Korea, even going back to K/DA in Korea. And so when we have a location that helps ground our artist selection and we think about, “Okay, what would thrill these tens of hundreds of individuals within the stadium? What would thrill all these youngsters watching at residence?” And also introducing G.E.M., even though she’s a superstar in certain parts of the world, she’s not as well known in others and introducing her and she’s an incredible artist and introducing her to parts of the world that maybe she hasn’t spent a lot of time yet.

Maria Egan: Every year is different. The Linkin Park opportunity was so unique because of the connection to Arcane and we experimented with featuring the band and the video because it made sense given their connection to the sport and to our ecosystem for a long time. And Mike [Shinoda]’s love of animation and the relationship we already had with Arcane. So we did something we’d never done before, which was to put the artist in the video, which was totally the right thing to do. And I think we made an incredible clip. We won awards for that clip.

But I think this year the pivot was just more for going back to focusing on the athlete stories, the pro player stories, and really focusing back in on those narratives, of a sport so epic. And particularly when you’re in China, particularly when you’re in Asia, those battles are so high stakes that we really wanted to just really center the pro players’ journeys in the video and the song.

It’s a very different kind of song. Last year, it was a very big uptempo metal rock song and this year, a very different kind of song. And it’s a very different kind of cinematic — epic. So G.E.M was perfect because we needed someone who could deliver that very big vocal, almost like a return to the cinematic quality of Legends Never Die and songs like that. So it wasn’t a question of learnings, it was just what we’re trying not to do is just do the same thing over and over again. And sometimes players have expectations that you want to meet, and sometimes you want to lead people to somewhere new and show them something that they weren’t expecting. And I think we are just, when we have an annual beat like this where making a great song every year is a hard creative task to accomplish it. Some years you do better than others and sometimes artists like Linkin Park had a perfect song at that moment that worked for us.

But it’s not so much about learnings, it’s more just about really being in the moment and not being reactive. We try not to be like, “Oh, let’s just pivot and do opposite to things that did or didn’t work”. It’s more just what’s right for this moment, for this story, for this set of stories we want to tell for this place that we’re hosting the event for this moment in time, what’s going on in the world, and let’s just deliver the best possible show and the best possible song for our players in this moment.

Maria Egan: If he means by financial means and we’re not doing it to make money, then he’s totally right. I mean, we’re a gaming company. The games are our business and that’s the engine of our business. Music is really a gift in many ways to our fans. We can make money sometimes if we have a big song, obviously we have a music business. But we’re never making the decision because of how much money we can make and “Let’s get the largest stars so we are able to make a bunch of cash.”

Often whenever you get the largest stars.. Within the case of Linkin Park, we license that tune, there isn’t any monetary worth for us in choosing that tune. And I believe that is the appropriate approach to make these selections. Like I mentioned, it is nearly making the appropriate resolution for the gamers at that second. And whether or not that is licensing a tune from a celebrity or placing a brand new artist on one thing.. Or within the case of New Jeans, once we really chosen them, they hadn’t actually damaged by means of but, however we knew they have been on an thrilling journey. By the time Worlds got here round eight, 9 months later after we might already made the choice, we seemed like we have been plucking them at their peak, however we might picked them as a brand new and thrilling rising artist.

So like I mentioned, he is proper. I believe there is a return on funding that is not monetary. There’s an enormous return on funding when it comes to participant love and participant engagement and the type of halo that comes from making nice music as a result of it is arduous to make nice music, and we’re among the best at it within the gaming business, and we have now a number of respect from the participant group about how nice our music is, however we do not make these selections for cash. Money’s type of a pleasant downstream end result if we do an amazing job and sure stars align, however completely one hundred percent it is proper. It’s by no means a consider how we decide about doing issues.

Maria Egan: This 12 months was very a lot G.E.M. had expressed curiosity in working with us for a very long time. Bob and my crew had been in contact together with her supervisor about looking for the appropriate factor. Anyma additionally had wished to work with us on Arcane. We’d been looking for a second for him on Arcane, after which it was really this factor he was engaged on with Alex Seaver — who wrote Sacrifice — that impressed us to consider, “Oh wow, okay, he can do this more cinematic thing. Let’s try and figure out a way to incorporate him in Worlds this year.”

So yeah, I believe as we have elevated the OC with greater and larger artists, that clearly opens the door for different artists to look in and say, “Okay, well there’s something happening there,” and that is clearly had a extremely optimistic impact for these earlier artists which have come earlier than me. I imply, that was all the time our purpose.

Years again we’d joke about how we get to that place the place being on the world stage is an honor for an artist. Worlds will not be a model gig the place you simply have to put in writing the largest verify, nevertheless it’s really a collaboration the place they wish to be on our stage simply as a lot as we wish them on our stage. So I really feel like we have gotten to that time and we have already received a number of actually attention-grabbing conversations taking place for subsequent 12 months with artists which have knocked on our door. And once more, we will make one of the best resolution for that 12 months on the time once we’ve received a transparent evaluation of what tales we wish to inform.

Maria Egan: There is a number of debate generally between is the tune serves the video as a result of the video’s the very first thing gamers see, and that is typically the place the impressions are fashioned, or will we even prefer it across the video lengthy earlier than they see the OC efficiency? But the OC efficiency is the place it actually involves life.

So a superb instance of that was the VAL Champions OC the place Quing Madi who did this tune, Ego, for us, and other people love the video clearly. But even myself — I really like the tune, I really like the video — when she carried out it at Champs this 12 months, I used to be similar to, holy. And it hit actually completely different as a result of she’s such an insanely good dwell performer.

And then final 12 months, Linkin Park having a totally dwell band singing totally dwell on stage, we have a number of choreo taking place, and there is assist from manufacturing and there is not a dwell band enjoying or dwell musicians enjoying, however having a totally dwell band enjoying simply introduced such a special power. So we did take into consideration this 12 months, we have been like, “Okay, what do we learn from last year? What extra magic do we get, particularly in the room, or on the broadcast?” It feels good online, by the way, but in the room it feels really different when an artist is fully live performing.

And so we talked a lot about making sure that we found a performer that could pull the song off. We had the song before we picked G.E.M. who could pull the song off live and had that kind of a voice. So it’s becoming more of our thought process, but it’s a really good question.

I mean, I’m curious what you, because you’ve followed this so closely and you’re thinking about, what do you think, what do you think? Is it about the video? Is it about the song? Is it about the oc? What do you think?

Maria Egan: It’s a good call out, because sometimes you are making things differently, if you want to make something that’s going to blow up online or TikTok, and there were moments where we were talking about, “Well, what is the goal?” Is the goal to serve the video and make the best, most perfect song for the video? Is the goal to have that kind of big exciting social media moment in China where everybody’s talking about it? Is the goal to have an incredible OC and performance?

And I think this year we really just over-indexed on that epic performance and made the OC one of the most spectacular of all time because we’re in China, and China loves spectacle. […]We’re aware that we have different artists do different things for us, for different audiences, and we have to just become more aware of where those choices are resonating the most. But yes, I think this year I went into this year going, “Okay, it’s not going to be about having charting the song all over the world” in the way that that was Linkin Park’s focus because they were coming back with a big album and they were working radio and doing all those things. To me, this year, it’s about delivering an incredible Opening Ceremony. I think as players start to realize that the Anthem for us does different things depending on the year and the artists we’re working on, and they’ll go on the journey with us to be like, Star Walkin’ was the right song for that year, and then GODS was the right song for that year, and Sacrifice will be the right song for this year.

Maria Egan: We can’t always plan it. I always call it the “Pierce the Sky,” impact the place you get past the clouds and so they can see you from area. We’re our personal little planet, however the League gamers and the League group or the VAL group, we’re just a little planet. And should you ship one thing up, generally simply the individuals on the planet see it and you are like, “Oh, that’s really amazing!” And then generally you ship one thing up and it goes to this point that everyone on each different planet sees it. And I exploit that reference quite a bit about how a lot stuff travels, however we will not all the time predict it.

Nobody predicted the Stromae song would be the breakout song in the second season of Arcane. We were focused on and we’d made a video for Twenty One Pilots. Stromae is mostly known in France, but the song just connected with everyone. It’s kind of thrilling when you’re taken by surprise.[…]

I’ve said it in the case of music, our core fan base, if you think about both the players currently, players who’ve maybe played in the past aren’t playing, but are paying attention to what we’re doing. And then maybe gaming fans who love our music or love our IP, but don’t necessarily play our games. Our core fandom is so big, hundreds and hundreds of millions of people that if we get it right for that core fandom, it will be a hit because we have such a big base. So we’re a superstar. We’re the Taylor Swift of gaming.

If we just do something that our fans love, it will be huge. Not every fan always loves everything, but we always have a view of, “Okay, this is really for our China players this year,” or “This is really for our North America fans this year.” And we try to be very specific about who we’re trying to serve.

When something connects with everybody.. a good case of that was K/DA. It was really designed for a Korean moment, but it connected with everybody everywhere and Brazil and Europe. And I think it just means that you’ve done a really good job at making something high quality because people can recognize quality and art.

There’s a lot going on all the time, but at our best, we make great art in animation or in music or in live events, or we try and make genre defining things, and when we do it right and work with World-class talent, people can feel that.