Riot Games partners with Blackbird for video content

Cloud video editing platform provider Blackbird announced on Wednesday that Riot Games had chosen it for remote fast turnaround video production.

The AIM-traded firm said video games developer and publisher Riot had a games portfolio including League of Legends - the most-played PC game in the world with more than 80 million monthly players, and a key driver of the “explosive growth” in esports.

It said Riot was continuing to evolve League of Legends while delivering new experiences to players with Legends of Runeterra, League of Legends: Wild Rift, Teamfight Tactics, VALORANT, and multiple work-in-progress titles.

Its video production team would use Blackbird remotely to frame-accurately edit video content from its popular live-streamed esports tournaments and events.

Once created, the content would be published rapidly to Riot's social channels including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Twitch.

“Recent months have introduced unprecedented challenges in video production but Blackbird has helped us meet these obstacles head on,” said Riot’s chief operating officer Scott Gelb.

“With Blackbird as a partner, we're delivering the content fans deserve while prioritizing employee health and safety.

“Blackbird has best-in-class video technology and will allow our team to turn around high quality content quickly and easily in our current remote work environment.”

Blackbird chief executive officer Ian McDonough added that Riot was a “world leader” in a number of ways, adding that esports was a “hugely exciting” growth sector with fans demanding exacting standards, high resolution and accuracy in the edit and publish process.

“Blackbird is unique in being able to offer this in a browser based remote solution.”

At 1342 BST, shares in Blackbird were down 2.67% at 14.6p.