Riot Games is developing its own network in an effort to “optimize the internet” for League of Legends and in turn offer better latencies and service to its player base.
The network should be up and running by the end of March and is designed to focus on a growing latency issue across the US and Canada. In this project, Riot Games is also working closely with major Internet Service Providers, who currently are routing traffic in a way that’s not beneficial to gamers.
After a long struggle, the company deemed it best to create its own network with the help of ISP owners, which will help direct traffic in a more efficient manner.
“Currently, ISPs focus primarily on moving large volumes of data in seconds or minutes, which is good for buffered applications like YouTube or Netflix but not so good for real-time games, which need to move very small amounts of data in milliseconds,” said Riot’s Charlie Hauser on the game’s forum. “On top of that, your internet connection might bounce all over the country instead of running directly to where it needs to go, which can impact your network quality and ping whether the game server is across the country or right down the street.”
If everything goes as planned, League of Legends players in North America will achieve lesser pings, packet loss, and disconnects. “Our goal is to benefit the most players and then troubleshoot ISPs that still have players with poor network quality.”
There’s no word on whether the company plans to offer a similar network for Europe.
Riot Games’ network might sound overwhelming, but it has to be in order to cater to a growing community of 67 million players a month, with over 7.5 million at its peak each day.
