Tag: Game of Thrones

Spotify and Riot Games Team Up for an Official League of Legends Esports Partnership

August 24, 2020

Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) game League of Legends is the biggest esport in the world. Last year, tournaments were held in over 37 different cities across five continents, with a record-breaking viewership of 21.8 million average minute audience watching the 2019 World Championship Final unfold. But gamers and fans aren’t just playing: they’re also streaming. 

The official League of Legends soundtrack racks up over 4.8 million Spotify listeners per month—a sizable number of both gamers and Spotify users. That’s why Spotify and Riot Games, the video game developer behind League of Legends, are joining forces for a first-of-its-kind multiyear partnership. Spotify is also now the official—and exclusive—audio -streaming partner for League of Legends global events. 

The partnership will also give fans original podcasts, curated playlists, and so much more. Get ready for:

Official League of Legends Esports hub

Music is already important in the League of Legends world, but we’re taking it one step further by creating a hub. Get excited for new and existing music, podcasts, and playlists inspired by the gaming community, including Official League of Legends and Road to Worlds 2020 playlists. Keep an ear out for more coming soon.

Exclusive and original podcasts

Spotify and Riot Games are working to create and launch several new League of Legends podcasts. Untold Stories: Top Moments from Worlds, a 9-episode series leading up to the 10th League of Legends World Championship this fall, will be the first. Listeners will be able to hear about the top players and anthems through game highlights, recorded interviews, game sound effects, and new interviews with key players. Thanks to our extended partnership, we look forward to evolving this podcast over the years to come. 

Elevated music moments

We’re also providing fans with a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the Worlds Anthem through the Worlds Anthem Takeover on Spotify. This highly anticipated track is the hero song of the year. It’s released alongside a bespoke music video and is then performed during the Opening Ceremony of the World Championship Finals, setting the tone and celebrating the big event. In previous years, Riot Games has worked with artists including Imagine Dragons, The Glitch Mob, and Against the Current.

“Music and audio are an intrinsic part of our sport and game, so we are thrilled to partner with Spotify to provide our fans with another platform where they can enjoy the ultimate manifestation of League of Legends,” says Naz Aletaha, Head of Global Esports Partnerships, Riot Games. “As a disrupter in their space similar to Riot Games, Spotify allows us to collectively challenge the limits of possibility as we blend sports, technology, entertainment, and music to create iconic experiences and content that inspire generations.”

June Sauvaget, Global Head of Consumer and Product Marketing, says, “Our partnership with Riot Games will create a first-of-its-kind audio universe for the millions of Spotify and League of Legends fans across the globe. As the exclusive—and first ever—global audio service partner for League of Legends, we plan to create a world-class audio-streaming experience for our users, making discovering both music and podcasts easier than ever before.” 

Can’t wait to stream the music from the esport and game? Check out the Official League of Legends Playlist.

How Will ‘Game of Thrones’ End? Stream the Creators’ New Playlist to Find Out

April 9, 2019

Theories about who will live, who won’t, and who will sit on the Iron Throne are flying faster than a zombie ice-breathing dragon. But now we have at least one clue how Game of Thrones will end, courtesy of series creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. The pair helped create a new Spotify playlist, Game of Thrones: The End Is Coming, to accompany their hit show’s final season—and even included a hint as to how the beloved series will conclude.

“The answer to the ending is one hundred percent hidden in the playlist choices,” Benioff and Weiss told For the Record in an email. “No one will believe us, but it’s true.”

However, sending fans scrambling through a playlist for a secret wasn’t the creators’ intention so much as wanting to share their love of rock, metal, and several other music genres. (After all, the band Mastodon appeared as zombie wights in the season-seven finale.) Among the tracks that Benioff and Weiss included in the new playlist: “Her Black Wings” by Danzig, “Sleep Now in the Fire” by Rage Against The Machine, and “Girl from the North Country” by Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan.

Benioff and Weiss. Photo credit: Filmmagic

“We were looking for songs that made us feel the way the show made us feel,” the creators explained. “There’s variety in there—Rage is not Johnny Cash. But they both have a deep inherent power.” This new playlist was created to get diehard Game of Thrones fans pumped up in this last week before the final season’s premiere on April 14.

The first playlist they developed for the show was Game of Thrones: Songs of Ice and Fire, in 2017. That playlist, like the new one, was created in collaboration with Spotify’s Head of Rock, Allison Hagendorf. Allison, Weiss, and Benioff packed that playlist with songs about war, fire, cold, and wolves, as any Game of Thrones fan would expect.

Start combing the new playlist for clues as to how the series ends (full disclosure, we are as curious as anyone), or just enjoy the 50 songs for what they’re intended to do: raise the excitement higher—if that’s even possible—for the final few episodes of one of the most popular shows in television history.

Stream the Game of Thrones: The End is Coming playlist here.