Mr. Mark Merrill is a co-founder of a known company Riot games who also serves as the chairman of the same company.
The company’s most famous product is a popular game named “League of Legends” and Mark was a part of the duo which created the game. He is known as Tryndamere.
Early years
Mark Merrill was born on August 17, 1980 in California in United States.
We don’t know exactly which high school he attended but we know that he had excellent grades and that he was one of the best students in the school. The same continued after he enrolled college. He graduated from USC (University of Southern California) with very high grades and in time.
He is a very passionate man when it comes to things he likes: that is why he succeeded in his studies and in business.
He met Brandon on the same college and both of them were into video games like StarCraft and EverQuest.
They later took different paths but at the end they reconnected again and made millions together.
Career development
Mark Merrill is a very educated and competent professional who worked in many important workplaces such as a corporate marketing executive of Advanstar Communications and a finance assistant at US Bancorp.
These were all highly responsible jobs and he worked on them tremendously good, on the satisfaction of his employers.
Although he had great jobs and high incomes he was always interested in making something on his own.
That is why he created a company with his good friend Brandon who was also a big entrepreneur, just as Mark was.
Riot Games Incorporated is a famous American company who is known as the Esports tournament organizer and one of the most successful video game developer company in the world which was founded in 2006.
The main base of the company is in Los Angeles in California in the United States but they have their development studios scattered all over the world in cities such as Berlin, Hong Kong, New York, Seoul Tokyo, Sydney and more.
There isn’t a continent where they don’t have their branch and where their fans aren’t coming to esports events in thousands.
The most famous thing this company is known for is the “League of Legends” which is a famous video game.
Mark and Brandon started working on the game in 2005 unti it was fully developed and published.
It was published in 2009 and it became so popular that there are Esports World Championships involving the game “League of Legends” both in Europe and in America.
League of Legends, after became known as LoL, is an online video game played with multiple players. It was developed for Windows and Mac operating systems.
It was inspired by two known games: “Warcraft” and “Defense of the Ancients”.
In League of Legends, the main goal of all players is ofcourse to destroy the opposition, in this case it is the “nexus”, a the base of the enemy.
Brandon and Mark own all the rights for this video game so they can sanction anyone who tries to organize similar game contests anywhere in the world.
It was known to happen that other organizations tried to make an illegal toutnament with their game.
League of Legends became one of the most successfull PC games ever and it was played by over a hundred million of fans per month.
It is known that the revenue from the game also came in the same amount of dollars, if not higher.
Mark Merrill is also known by his nickname Tryndamere and he’s one of the founders of the company alongside Brandon Beck named Ryze.
Their game became so popular not only because it is very interesting to play and has an elaborate story but because it’s a free-to-play game.
The company funded itself from Benchmark Capital and Firstmark Capital who gave them the initial money to start this venture. They had a feeling that this venture has a great future and so it did.
After the success of this game they found another funder and it was a Chinese company called “Tencent Holdings” which later bought a major ownership of the company.
In 2013 Riot games were fourth on the list of top 25 tech companies in that year.
At the end of 2017 Mark Merrill stated that he’s working on a new game with his friend Brandon Beck and that they are giving their management away to their 3 employees who were with them from the beginning of the company.
Riot games have released a game called Mechs vs. Minions. They also developed some mini games: Astro Teemo is one of the top games in this category.
Riot is continuing to develop new games and making their fans happy.
Personal life
He has a wife Ashley and one of the characters in the game is named after her: Ashe. They have two children together.
Mark bought a house in Malibu worth $13 million and he lives there with Ashley and the kids.
Since he is an extremely wealthy man, they both have what they want but his wife still works and wants to make a difference at her workplace.
Mark is a known philanthropist too. In 2016, he donated $10,000 to the city’s charity organisation and he is also involved in the work of it’s board.
He writes about his personal life and everything he wants to share with his fans he does it on his private blog called “Merrill’s Musings”. He opened a blog in 2012 but he is not making entrys very often.
For example, he shared entrys such as that he drove to work by Uber because his wife was involved in an accident and the car was in the repair shop.
Or an entry in which he explains news about LoL but also complains about how his employees at Riot Games are receiving threatening e-mails, including death threats, which made him especially sad.
Quick summary
Full name: Mark Merrill
Date of birth: August 17, 1980
Birthplace: California, United States
Age: 38
Profession: Producer, director, developer,
Height: NA
Weight: NA
Net Worth: $ 50 million
