There’s a riot going on over at 3003 77th Ave. SE on Mercer Island.

Video game developing and publishing giant Riot Games has arrived in town and opened its doors to approximately 300 employees on June 11.

With the immensely successful “League of Legends” and “VALORANT” games — and much more — under its belt, Los Angeles-based Riot purchased the former Farmers Insurance property and Mercer Park Workplace office building for $114.1 million from Mercer Park South LLC on Dec. 8, 2021, according to a previous Reporter article.

Positioned out front, there’s a bold red sign with white lettering that is also emblazoned with the company’s recognizable clenched fist logo. Passersby near Mercerdale Park definitely know that Riot Games is present on the Island.

Deke Waters, vice president of operations for “VALORANT” Studios, described why Riot Games chose to set up shop on the Island.

“I think the location in particular is just so central to a lot of really awesome opportunities for us. It is definitely access to talent and access to a lot of the teams that we work with in other companies,” said Waters, who works in the Island office. “We work with Amazon. We work with Microsoft. There’s a lot of opportunities that we have to be able to visit more and have much more of a collaborative kind of relationship with them if we’re able to have people that are local and can reach out there.”

For the last two years, Rioters were based out of an expanded Bellevue office while construction was occurring at the Island site. A small team of Rioters called Bellevue and Seattle home for a number of years prior to the company stamping its official presence in the area two years ago.

Within the four-floor, 156,000-square-foot Island facility, there are work spaces, a gaming console area, a gym and yoga room, a coffee bar modeled after a secret laboratory from one of their games, a couple of themed hidden rooms and more.

“The design of it is really flexible and set for a new way of working where it really puts collaboration at the forefront,” Waters said.

The local Riot staff works in the Esports, game development, data, core infrastructure and enterprise realms.

Riot’s most recent achievement was fully releasing “VALORANT” on consoles on Aug. 2. As of 2023, Waters proudly noted that about 28 million people worldwide were regularly playing the game per month.

“It’s a pretty good, healthy, awesome community that we built online with this game. We are now fully launched in China as well, which is a really strong community for us there, too,” said Waters, adding that he thinks Riot’s games have played an integral role in the skyrocketing of gaming over the last few years.

On the “League of Legends” front, Waters said the 15-year-old game continues to make a massive mark on the gaming world and currently draws in 100 million active users per month. Island Rioters in the development sphere are working on the game, which Waters said is a strong lifeline for the company. In 2023, more than six million people concurrently viewed the game’s yearly Esports Super Bowl competition.

Now that Rioters are working on the Island, Waters said they’ve checked out Mercerdale Park, the adjacent farmers market and the classic car show and they’re planning to further integrate into the community.

“We’d love to be more part of what’s going on there,” Waters said. “One thing that’s really kind of special, this is going to be the ninth year that we have participated in Global Service Month. About 20 offices that we have around the world volunteer their time and give back to the local communities.”

Later this month, the company will be hosting three volunteer opportunities for Rioters with City of Mercer Island Park, Food Lifeline and the Seattle Humane Society.

“That’s a real opportunity for us to not only help there, but I think also branch into some other opportunities for us for the future,” Waters said.

Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill founded Riot Games in 2006 and the company currently possesses 20-plus locations worldwide.

It’s a major economic development and advancement for Riot to locate on Mercer Island, according to a city press release in 2021, and city officials are excited to have a multitude of new workers collaborating, dining, exploring and calling the Island home.