{"rewrite":{"id":"r_d9acb6890557597d4b102268","clusterId":"c_7a567c0520e1060d44107a5f","slug":"riot-co-founder-says-2xko-needed-millions-of-monthly-users","model":"deepseek-v4-1-flash","headline":"Riot Co-Founder Says 2XKO Needed Millions of Monthly Users","summary":"Marc Merrill said 2XKO would have needed hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of monthly active users to keep its live service running. He cited the inability to secure enough players, a team he described as too large, and high costs. Development ends in December 2026, after the game launched in January 2026 and the team was scaled down that February.","whyItMatters":"Merrill's own numbers show the user target he set for 2XKO was in the range Street Fighter 6, the game he blames for disrupting the plan, sustains on Steam, which is why the live service stopped being fundable.","webCardHtml":"\u003cp\u003e2XKO launched in January 2026 to a development team that was cut the following month. By August, Riot had confirmed development would end in December, with only the servers left running afterward. In a podcast appearance on the Lemonade Stand channel, Merrill traced the trouble past launch: Rising Thunder\u0026#39;s alpha arrived in 2015, Radiant Entertainment was acquired in 2016, and the project was restarted on the League of Legends IP before being announced in 2019 as Project L. A leadership change left the team isolated, and Merrill said the responsibility was theirs.\u003c/p\u003e","blueskyPost":"2XKO launched in January 2026 and had its team scaled down a month later, yet it still ran until the December 2026 shutdown. Merrill's numbers describe a live service that was already outrunning its own staffing.","twitterPost":"2XKO was scaled down in February 2026 but ran until December. Merrill's needed player counts describe a service outrunning its own team.","threadsPost":"2XKO's timeline is the detail worth sitting with: it launched in January 2026, had its team scaled down that February, and still ran until development ended in December 2026. Marc Merrill's required player figures describe a live service that was already outrunning the team built to sustain it.","newsletterBlurb":"Riot Games co-founder Marc Merrill said 2XKO needed hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of monthly active users to keep its service running, and that the team had grown too big for the costs involved. He said the plan to draw the fighting game community away from Street Fighter V was disrupted by Street Fighter 6's 2023 release. Development ends in December 2026, after a January launch and a February team cut.","attributionJson":"[{\"source\":\"Automaton\",\"url\":\"https://automaton-media.com/articles/newsjp/20261002-471501/\",\"title\":\"Development-Ended '2XKO' Needed 'Hundreds of Thousands to Millions' of Active Users to Keep Operating; Prolonged Development and Rising Costs Led to Unsustainably High Running Costs\"}]","lintFlagsJson":null,"lintHits":0,"costUsd":0,"inputTokens":4689,"outputTokens":608,"status":"published","repairAttempts":0,"nextRepairAt":null,"factsAttemptedAt":1791179966,"createdAt":"2026-10-05T05:55:07.000Z","publishedAt":"2026-10-05T05:58:23.000Z","updatedAt":"2026-10-05T05:58:23.000Z"},"cluster":{"id":"c_7a567c0520e1060d44107a5f","canonicalTitle":"開発終了が決定した『2XKO』、運営継続には“数十万人から数百万人”のアクティブユーザーが必要だった。開発長期化＆費用高騰が招いた、高すぎるランニングコスト","representativeArticleId":"a_e62a54ee4bb4c44f48a72909","sourceCount":1,"writtenSourceCount":1,"writeAttempts":0,"isSolo":true,"entitiesJson":"{\"anime_titles\":[],\"manga_titles\":[],\"work_titles\":[\"2XKO\"],\"studios\":[\"Riot Games\"],\"people\":[\"Marc Merrill\"],\"type\":\"news\",\"domain\":\"games\",\"is_roundup\":false}","contentType":"news","status":"published","firstSeenAt":"2026-10-02T08:50:16.000Z","lastSeenAt":"2026-10-02T08:50:16.000Z","updatedAt":"2026-10-05T05:58:23.000Z"},"attribution":[{"source":"Automaton","url":"https://automaton-media.com/articles/newsjp/20261002-471501/","title":"開発終了が決定した『2XKO』、運営継続には“数十万人から数百万人”のアクティブユーザーが必要だった。開発長期化＆費用高騰が招いた、高すぎるランニングコスト"}],"entities":{"anime_titles":[],"manga_titles":[],"work_titles":["2XKO"],"studios":["Riot Games"],"people":["Marc Merrill"],"type":"news","domain":"games","is_roundup":false},"keyFacts":null}