Well… to devil my advocate, as it were… Jim’s accurate in view of past events. It’s the “AAA Publishers” part that bears examination.
It’s a whole 'nother dissertation which would need someone to go on at great length - and I could 
- about how “AAA Title” has become a subverted term. But when talking about those publishers, they generally mean not just the size but longevity of places like Microsoft, EA, Activision-Blizzard; the behemoths.
Riot is something new. The gold rush of eSports - and it is a gold rush - has generated enormous amounts of attention on gaming, a second wave of investors and prospectors not seen since gaming’s original transition from “weird niche thing computer nerds do” to “a cornerstone of the entertainment industry.”
Less than two years ago, ESPN writers were saying “video games are not a sport.” Now they broadcast eSports. Why? Money!
Something like Microsoft or (ugh) EA has a long, tiresome history of buying companies, technologies, teams… and then snuffing them out. In MS’ case, not just in gaming, either. Sometimes they buy things just so they’re never seen again, if it competes with their institutional ego regarding their own in-house development… and then we get monstrosities like Bing. Long story. Jim’s looking at places like EA, and developers like Bioware and Maxis, for example. EA ate them, applied their cookie-cutter model, and that’s that.
Riot doesn’t - yet, and hopefully never - have this history. Their profit potential, and therefore motive, is enormous - but they are not, as far as I know, a public company. This is a massive factor. EA is beholden to stockholders, as is every public company.
See, the issue is not selling a developer to a company - it’s any company, large or small, going public. Similar ideals apply: we’ll generate an infusion of cash and attention, it’ll be great! It is not great. “Investors” are not various interested people playing with their E*Trade accounts; they’re gargantuan holding companies and VC groups and small, select circles of billionaire friends and contacts. When something gets hot, they swoop down and make sure they gain control of it. From then on, it’s the same cookie-cutter model: cut costs, cut quality, cut content, cut personnel, cut anything and everything except executive salaries and shareholder returns.
If Riot’s owners remain interested in Riot, and not just the cash-out option of an IPO, and the company remains private, then they really can do absolutely anything they want, with no one but themselves to determine what to spend on projects, the deadlines those projects have, and the monetization models they get.
My original concern was: I don’t know what Riot’s motives are. Many startups are created for the express purpose of the cash-out: spin something up, make its balance sheet look golden, do a happy dance in front of investor groups, sell ownership and call it a day. With a couple dozen million in your pocket, ideally.
If there was an IPO or Riot itself was sold to a larger group, that would be where Radiant’s future would transfer hands to a new party, and what I’m babbling on about in my original post.
Having looked up a bit about Riot… I am relieved to find them privately traded (meaning, there are investors but Riot agrees to terms with them, some outside force can’t just come in and directly buy control on the market). There may come a day when Riot leadership decides, sod this I’m off to Bermuda, and cashes out. From what I’ve read here and seen of the company so far, I infer that should that day come, Radiant would possibly, hopefully, have the opportunity to purchase its independence again and therefore not be sold off with other assets (probably minus the {secret other project} that triggered the Riot acquisition in the first place).
This is actually what Activision-Blizzard did with Viacom (on a MUCH MUCH LARGER scale). Viacom was having… issues… and their plan was to squeeze A-B for dividends, basically. ABlizz said “how about we instead give you this large pile of reserve cash we’ve carefully hoarded over the years for just such an occasion, and walk away,” and so they did.
I still have Thoughtful Concerns. As mentioned above, by both forumites and Radiant staff: nothing is certain. As I’d mentioned before, priorities can change. Directions can shift radically. The earthquake scenario is a more literal example of that, but sure, let’s include that too.
This is neither a guarantee of a rosy future with office hot tubs, nor a certainty of EA-level doom. Riot may not be interested in the Microsoft and EA business model; they don’t have the same kind of investor pressure or, frankly, decades of entrenched management ego behind them. On balance, I’d say that tilts the scales to “cautiously optimistic.”
If you’ve gotten this far down the post in one sitting, I congratulate you, sir or madam.
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