Marc Merrill

By Sara Nguyen

When Chaminade alumnus Marc Merrill ’98 was a teenager, he would sometimes sneak out of the house in the middle of the night and wander his neighborhood for hours. Upon returning home, he would occasionally trigger the house alarm — but figured out that if he changed his clothes outside, entered using a specific door and hid his clothes behind the downstairs couch, he could plausibly explain to his (probably bleary-eyed) parents that he was getting a drink of water and had inadvertently set off the motion sensor. “I figured out how to beat our system,” says Merrill, “which gamers do.”

What seems like fairly straightforward adolescent rebellion takes on a larger significance when you understand that Merrill’s self-identification as a gamer, and embracing the part of himself that wanted to “explore, test limits, seek adventure, and do things I shouldn’t be doing,” most likely played a large part in his going on to co-found a company that has created the most popular online video game in the world.

“We like to joke that we wouldn’t have invested in ourselves.”

Riot Games, the company Merrill co-founded in 2006 with his University of Southern California classmate and friend Brandon Beck, is mainly known for its online video game League of Legends. If you mention League to the average person on the street, they might have no idea what you’re talking about. If that person is an adolescent male, however, it’s likely he knows exactly what it is and has spent time playing it.

When describing League’s ascent, the press uses terms like “startling growth” (Fortune) and “full-scale phenomenon” (New York Times). To impart a sense of League’s global reach is to go from North America and Europe, where League is now officially the most played online game, to the internet cafes of Korea, and rural villages in China where, according to Merrill, “we have an opportunity to essentially create Little League.” League of Legends is the world’s largest esport, and the U.S. government has designated its players, professional athletes, issuing visas to international players. When discussing the infrastructure Riot supports, Merrill says, “You can play online with your friends. We manage professional leagues around the world, as well as semi-pro and tournament circuits that are continuing to evolve. There’s thousands of clubs that exist at the college level. There are many high school clubs that are continuing to pop up, and there are several colleges that are providing scholarships now to League of Legends players, and are creating varsity teams.”

Within two months of launching League in 2009, 100,000 people were playing the game. Fast forward to 2016, and Riot estimated that League had over 100 million players a month. Riot Games has grown from discussions between then-roommates Merrill and Beck, to now having nearly 3,000 employees around the world. In 2011, after the unprecedented success of League’s launch, Riot’s investor and distribution partner in China, Tencent Holdings, purchased a majority of the company for roughly $400 million, and in December 2015, bought the remainder for an undisclosed amount. Throughout all of their negotiations, Merrill and Beck made sure they were able to operate Riot Games with autonomy.

Although it’s clear that Merrill and Beck did develop League with an eye towards global distribution, even they were shocked by the scale and speed of Riot’s success, particularly given that neither of them were experienced game developers. Says Merrill, “Riot wouldn’t exist without the sort of naive optimism and belief that we could do it. Knowing what we know now, it’s so utterly improbable that my partner and I like to joke that we wouldn’t have invested in ourselves back when we were 24 and 25 and starting the company, because the challenges are immense, and the complexity is huge. There are so many other companies and people who were better positioned to do what we did than we were, that it really defies logic and rational thinking. There were a million valid reasons to say no.” To understand why Merrill, a former banking analyst and corporate marketing manager, abandoned the corporate track to enter the world of online gaming, it helps to go back to Chaminade middle school, where a pre-teen boy struggled to behave in class.

“I just always wanted to push and challenge.”

“I was one of those kids who would test limits,” says Merrill. “I actually got kicked out of honors in middle school because I was too rambunctious, and I didn’t get along with some of my teachers.” Merrill suspects he wasn’t often challenged in class, and said, “I believed in my own capabilities, and that can be both a positive, and a significant negative. And the negative was when that would manifest negatively for others.” Asked where this behavior originated, he discusses the general angst that affects many boys at this stage in their lives. He also thinks his rebelliousness was hardwired, part of his personality from birth. “I just always wanted to push and challenge, and I think some of this is why I love games so much, why I love sports and why I love competition. I want to test myself constantly. I’m attracted to that. That’s continued my whole life.”

The younger of two sons, Merrill spent parts of his early childhood in Arizona and Pennsylvania while his father, Rick, a high flyer in residential real estate, climbed the corporate ladder. “My parents did the thing that many couples did at the time, role specialization. My mom managed the home and kids and my dad was the breadwinner,” says Merrill. His mother, Kathy, “was from a traditional Catholic background where family mattered a great deal, as did religion. She was strict but incredibly loving, very supportive, and absolutely devoted her life to her kids.” By age 33, Rick had become president of Merrill Lynch realty for the entire state of Pennsylvania. When Merrill was six, his family moved to Westlake so his father could then run Prudential’s real estate group for the entire state of California.

His parents had a balanced approach to parenting. “My mom was more supportive and had high expectations. My dad was more the hands-off type — he’d pull back, let us make our own mistakes. He would say things like ‘when the student is ready the teacher will come.’’’ At this point in middle school, however, Merrill describes himself as “directionless.” But, he says, “My parents had the foresight to recognize that at this stage the peer group becomes very

influential on kids. So they wanted their sons to attend a school like Chaminade that had a critical mass of people with similar values and perspectives.” This leads us to high school, where Merrill is exposed to something that had a profound effect on his life — football.

“Football took things to a whole other level.”

It was Hell Week, the summer before freshman year. Fellow Chaminade football players Matt Markis and Adam Engle (who were new transfers to the school) were resting under the shade of a tree when Merrill ambled over. “Me being the snooty little punk that I was, I walked up to Matty and Adam and said, ‘Hey, do you guys like rap?’ They looked at each other. ‘Yeah.’ I’m like, ‘Dorks!’ And then I walked away.” This interaction ended up being a significant moment in Merrill’s life because, as Merrill puts it, “Matt ended up becoming an incredibly impactful figure in my life, even though he wasn’t trying to be. He was such a solid person all around. He was authentic, honest, supportive, generous, friendly, dependable, and worked really hard at football. Despite being one of the smallest guys, he became a starter and ultimately a star.” Merrill, still struggling to find direction, said by the end of his freshman year he would look at Matt and think, “I want to be like him.” Eventually, the two of them went on to be co-captains of the football team. They became great friends and now laugh about their initial interaction.

Merrill’s experience on the Chaminade football team made an enormous impact on his choice of future career, and the type of adult and business leader he has become. Through football, his intensity and his innate need to challenge himself and others had an outlet. “I had always loved team sports,” he says, “But then I played football and it was a whole different level of bonding with other men. It introduced me to the team dynamic that I absolutely love, and I came to really believe in the power of what you can achieve when you work together. I loved the values; I loved the violence. And it was good for me.” Merrill also wrestled, and talks about how the demanding practice schedules of both sports taught him discipline and helped him develop grit.

The Chaminade athletic coaches also helped cultivate Merrill’s leadership skills. He describes how Rudy Garcia, his wrestling coach, and Ed Croson, his football coach, “were willing to get in my face and call me out. They did it, and did a great job of it, and I respected the heck out of them. I sometimes need strength to come at me because I sometimes have strength in the opposite direction. They had the capability to command my attention and command my respect.” He says this naturally honed his skills as a leader, particularly on the football team, because, “They’d say, ‘OK, so you think we’re bad at this? Well, what are you doing about it?’”

In addition to the values, leadership skills and lifelong friendships he gained from his participation in group sports at Chaminade, Merrill also benefited from his experiences on the class retreats. His sophomore year of college he returned to lead a retreat and describes it as an “incredible experience,” recalling, “the feeling of support from so many people reinforced the value of community.” Says Merrill, “The fact that Chaminade recognizes the importance of those experiences is one of the things that makes the culture of the school so great. It’s one of the things that separates Chaminade from so many other schools.” One of the characteristics of the Marianist education that Chaminade provides is helping students learn to become contributing citizens of the world. Merrill has exemplified this not only by returning as an alumnus to lead a retreat, but in the various times he has met with Chaminade students and those from other schools to share his experiences and provide tours of the Riot Games campus.

“I always looked at a career in gaming as an irresponsible dream.”

Video games provided another outlet for Merrill’s obsession with team sports, competition, and challenging himself. “But,” he says, “I always looked at a career in gaming as an irresponsible dream.” He says he didn’t seriously consider it until he started working on Riot. Now that he’s achieved remarkable success in that arena, he says he enjoys being in the position to help the school that gave him so much.

A married father of two, he also looks at gaming from the perspective of a parent, saying, “Don’t despair if the #1 thing your kid wants to do is play online games. If they’re playing games, they’re creating. They’re developing a lot of skills that are incredibly important in the 21st century.” He goes on to say, “The gaming industry is bigger than film and Hollywood. It’s an incredibly large industry that has many career opportunities, and not just for engineers, artists and designers. We hire psychologists, we have a talent (HR) team, there are lawyers and finance professionals. We have marketing professionals and general managers. We have broadcast capabilities, TV personalities, show runners, writers, producers, and event management experts. Game companies do an incredible number of things. And the industry is growing. There’s no way the interactive entertainment industry is going to shrink in the 21st century.”

Merrill continues to challenge himself, both physically — he still “exercises pretty intensely” and does things like attend Navy Seal training programs for CEOs — and as a gamer, business leader, husband and father. He feels a deep commitment and responsibility to the gaming community. However, for someone with his propensity to challenge what is expected of him, it will be interesting to see how that manifests in not only his future business decisions but in any other arenas he may penetrate in future decades. Says Merrill, “I think I was directionless for a long time — but I had these feelings, emotions, strong opinions and capabilities which I do think influenced others, sometimes negatively and sometimes positively. When I got more proficient at figuring out a direction, I was able to channel that angst, energy and rebellious nature in a more positive direction that would then have an impact on others. My source of leadership oftentimes comes from an emotional place. If I very much care about a particular outcome, set of values or perspective on how the world should be, I relentlessly work towards making that future thing that I have in my head a reality, no matter what the obstacles are. And I think part of that is my willingness to test limits, or challenge convention, or challenge authority — the laws that exist. When everyone tells you ‘no’ as an entrepreneur, or why something can’t happen, it’s having the rebellious nature to say, ‘You know what? I think you’re wrong. I think it can.’ Having that willingness to push through it anyway, is actually positive and is often the very force that drives change in society.”

Chaminade Now - Winter 2018