Titled “Self Publishing Games — Circumventing Google Play” and written by a pair of senior Riot Games engineers (including the company’s chief architect, if my eyes are clear), the document lays out a plan to build a launcher not unlike the Fortnite Launcher by Epic:
In order to support bypassing Google Play on Android phones we would need to build capabilities in the following areas:
Installer
Game Website
Game Client
Game Client Patcher
Mobile Payments
The “complexity” of most items is listed as “low” “very low” or “none,” with the exception of mobile payments, which is listed as “Medium (new capability).”
“All of the capabilities built in the process of preparing self-publishing for LR are reusable and can be then applied (after proper skinning) to other mobile games released by Riot,” the page ends.
Riot’s CFO dismissed it as an “initial educational document from technical to business people” about “what it would take” to make such a thing happen.