Riot Games

Riot Games has revealed League Of Legends: Dominion, which adds a new capture-and-hold game mode and a new map, Crystal Scar, to its hugely popular free-to-play RTS. The developer says the new mode is a faster-paced alternative to the more strategic Summoner's Rift, with matches typically lasting for just 20 minutes. While it declined to specify a release date, Riot will be showing Dominion for the first time at next week's Gamescom in Cologne.

The free-to-play MMOG is going from strength to strength, and developer Riot Games has released some figures to put that growth in perspective. The most striking is the daily average of 1.4 million players, but also of note are more than 15 million registered users, the official website's 6 million hits a day, and almost 1.7 million people who tuned in to watch the League Of Legends Season One Championship, which was streamed on the internet. Riot Games CEO Brandon Beck said: "We’re most proud of the numbers that show just how many players are truly engrossed in the League of Legends experience. We’re very grateful to the fans that have made us one of the most popular PC games today.”

Christina Norman, lead gameplay designer on Mass Effect 2 and 3, has taken up a lead designer role at League Of Legends developer Riot Games. "I am thankful for my experience working on the Mass Effect series at BioWare," she told Gamasutra. "I'm looking forward to working with Riot on innovative new approaches to game design and game development in the rapidly-changing videogame market." Preston Watamaniuk, lead designer on the first two Mass Effects, has taken up Norman's former role at BioWare.