League of Legends developer Riot is opening up the data within its popular action-strategy game to developers from its fan community.
Riot released an application-programming interface (API) today that tracks info about recent games, players statistics, and more. Developers can use that data to make new programs, websites, and apps based on what is happening in League of Legends.
“This is about boosting the player experience by supporting a thriving ecosystem of websites, apps, and services,” League of Legends product management team member Jonathan Lai told GamesBeat. “These community-developed experiences enrich and deepen the game experience for players, so we’re supporting them with the API release.”
An API removes the barriers between apps and enables programs to easily talk with one another. In developing the League of Legends API, Riot listened to player and developer requests for more tools and information.
“Those requests really shaped our priorities for the API, so we’re stoked to finally share a beta version of the official API that developers have been craving,” said Lai. “Even without the API, community developers built tons of cool apps, so we can’t wait to see what happens now that we’ve opened deeper access.”
Riot has all of the information related to the API on its developer site. Programmers can sign up for access and get a full reference guide for the API.
“With this API, we hope developers will build apps that meaningfully improve the player experience,” said Lai. “We hope they’ll also send us feedback to help us refine and iterate on the API itself. We’re super-excited to see the awesome that our community creates.”