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There are different perspectives on this problem. I also think that the interest of the individual companies (Blizzard, Valve, Riot, etc.) are not aligned with the people actually participating in E-sports. I'm not talking about the individual employees that work for them because they might be/are big E-sports fans.
But if you look at the bottom line at what is E-sport really is to a company like Riot then it is mainly a marketing tool. Valve for example even admitted that when they started the International. Given this premise it is clear why Riot is not allowing pro-players to stream competing games. Other people have already pointed it out. It is basically the same as letting your employee advertise a competing product. And most companies do that and yes it extends into your leisure time. What Riot is doing is "normal", but it still should be discussed if applying "normal" rules is the best thing to do here.
Now if you think of what teams are interested in, then it is to raise the awareness and acceptance of E-sport in general. The mayor teams have squads/players across several different games, which makes sense because games might fall out of favor. So if dota players stream lol or lol players stream dota, it isn't such a big deal. Teams might have preferences and will generally push the games they are more successful with, but overall they should have a wider perspective.
Regarding player unions, I have no idea how contracts are negotiated between the teams and Riot, but if I would be on the team side, I would definitely try to band together in order to negotiate with Riot. They can kick individiual teams out of the LCS but they will have a hard time to run a credible tournament if a large parts of the team don't participate due to contract issues.
Last but not least, people should realize, that witch hunting Riot is something that other mobas have become really good at. Riot is a big target and they are trying to act "mature" in a community which is dominated by kids/young adults, that might not be really familiar with how buisnesses operate. So pointing fingers and stirring up outrage is another way to advertise your product. Just make your competition look bad.
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On December 05 2013 17:53 BlueSpace wrote:
There are different perspectives on this problem. I also think that the interest of the individual companies (Blizzard, Valve, Riot, etc.) are not aligned with the people actually participating in E-sports. I'm not talking about the individual employees that work for them because they might be/are big E-sports fans.
But if you look at the bottom line at what is E-sport really is to a company like Riot then it is mainly a marketing tool. Valve for example even admitted that when they started the International. Given this premise it is clear why Riot is not allowing pro-players to stream competing games. Other people have already pointed it out. It is basically the same as letting your employee advertise a competing product. And most companies do that and yes it extends into your leisure time. What Riot is doing is "normal", but it still should be discussed if applying "normal" rules is the best thing to do here.
Now if you think of what teams are interested in, then it is to raise the awareness and acceptance of E-sport in general. The mayor teams have squads/players across several different games, which makes sense because games might fall out of favor. So if dota players stream lol or lol players stream dota, it isn't such a big deal. Teams might have preferences and will generally push the games they are more successful with, but overall they should have a wider perspective.
Regarding player unions, I have no idea how contracts are negotiated between the teams and Riot, but if I would be on the team side, I would definitely try to band together in order to negotiate with Riot. They can kick individiual teams out of the LCS but they will have a hard time to run a credible tournament if a large parts of the team don't participate due to contract issues.
Last but not least, people should realize, that witch hunting Riot is something that other mobas have become really good at. Riot is a big target and they are trying to act "mature" in a community which is dominated by kids/young adults, that might not be really familiar with how buisnesses operate. So pointing fingers and stirring up outrage is another way to advertise your product. Just make your competition look bad.
Other people have already pointed out that when pro players play other game than LoL they do not promote the said game, but promote themselves. And, yeah, nobody would give a flak if they banned only MOBA games (we all know how dirty Riot plays on that ground from the day one, basically), but banning non-esportish Blizzard games like WoW, Warcraft 3 or Diablo, which are by no means LoL's direct competetitors, is another story.
I do not know what do you mean by "witch hunting", but your (crack-pot) theory certainly deserves a little praise.
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On December 05 2013 20:18 ForTehDarkseid wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2013 17:53 BlueSpace wrote:
There are different perspectives on this problem. I also think that the interest of the individual companies (Blizzard, Valve, Riot, etc.) are not aligned with the people actually participating in E-sports. I'm not talking about the individual employees that work for them because they might be/are big E-sports fans.
But if you look at the bottom line at what is E-sport really is to a company like Riot then it is mainly a marketing tool. Valve for example even admitted that when they started the International. Given this premise it is clear why Riot is not allowing pro-players to stream competing games. Other people have already pointed it out. It is basically the same as letting your employee advertise a competing product. And most companies do that and yes it extends into your leisure time. What Riot is doing is "normal", but it still should be discussed if applying "normal" rules is the best thing to do here.
Now if you think of what teams are interested in, then it is to raise the awareness and acceptance of E-sport in general. The mayor teams have squads/players across several different games, which makes sense because games might fall out of favor. So if dota players stream lol or lol players stream dota, it isn't such a big deal. Teams might have preferences and will generally push the games they are more successful with, but overall they should have a wider perspective.
Regarding player unions, I have no idea how contracts are negotiated between the teams and Riot, but if I would be on the team side, I would definitely try to band together in order to negotiate with Riot. They can kick individiual teams out of the LCS but they will have a hard time to run a credible tournament if a large parts of the team don't participate due to contract issues.
Last but not least, people should realize, that witch hunting Riot is something that other mobas have become really good at. Riot is a big target and they are trying to act "mature" in a community which is dominated by kids/young adults, that might not be really familiar with how buisnesses operate. So pointing fingers and stirring up outrage is another way to advertise your product. Just make your competition look bad. Other people have already pointed out that when pro players play other game than LoL they do not promote the said game, but promote themselves. And, yeah, nobody would give a flak if they banned only MOBA games (we all know how dirty Riot plays on that ground from the day one, basically), but banning non-esportish Blizzard games like WoW, Warcraft 3 or Diablo, which are by no means LoL's direct competetitors, is another story. I do not know what do you mean by "witch hunting", but your (crack-pot) theory certainly deserves a little praise.
When proplayers who stream playing another game they are promoting it. And they promote it to a huge audience. A LoL streamer with 15000 viewers who plays Hearthstone while waiting for a game exposes Hearthstone to 15000 young people who are mainly playing LoL and are therefore Riot's customers. 15000 customers getting interested in another product means that 15000 customers will possibly spend some of their money elsewhere.
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This is just sooo unprofessional. Which other professional sport forbids their professionals to stream other sports/activities. Non. That is like censoring private life. That's the problem of having a private monopol in something (LoL) while others will earn their money through it. You can basically do anything and if they don't agree they will lose their living.
by the way, the list of games is so random. wtf is "fat princess"?
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On December 05 2013 20:43 Don_Julio wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2013 20:18 ForTehDarkseid wrote:On December 05 2013 17:53 BlueSpace wrote:
There are different perspectives on this problem. I also think that the interest of the individual companies (Blizzard, Valve, Riot, etc.) are not aligned with the people actually participating in E-sports. I'm not talking about the individual employees that work for them because they might be/are big E-sports fans.
But if you look at the bottom line at what is E-sport really is to a company like Riot then it is mainly a marketing tool. Valve for example even admitted that when they started the International. Given this premise it is clear why Riot is not allowing pro-players to stream competing games. Other people have already pointed it out. It is basically the same as letting your employee advertise a competing product. And most companies do that and yes it extends into your leisure time. What Riot is doing is "normal", but it still should be discussed if applying "normal" rules is the best thing to do here.
Now if you think of what teams are interested in, then it is to raise the awareness and acceptance of E-sport in general. The mayor teams have squads/players across several different games, which makes sense because games might fall out of favor. So if dota players stream lol or lol players stream dota, it isn't such a big deal. Teams might have preferences and will generally push the games they are more successful with, but overall they should have a wider perspective.
Regarding player unions, I have no idea how contracts are negotiated between the teams and Riot, but if I would be on the team side, I would definitely try to band together in order to negotiate with Riot. They can kick individiual teams out of the LCS but they will have a hard time to run a credible tournament if a large parts of the team don't participate due to contract issues.
Last but not least, people should realize, that witch hunting Riot is something that other mobas have become really good at. Riot is a big target and they are trying to act "mature" in a community which is dominated by kids/young adults, that might not be really familiar with how buisnesses operate. So pointing fingers and stirring up outrage is another way to advertise your product. Just make your competition look bad. Other people have already pointed out that when pro players play other game than LoL they do not promote the said game, but promote themselves. And, yeah, nobody would give a flak if they banned only MOBA games (we all know how dirty Riot plays on that ground from the day one, basically), but banning non-esportish Blizzard games like WoW, Warcraft 3 or Diablo, which are by no means LoL's direct competetitors, is another story. I do not know what do you mean by "witch hunting", but your (crack-pot) theory certainly deserves a little praise. When proplayers who stream playing another game they are promoting it. And they promote it to a huge audience. A LoL streamer with 15000 viewers who plays Hearthstone while waiting for a game exposes Hearthstone to 15000 young people who are mainly playing LoL and are therefore Riot's customers. 15000 customers getting interested in another product means that 15000 customers will possibly spend some of their money elsewhere.
Oh god, I can't believe what I am reading.
First of all, I haven't mentioned Hearthstone in my posts at all, given if Riot release their own card game, Hearthstone would be their direct competetitor, so in terms of safety it's expected some measures to be applied even before your product hits the market.
The main point is, in civilized society the whole idea of DIRECTLY CONTROLLING POSSIBLE INTERESTS of your audience is disgusting on it's own, but when you are trying to justify the policy of forcing people into unfavourable contract conditions with it, it becomes twice as bad (and funny). I can't get how Riot has the right to require anything from players's streams when they do not pay a single penny towards it.
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On December 05 2013 21:08 ForTehDarkseid wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2013 20:43 Don_Julio wrote:On December 05 2013 20:18 ForTehDarkseid wrote:On December 05 2013 17:53 BlueSpace wrote:
There are different perspectives on this problem. I also think that the interest of the individual companies (Blizzard, Valve, Riot, etc.) are not aligned with the people actually participating in E-sports. I'm not talking about the individual employees that work for them because they might be/are big E-sports fans.
But if you look at the bottom line at what is E-sport really is to a company like Riot then it is mainly a marketing tool. Valve for example even admitted that when they started the International. Given this premise it is clear why Riot is not allowing pro-players to stream competing games. Other people have already pointed it out. It is basically the same as letting your employee advertise a competing product. And most companies do that and yes it extends into your leisure time. What Riot is doing is "normal", but it still should be discussed if applying "normal" rules is the best thing to do here.
Now if you think of what teams are interested in, then it is to raise the awareness and acceptance of E-sport in general. The mayor teams have squads/players across several different games, which makes sense because games might fall out of favor. So if dota players stream lol or lol players stream dota, it isn't such a big deal. Teams might have preferences and will generally push the games they are more successful with, but overall they should have a wider perspective.
Regarding player unions, I have no idea how contracts are negotiated between the teams and Riot, but if I would be on the team side, I would definitely try to band together in order to negotiate with Riot. They can kick individiual teams out of the LCS but they will have a hard time to run a credible tournament if a large parts of the team don't participate due to contract issues.
Last but not least, people should realize, that witch hunting Riot is something that other mobas have become really good at. Riot is a big target and they are trying to act "mature" in a community which is dominated by kids/young adults, that might not be really familiar with how buisnesses operate. So pointing fingers and stirring up outrage is another way to advertise your product. Just make your competition look bad. Other people have already pointed out that when pro players play other game than LoL they do not promote the said game, but promote themselves. And, yeah, nobody would give a flak if they banned only MOBA games (we all know how dirty Riot plays on that ground from the day one, basically), but banning non-esportish Blizzard games like WoW, Warcraft 3 or Diablo, which are by no means LoL's direct competetitors, is another story. I do not know what do you mean by "witch hunting", but your (crack-pot) theory certainly deserves a little praise. When proplayers who stream playing another game they are promoting it. And they promote it to a huge audience. A LoL streamer with 15000 viewers who plays Hearthstone while waiting for a game exposes Hearthstone to 15000 young people who are mainly playing LoL and are therefore Riot's customers. 15000 customers getting interested in another product means that 15000 customers will possibly spend some of their money elsewhere. The main point is, in civilized society the whole idea of DIRECTLY CONTROLLING POSSIBLE INTERESTS of your audience is disgusting on it's own, but when you are trying to justify the policy of forcing people into unfavourable contract conditions with it, it becomes twice as bad.
Directly controlling possible interests is what advertising is though, do you complain that EG players can't drink Redbull on stream, does that then count as them controlling your possible interest in rival energy drinks and if so is that a problem?
Riot is a gaming company, not a MOBA company or an esports company (their current product is a MOBA, that's all and as you've pointed out that could expand), they're spending money on esports so that people buy more things in their game (just like every other esports division in every other company, it's marketing) any currency spent on another game that is shown by their employees is a waste of said investment.
As for "unfavourable contact conditions", have you ever looked through an employment contract, because this is pretty standard in business. Also, outside of TI winners these pro's are getting one of the best deals in esports currently, a paid salary (on top of teams/sponsorships), regular exposure and the chance to win additional prize money in the LCS tournaments, where else can you get more than that?
I know people see Riot as the EA of esports (in that nothing they do can ever be right), but remember that they're in a unique position currently as the LCS players are their employees (unlike WCS, the only real equivalent), and as such they have the right to impose these restrictions (my employment contract has a similar clause just tailored towards the industry I work in).
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On December 05 2013 21:08 ForTehDarkseid wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2013 20:43 Don_Julio wrote:On December 05 2013 20:18 ForTehDarkseid wrote:On December 05 2013 17:53 BlueSpace wrote:
There are different perspectives on this problem. I also think that the interest of the individual companies (Blizzard, Valve, Riot, etc.) are not aligned with the people actually participating in E-sports. I'm not talking about the individual employees that work for them because they might be/are big E-sports fans.
But if you look at the bottom line at what is E-sport really is to a company like Riot then it is mainly a marketing tool. Valve for example even admitted that when they started the International. Given this premise it is clear why Riot is not allowing pro-players to stream competing games. Other people have already pointed it out. It is basically the same as letting your employee advertise a competing product. And most companies do that and yes it extends into your leisure time. What Riot is doing is "normal", but it still should be discussed if applying "normal" rules is the best thing to do here.
Now if you think of what teams are interested in, then it is to raise the awareness and acceptance of E-sport in general. The mayor teams have squads/players across several different games, which makes sense because games might fall out of favor. So if dota players stream lol or lol players stream dota, it isn't such a big deal. Teams might have preferences and will generally push the games they are more successful with, but overall they should have a wider perspective.
Regarding player unions, I have no idea how contracts are negotiated between the teams and Riot, but if I would be on the team side, I would definitely try to band together in order to negotiate with Riot. They can kick individiual teams out of the LCS but they will have a hard time to run a credible tournament if a large parts of the team don't participate due to contract issues.
Last but not least, people should realize, that witch hunting Riot is something that other mobas have become really good at. Riot is a big target and they are trying to act "mature" in a community which is dominated by kids/young adults, that might not be really familiar with how buisnesses operate. So pointing fingers and stirring up outrage is another way to advertise your product. Just make your competition look bad. Other people have already pointed out that when pro players play other game than LoL they do not promote the said game, but promote themselves. And, yeah, nobody would give a flak if they banned only MOBA games (we all know how dirty Riot plays on that ground from the day one, basically), but banning non-esportish Blizzard games like WoW, Warcraft 3 or Diablo, which are by no means LoL's direct competetitors, is another story. I do not know what do you mean by "witch hunting", but your (crack-pot) theory certainly deserves a little praise. When proplayers who stream playing another game they are promoting it. And they promote it to a huge audience. A LoL streamer with 15000 viewers who plays Hearthstone while waiting for a game exposes Hearthstone to 15000 young people who are mainly playing LoL and are therefore Riot's customers. 15000 customers getting interested in another product means that 15000 customers will possibly spend some of their money elsewhere. Oh god, I can't believe what I am reading. First of all, I haven't mentioned Hearthstone in my posts at all, given if Riot release their own card game, Hearthstone would be their direct competetitor, so in terms of safety it's expected some measures to be applied even before your product hits the market. The main point is, in civilized society the whole idea of DIRECTLY CONTROLLING POSSIBLE INTERESTS of your audience is disgusting on it's own, but when you are trying to justify the policy of forcing people into unfavourable contract conditions with it, it becomes twice as bad (and funny). I can't get how Riot has the right to require anything from players's streams when they do not pay a single penny towards it.
Just a question. Does Riot sponsors their highest league players directly? And/or does Riot provide the price money for their LCS or is it sponsors?
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On December 05 2013 21:08 Miragee wrote:
This is just sooo unprofessional. Which other professional sport forbids their professionals to stream other sports/activities. Non. That is like censoring private life. That's the problem of having a private monopol in something (LoL) while others will earn their money through it. You can basically do anything and if they don't agree they will lose their living.
by the way, the list of games is so random. wtf is "fat princess"?
Lots of places forbid contracted employees from playing certain. Try going snowboarding or skiing when under contract with sport franchises or even some big colleges. When you sign a contract with a company that is paying you, they are investing in you to promote their sport and or video game. And they can play those games in private, just don't stream them.
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On December 05 2013 21:08 ForTehDarkseid wrote:
The main point is, in civilized society the whole idea of DIRECTLY CONTROLLING POSSIBLE INTERESTS of your audience is disgusting on it's own, but when you are trying to justify the policy of forcing people into unfavourable contract conditions with it, it becomes twice as bad.
I don't like a lot of the sporting analogies that have been used in this debate (since the concept of streaming is unique to e-sports) but one thing that does carry over is that professional athletes generally have contracts which demand certain standards of behaviour even when they are not training or competing. If the players behave poorly, it tarnishes the reputation of the club and league in which they are involved, so it is not generally tolerated. Furthermore, players behaviours and habits can also be dictated by personal or club sponsors - as some people have mentioned, you can't be seen wearing Nike gear if Adidas are sponsoring you, but this can also be applied to club sponsorships; it's not a good look if Samsung sponsors your club but you're constantly seen chatting on your Iphone.
This isn't even unique to sports - it happens in business too. I know some guys who work for Samsung (in Korea) and they are strictly prohibited from using Iphones. Hell, someone on the Reddit thread mentioned that if you work for Disney, your contract stipulates that anything you personally create in your own time, while serving out the terms of the contract, is also the property of Disney. I can't verify that personally, but it sounds about right. It's extremely naive to think that your workplace doesn't/shouldn't care about what you do when you're not actually working.
What Riot is asking the players to do is no different from any of these fairly standard practices, but we're not used to it in the Western e-sports scene because it has always only been on the fringes of professionalism (putting it generously). People want e-sports to grow and become mainstream, but that's just not going to happen unless the companies involved can have some reassurances that they can protect their brand.
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On December 05 2013 21:08 ForTehDarkseid wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2013 20:43 Don_Julio wrote:On December 05 2013 20:18 ForTehDarkseid wrote:On December 05 2013 17:53 BlueSpace wrote:
There are different perspectives on this problem. I also think that the interest of the individual companies (Blizzard, Valve, Riot, etc.) are not aligned with the people actually participating in E-sports. I'm not talking about the individual employees that work for them because they might be/are big E-sports fans.
But if you look at the bottom line at what is E-sport really is to a company like Riot then it is mainly a marketing tool. Valve for example even admitted that when they started the International. Given this premise it is clear why Riot is not allowing pro-players to stream competing games. Other people have already pointed it out. It is basically the same as letting your employee advertise a competing product. And most companies do that and yes it extends into your leisure time. What Riot is doing is "normal", but it still should be discussed if applying "normal" rules is the best thing to do here.
Now if you think of what teams are interested in, then it is to raise the awareness and acceptance of E-sport in general. The mayor teams have squads/players across several different games, which makes sense because games might fall out of favor. So if dota players stream lol or lol players stream dota, it isn't such a big deal. Teams might have preferences and will generally push the games they are more successful with, but overall they should have a wider perspective.
Regarding player unions, I have no idea how contracts are negotiated between the teams and Riot, but if I would be on the team side, I would definitely try to band together in order to negotiate with Riot. They can kick individiual teams out of the LCS but they will have a hard time to run a credible tournament if a large parts of the team don't participate due to contract issues.
Last but not least, people should realize, that witch hunting Riot is something that other mobas have become really good at. Riot is a big target and they are trying to act "mature" in a community which is dominated by kids/young adults, that might not be really familiar with how buisnesses operate. So pointing fingers and stirring up outrage is another way to advertise your product. Just make your competition look bad. Other people have already pointed out that when pro players play other game than LoL they do not promote the said game, but promote themselves. And, yeah, nobody would give a flak if they banned only MOBA games (we all know how dirty Riot plays on that ground from the day one, basically), but banning non-esportish Blizzard games like WoW, Warcraft 3 or Diablo, which are by no means LoL's direct competetitors, is another story. I do not know what do you mean by "witch hunting", but your (crack-pot) theory certainly deserves a little praise. When proplayers who stream playing another game they are promoting it. And they promote it to a huge audience. A LoL streamer with 15000 viewers who plays Hearthstone while waiting for a game exposes Hearthstone to 15000 young people who are mainly playing LoL and are therefore Riot's customers. 15000 customers getting interested in another product means that 15000 customers will possibly spend some of their money elsewhere. Oh god, I can't believe what I am reading. First of all, I haven't mentioned Hearthstone in my posts at all, given if Riot release their own card game, Hearthstone would be their direct competetitor, so in terms of safety it's expected some measures to be applied even before your product hits the market. The main point is, in civilized society the whole idea of DIRECTLY CONTROLLING POSSIBLE INTERESTS of your audience is disgusting on it's own, but when you are trying to justify the policy of forcing people into unfavourable contract conditions with it, it becomes twice as bad (and funny). I can't get how Riot has the right to require anything from players's streams when they do not pay a single penny towards it.
Chill out dude.
I was only trying to reply to your comment.
Other people have already pointed out that when pro players play other game than LoL they do not promote the said game, but promote themselves.
This was one of your main points. I replied.
Yes, the contract is unfavourable for streamers. It is a dick-move by Riot, indeed. But you don't seem to understand or not want to understand that Riot is acting in its own interest.
And they are paying the players. They don't pay them for streaming but the players get a lot of exposure at the LCS, gain viewers and the additional viewers grant them even more money from streaming. You can twist every argument around if you really want it.
On December 05 2013 21:44 Miragee wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2013 21:08 ForTehDarkseid wrote:On December 05 2013 20:43 Don_Julio wrote:On December 05 2013 20:18 ForTehDarkseid wrote:On December 05 2013 17:53 BlueSpace wrote:
There are different perspectives on this problem. I also think that the interest of the individual companies (Blizzard, Valve, Riot, etc.) are not aligned with the people actually participating in E-sports. I'm not talking about the individual employees that work for them because they might be/are big E-sports fans.
But if you look at the bottom line at what is E-sport really is to a company like Riot then it is mainly a marketing tool. Valve for example even admitted that when they started the International. Given this premise it is clear why Riot is not allowing pro-players to stream competing games. Other people have already pointed it out. It is basically the same as letting your employee advertise a competing product. And most companies do that and yes it extends into your leisure time. What Riot is doing is "normal", but it still should be discussed if applying "normal" rules is the best thing to do here.
Now if you think of what teams are interested in, then it is to raise the awareness and acceptance of E-sport in general. The mayor teams have squads/players across several different games, which makes sense because games might fall out of favor. So if dota players stream lol or lol players stream dota, it isn't such a big deal. Teams might have preferences and will generally push the games they are more successful with, but overall they should have a wider perspective.
Regarding player unions, I have no idea how contracts are negotiated between the teams and Riot, but if I would be on the team side, I would definitely try to band together in order to negotiate with Riot. They can kick individiual teams out of the LCS but they will have a hard time to run a credible tournament if a large parts of the team don't participate due to contract issues.
Last but not least, people should realize, that witch hunting Riot is something that other mobas have become really good at. Riot is a big target and they are trying to act "mature" in a community which is dominated by kids/young adults, that might not be really familiar with how buisnesses operate. So pointing fingers and stirring up outrage is another way to advertise your product. Just make your competition look bad. Other people have already pointed out that when pro players play other game than LoL they do not promote the said game, but promote themselves. And, yeah, nobody would give a flak if they banned only MOBA games (we all know how dirty Riot plays on that ground from the day one, basically), but banning non-esportish Blizzard games like WoW, Warcraft 3 or Diablo, which are by no means LoL's direct competetitors, is another story. I do not know what do you mean by "witch hunting", but your (crack-pot) theory certainly deserves a little praise. When proplayers who stream playing another game they are promoting it. And they promote it to a huge audience. A LoL streamer with 15000 viewers who plays Hearthstone while waiting for a game exposes Hearthstone to 15000 young people who are mainly playing LoL and are therefore Riot's customers. 15000 customers getting interested in another product means that 15000 customers will possibly spend some of their money elsewhere. Oh god, I can't believe what I am reading. First of all, I haven't mentioned Hearthstone in my posts at all, given if Riot release their own card game, Hearthstone would be their direct competetitor, so in terms of safety it's expected some measures to be applied even before your product hits the market. The main point is, in civilized society the whole idea of DIRECTLY CONTROLLING POSSIBLE INTERESTS of your audience is disgusting on it's own, but when you are trying to justify the policy of forcing people into unfavourable contract conditions with it, it becomes twice as bad (and funny). I can't get how Riot has the right to require anything from players's streams when they do not pay a single penny towards it. Just a question. Does Riot sponsors their highest league players directly? And/or does Riot provide the price money for their LCS or is it sponsors?
I remember you from broodwar.de, am I right?
Riot pays a salary to the teams in the LCS plus price money. I have no number but it's said that the teams get enough to afford a gaming house and travels to the studio.
Riot also produces the LCS North America on its own. The LCS is the most important and basically the only professional competition in LoL. Think Proleague back in the Broodwar days. ESL is producing the LCS EU but the players are employed by Riot and I have no idea about the contract situation between Riot and ESL.
Teams can aquire sponsorships on their own though.
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LOL! they ban all Blizzard franchises. This is hilarious. Blizzard have done something to make them mad or what?
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On December 05 2013 22:47 Don_Julio wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2013 21:44 Miragee wrote:On December 05 2013 21:08 ForTehDarkseid wrote:On December 05 2013 20:43 Don_Julio wrote:On December 05 2013 20:18 ForTehDarkseid wrote:On December 05 2013 17:53 BlueSpace wrote:
There are different perspectives on this problem. I also think that the interest of the individual companies (Blizzard, Valve, Riot, etc.) are not aligned with the people actually participating in E-sports. I'm not talking about the individual employees that work for them because they might be/are big E-sports fans.
But if you look at the bottom line at what is E-sport really is to a company like Riot then it is mainly a marketing tool. Valve for example even admitted that when they started the International. Given this premise it is clear why Riot is not allowing pro-players to stream competing games. Other people have already pointed it out. It is basically the same as letting your employee advertise a competing product. And most companies do that and yes it extends into your leisure time. What Riot is doing is "normal", but it still should be discussed if applying "normal" rules is the best thing to do here.
Now if you think of what teams are interested in, then it is to raise the awareness and acceptance of E-sport in general. The mayor teams have squads/players across several different games, which makes sense because games might fall out of favor. So if dota players stream lol or lol players stream dota, it isn't such a big deal. Teams might have preferences and will generally push the games they are more successful with, but overall they should have a wider perspective.
Regarding player unions, I have no idea how contracts are negotiated between the teams and Riot, but if I would be on the team side, I would definitely try to band together in order to negotiate with Riot. They can kick individiual teams out of the LCS but they will have a hard time to run a credible tournament if a large parts of the team don't participate due to contract issues.
Last but not least, people should realize, that witch hunting Riot is something that other mobas have become really good at. Riot is a big target and they are trying to act "mature" in a community which is dominated by kids/young adults, that might not be really familiar with how buisnesses operate. So pointing fingers and stirring up outrage is another way to advertise your product. Just make your competition look bad. Other people have already pointed out that when pro players play other game than LoL they do not promote the said game, but promote themselves. And, yeah, nobody would give a flak if they banned only MOBA games (we all know how dirty Riot plays on that ground from the day one, basically), but banning non-esportish Blizzard games like WoW, Warcraft 3 or Diablo, which are by no means LoL's direct competetitors, is another story. I do not know what do you mean by "witch hunting", but your (crack-pot) theory certainly deserves a little praise. When proplayers who stream playing another game they are promoting it. And they promote it to a huge audience. A LoL streamer with 15000 viewers who plays Hearthstone while waiting for a game exposes Hearthstone to 15000 young people who are mainly playing LoL and are therefore Riot's customers. 15000 customers getting interested in another product means that 15000 customers will possibly spend some of their money elsewhere. Oh god, I can't believe what I am reading. First of all, I haven't mentioned Hearthstone in my posts at all, given if Riot release their own card game, Hearthstone would be their direct competetitor, so in terms of safety it's expected some measures to be applied even before your product hits the market. The main point is, in civilized society the whole idea of DIRECTLY CONTROLLING POSSIBLE INTERESTS of your audience is disgusting on it's own, but when you are trying to justify the policy of forcing people into unfavourable contract conditions with it, it becomes twice as bad (and funny). I can't get how Riot has the right to require anything from players's streams when they do not pay a single penny towards it. Just a question. Does Riot sponsors their highest league players directly? And/or does Riot provide the price money for their LCS or is it sponsors? I remember you from broodwar.de, am I right? Riot pays a salary to the teams in the LCS plus price money. I have no number but it's said that the teams get enough to afford a gaming house and travels to the studio. Riot also produces the LCS North America on its own. The LCS is the most important and basically the only professional competition in LoL. Think Proleague back in the Broodwar days. ESL is producing the LCS EU but the players are employed by Riot and I have no idea about the contract situation between Riot and ESL. Teams can aquire sponsorships on their own though.
Oh, yeah, I remember you as well. We played on the Lair together. 
Thanks for the answer. That changes things up quite a bit. While I still think that it's an ugly move and it's just about their money and not about "professional sport", its their right to make such a contract if they actually provide the money and pay the players/teams. But it's still a move against the players, against esports and against open formation of opinion.
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My problem with all of this is that Riot has too much power. I really don't like the state at all, riot is the developer of League and produces THE tournament for it, if you want to participate you have to be kinda employed by riot aswell.
I don't think that this helps anyone but riot and their reply " these players are like athletes ; riot does the best to make lol like a real sport" is bs.
I mean if i look at real sports there are different entities which all have different interests and they work with each other, here it seems riot has all the power and if someone doesn't react like they want he just is screwed.
Again, i know that business wise that all may be "the right thing to do", but i don't think it is the right thing for esports at all.
On December 05 2013 23:06 Miragee wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2013 22:47 Don_Julio wrote:On December 05 2013 21:44 Miragee wrote:On December 05 2013 21:08 ForTehDarkseid wrote:On December 05 2013 20:43 Don_Julio wrote:On December 05 2013 20:18 ForTehDarkseid wrote:On December 05 2013 17:53 BlueSpace wrote:
There are different perspectives on this problem. I also think that the interest of the individual companies (Blizzard, Valve, Riot, etc.) are not aligned with the people actually participating in E-sports. I'm not talking about the individual employees that work for them because they might be/are big E-sports fans.
But if you look at the bottom line at what is E-sport really is to a company like Riot then it is mainly a marketing tool. Valve for example even admitted that when they started the International. Given this premise it is clear why Riot is not allowing pro-players to stream competing games. Other people have already pointed it out. It is basically the same as letting your employee advertise a competing product. And most companies do that and yes it extends into your leisure time. What Riot is doing is "normal", but it still should be discussed if applying "normal" rules is the best thing to do here.
Now if you think of what teams are interested in, then it is to raise the awareness and acceptance of E-sport in general. The mayor teams have squads/players across several different games, which makes sense because games might fall out of favor. So if dota players stream lol or lol players stream dota, it isn't such a big deal. Teams might have preferences and will generally push the games they are more successful with, but overall they should have a wider perspective.
Regarding player unions, I have no idea how contracts are negotiated between the teams and Riot, but if I would be on the team side, I would definitely try to band together in order to negotiate with Riot. They can kick individiual teams out of the LCS but they will have a hard time to run a credible tournament if a large parts of the team don't participate due to contract issues.
Last but not least, people should realize, that witch hunting Riot is something that other mobas have become really good at. Riot is a big target and they are trying to act "mature" in a community which is dominated by kids/young adults, that might not be really familiar with how buisnesses operate. So pointing fingers and stirring up outrage is another way to advertise your product. Just make your competition look bad. Other people have already pointed out that when pro players play other game than LoL they do not promote the said game, but promote themselves. And, yeah, nobody would give a flak if they banned only MOBA games (we all know how dirty Riot plays on that ground from the day one, basically), but banning non-esportish Blizzard games like WoW, Warcraft 3 or Diablo, which are by no means LoL's direct competetitors, is another story. I do not know what do you mean by "witch hunting", but your (crack-pot) theory certainly deserves a little praise. When proplayers who stream playing another game they are promoting it. And they promote it to a huge audience. A LoL streamer with 15000 viewers who plays Hearthstone while waiting for a game exposes Hearthstone to 15000 young people who are mainly playing LoL and are therefore Riot's customers. 15000 customers getting interested in another product means that 15000 customers will possibly spend some of their money elsewhere. Oh god, I can't believe what I am reading. First of all, I haven't mentioned Hearthstone in my posts at all, given if Riot release their own card game, Hearthstone would be their direct competetitor, so in terms of safety it's expected some measures to be applied even before your product hits the market. The main point is, in civilized society the whole idea of DIRECTLY CONTROLLING POSSIBLE INTERESTS of your audience is disgusting on it's own, but when you are trying to justify the policy of forcing people into unfavourable contract conditions with it, it becomes twice as bad (and funny). I can't get how Riot has the right to require anything from players's streams when they do not pay a single penny towards it. Just a question. Does Riot sponsors their highest league players directly? And/or does Riot provide the price money for their LCS or is it sponsors? I remember you from broodwar.de, am I right? Riot pays a salary to the teams in the LCS plus price money. I have no number but it's said that the teams get enough to afford a gaming house and travels to the studio. Riot also produces the LCS North America on its own. The LCS is the most important and basically the only professional competition in LoL. Think Proleague back in the Broodwar days. ESL is producing the LCS EU but the players are employed by Riot and I have no idea about the contract situation between Riot and ESL. Teams can aquire sponsorships on their own though. Oh, yeah, I remember you as well. We played on the Lair together. Thanks for the answer. That changes things up quite a bit. While I still think that it's an ugly move and it's just about their money and not about "professional sport", its their right to make such a contract if they actually provide the money and pay the players/teams. But it's still a move against the players, against esports and against open formation of opinion.
exactly my thoughts
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On December 05 2013 23:06 Miragee wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2013 22:47 Don_Julio wrote:On December 05 2013 21:44 Miragee wrote:On December 05 2013 21:08 ForTehDarkseid wrote:On December 05 2013 20:43 Don_Julio wrote:On December 05 2013 20:18 ForTehDarkseid wrote:On December 05 2013 17:53 BlueSpace wrote:
There are different perspectives on this problem. I also think that the interest of the individual companies (Blizzard, Valve, Riot, etc.) are not aligned with the people actually participating in E-sports. I'm not talking about the individual employees that work for them because they might be/are big E-sports fans.
But if you look at the bottom line at what is E-sport really is to a company like Riot then it is mainly a marketing tool. Valve for example even admitted that when they started the International. Given this premise it is clear why Riot is not allowing pro-players to stream competing games. Other people have already pointed it out. It is basically the same as letting your employee advertise a competing product. And most companies do that and yes it extends into your leisure time. What Riot is doing is "normal", but it still should be discussed if applying "normal" rules is the best thing to do here.
Now if you think of what teams are interested in, then it is to raise the awareness and acceptance of E-sport in general. The mayor teams have squads/players across several different games, which makes sense because games might fall out of favor. So if dota players stream lol or lol players stream dota, it isn't such a big deal. Teams might have preferences and will generally push the games they are more successful with, but overall they should have a wider perspective.
Regarding player unions, I have no idea how contracts are negotiated between the teams and Riot, but if I would be on the team side, I would definitely try to band together in order to negotiate with Riot. They can kick individiual teams out of the LCS but they will have a hard time to run a credible tournament if a large parts of the team don't participate due to contract issues.
Last but not least, people should realize, that witch hunting Riot is something that other mobas have become really good at. Riot is a big target and they are trying to act "mature" in a community which is dominated by kids/young adults, that might not be really familiar with how buisnesses operate. So pointing fingers and stirring up outrage is another way to advertise your product. Just make your competition look bad. Other people have already pointed out that when pro players play other game than LoL they do not promote the said game, but promote themselves. And, yeah, nobody would give a flak if they banned only MOBA games (we all know how dirty Riot plays on that ground from the day one, basically), but banning non-esportish Blizzard games like WoW, Warcraft 3 or Diablo, which are by no means LoL's direct competetitors, is another story. I do not know what do you mean by "witch hunting", but your (crack-pot) theory certainly deserves a little praise. When proplayers who stream playing another game they are promoting it. And they promote it to a huge audience. A LoL streamer with 15000 viewers who plays Hearthstone while waiting for a game exposes Hearthstone to 15000 young people who are mainly playing LoL and are therefore Riot's customers. 15000 customers getting interested in another product means that 15000 customers will possibly spend some of their money elsewhere. Oh god, I can't believe what I am reading. First of all, I haven't mentioned Hearthstone in my posts at all, given if Riot release their own card game, Hearthstone would be their direct competetitor, so in terms of safety it's expected some measures to be applied even before your product hits the market. The main point is, in civilized society the whole idea of DIRECTLY CONTROLLING POSSIBLE INTERESTS of your audience is disgusting on it's own, but when you are trying to justify the policy of forcing people into unfavourable contract conditions with it, it becomes twice as bad (and funny). I can't get how Riot has the right to require anything from players's streams when they do not pay a single penny towards it. Just a question. Does Riot sponsors their highest league players directly? And/or does Riot provide the price money for their LCS or is it sponsors? I remember you from broodwar.de, am I right? Riot pays a salary to the teams in the LCS plus price money. I have no number but it's said that the teams get enough to afford a gaming house and travels to the studio. Riot also produces the LCS North America on its own. The LCS is the most important and basically the only professional competition in LoL. Think Proleague back in the Broodwar days. ESL is producing the LCS EU but the players are employed by Riot and I have no idea about the contract situation between Riot and ESL. Teams can aquire sponsorships on their own though. Oh, yeah, I remember you as well. We played on the Lair together. Thanks for the answer. That changes things up quite a bit. While I still think that it's an ugly move and it's just about their money and not about "professional sport", its their right to make such a contract if they actually provide the money and pay the players/teams. But it's still a move against the players, against esports and against open formation of opinion.
It's a move against the players but most of the streamers play League of Legends only and some different games while waiting for the queue. They have viewers because they stream League and not because of the stuff they do inbetween matches. They might have to do other stuff to entertain viewers at downtimes. Heck, they might start interacting with their viewers. SaintVicious a former professional players for TSM, CLG and Curse who just retired to become a coach for Curse (he's a big name) tweeted that the outrage at Reddit is totally overblown: His tweet. I expect that the actual effects of the contract will be negligible and we won't talk about it in two months.
I don't think that the contract is a move against esports. When the LCS started it was obvious that a lot of the grassroots esports will be sut down. But IPL already stopped and the other big events MLG, Dreamhack, IEM were OK but far away from a stable, professional scene. The LCS enhanced professional League to levels that are very close to Korean standards. The production level, the competition, the viewer numbers (they have a constant viewership of 80k at the absolute minimum four days a week), basically everything you want from esports took a huge step forward. It is a double-edged sword, because minor tournaments took a huge blow and are only slow to recover. This has nothing to do with the contract though. It won't affect esports at all.
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I understand why Riot did this, but I don't like it. The power to make changes like this without opposition from the players is the main reason I dislike their centralized esport model. So long as they keep making decisions like this I won't support anything they develop.
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On December 05 2013 21:39 Anggroth wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2013 21:08 ForTehDarkseid wrote:On December 05 2013 20:43 Don_Julio wrote:On December 05 2013 20:18 ForTehDarkseid wrote:On December 05 2013 17:53 BlueSpace wrote:
There are different perspectives on this problem. I also think that the interest of the individual companies (Blizzard, Valve, Riot, etc.) are not aligned with the people actually participating in E-sports. I'm not talking about the individual employees that work for them because they might be/are big E-sports fans.
But if you look at the bottom line at what is E-sport really is to a company like Riot then it is mainly a marketing tool. Valve for example even admitted that when they started the International. Given this premise it is clear why Riot is not allowing pro-players to stream competing games. Other people have already pointed it out. It is basically the same as letting your employee advertise a competing product. And most companies do that and yes it extends into your leisure time. What Riot is doing is "normal", but it still should be discussed if applying "normal" rules is the best thing to do here.
Now if you think of what teams are interested in, then it is to raise the awareness and acceptance of E-sport in general. The mayor teams have squads/players across several different games, which makes sense because games might fall out of favor. So if dota players stream lol or lol players stream dota, it isn't such a big deal. Teams might have preferences and will generally push the games they are more successful with, but overall they should have a wider perspective.
Regarding player unions, I have no idea how contracts are negotiated between the teams and Riot, but if I would be on the team side, I would definitely try to band together in order to negotiate with Riot. They can kick individiual teams out of the LCS but they will have a hard time to run a credible tournament if a large parts of the team don't participate due to contract issues.
Last but not least, people should realize, that witch hunting Riot is something that other mobas have become really good at. Riot is a big target and they are trying to act "mature" in a community which is dominated by kids/young adults, that might not be really familiar with how buisnesses operate. So pointing fingers and stirring up outrage is another way to advertise your product. Just make your competition look bad. Other people have already pointed out that when pro players play other game than LoL they do not promote the said game, but promote themselves. And, yeah, nobody would give a flak if they banned only MOBA games (we all know how dirty Riot plays on that ground from the day one, basically), but banning non-esportish Blizzard games like WoW, Warcraft 3 or Diablo, which are by no means LoL's direct competetitors, is another story. I do not know what do you mean by "witch hunting", but your (crack-pot) theory certainly deserves a little praise. When proplayers who stream playing another game they are promoting it. And they promote it to a huge audience. A LoL streamer with 15000 viewers who plays Hearthstone while waiting for a game exposes Hearthstone to 15000 young people who are mainly playing LoL and are therefore Riot's customers. 15000 customers getting interested in another product means that 15000 customers will possibly spend some of their money elsewhere. The main point is, in civilized society the whole idea of DIRECTLY CONTROLLING POSSIBLE INTERESTS of your audience is disgusting on it's own, but when you are trying to justify the policy of forcing people into unfavourable contract conditions with it, it becomes twice as bad. Directly controlling possible interests is what advertising is though, do you complain that EG players can't drink Redbull on stream, does that then count as them controlling your possible interest in rival energy drinks and if so is that a problem? Riot is a gaming company, not a MOBA company or an esports company (their current product is a MOBA, that's all and as you've pointed out that could expand), they're spending money on esports so that people buy more things in their game (just like every other esports division in every other company, it's marketing) any currency spent on another game that is shown by their employees is a waste of said investment.As for "unfavourable contact conditions", have you ever looked through an employment contract, because this is pretty standard in business. I know people see Riot as the EA of esports (in that nothing they do can ever be right), but remember that they're in a unique position currently as the LCS players are their employees (unlike WCS, the only real equivalent), and as such they have the right to impose these restrictions (my employment contract has a similar clause just tailored towards the industry I work in).
Advertising, mostly, is the indirect way of controlling possible interests, that was my gig. The poster I quoted presented the model in which 15000 LoL players couldn't get into Hearthstone without LCS proplayer playing it on a stream, therefore Riot loses a reasonable amount of money if they didn't restrict their streamers. If it were that way, it would be DIRECT CONTROL (which is baaad, remember), but, as common sense tells us, it isn't.
Your point is right if we are talking about products of the same market segment (trade games and MOBAS in our case). But Blizzard franchises like Diablo, Starcraft or Warcraft belong to other segments, therefore cash spent on this game don't belong to Riot by a large margin either way.
Look at comic book industry, for example. Mind telling me how many of artists have exclusive contracts with publishers?
And banned for drawing fanart of franchises that don't belong to their current employers at personal sites? Yeah, that's what monopoly does for ya.
@baekgok84: You can't justify someone's acts just because there is another person who did exactly the same (or even worse) and went unpunished. What Riot is doing is dictated by their corporate culture, indeed, but the idea that it's the necessary price to pay for the so called esport "professionalism" is plain out wrong.
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On December 05 2013 23:46 ForTehDarkseid wrote:
Look at comic book industry, for example. Mind telling me how many of artists have exclusive contracts with publishers?
And banned for drawing fanart of franchises that don't belong to their current employers at personal sites? Yeah, that's what monopoly does for ya.
I am curious as to what you think the fiscal state of Marvel and DC are that bringing to light their business practices is worthwhile, if all they made was books they'd have gone out of business in the early 00s
ps artist exclusivity was not rare circa 99-05 (I don't follow the scene anymore) it's just the contracts were generally only for 1 story arc (~6 months) unless you were a really fucking good artist like John Romida Jr or Jim Lee.
interestingly most of the exclusive contracts allowed for independent work, just not work for DC or Image or Marvel depending on who the contract was with, other big players, not unlike including Blizzard.
personally I'm surprised this story had this much legs, but judging by all the new faces in this thread I'm pretty sure I can tell whats going on here.
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Just wondering, the players not allowed to stream other games based on the wording in the contract but what about playing one of the banned games on another stream.
Let's say there is a crossgame (lets say SC2, Q3, LOL) tournament hosted by Yet-Another-Cool-Esports-Company. Would LCS players violate the contract when playing that and appearing on a stream while not streaming actively themselves? The contract excerpt specifially forbids the action of streaming not the appearance on a stream from my understanding.
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On December 05 2013 23:46 ForTehDarkseid wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2013 21:39 Anggroth wrote:On December 05 2013 21:08 ForTehDarkseid wrote:On December 05 2013 20:43 Don_Julio wrote:On December 05 2013 20:18 ForTehDarkseid wrote:On December 05 2013 17:53 BlueSpace wrote:
There are different perspectives on this problem. I also think that the interest of the individual companies (Blizzard, Valve, Riot, etc.) are not aligned with the people actually participating in E-sports. I'm not talking about the individual employees that work for them because they might be/are big E-sports fans.
But if you look at the bottom line at what is E-sport really is to a company like Riot then it is mainly a marketing tool. Valve for example even admitted that when they started the International. Given this premise it is clear why Riot is not allowing pro-players to stream competing games. Other people have already pointed it out. It is basically the same as letting your employee advertise a competing product. And most companies do that and yes it extends into your leisure time. What Riot is doing is "normal", but it still should be discussed if applying "normal" rules is the best thing to do here.
Now if you think of what teams are interested in, then it is to raise the awareness and acceptance of E-sport in general. The mayor teams have squads/players across several different games, which makes sense because games might fall out of favor. So if dota players stream lol or lol players stream dota, it isn't such a big deal. Teams might have preferences and will generally push the games they are more successful with, but overall they should have a wider perspective.
Regarding player unions, I have no idea how contracts are negotiated between the teams and Riot, but if I would be on the team side, I would definitely try to band together in order to negotiate with Riot. They can kick individiual teams out of the LCS but they will have a hard time to run a credible tournament if a large parts of the team don't participate due to contract issues.
Last but not least, people should realize, that witch hunting Riot is something that other mobas have become really good at. Riot is a big target and they are trying to act "mature" in a community which is dominated by kids/young adults, that might not be really familiar with how buisnesses operate. So pointing fingers and stirring up outrage is another way to advertise your product. Just make your competition look bad. Other people have already pointed out that when pro players play other game than LoL they do not promote the said game, but promote themselves. And, yeah, nobody would give a flak if they banned only MOBA games (we all know how dirty Riot plays on that ground from the day one, basically), but banning non-esportish Blizzard games like WoW, Warcraft 3 or Diablo, which are by no means LoL's direct competetitors, is another story. I do not know what do you mean by "witch hunting", but your (crack-pot) theory certainly deserves a little praise. When proplayers who stream playing another game they are promoting it. And they promote it to a huge audience. A LoL streamer with 15000 viewers who plays Hearthstone while waiting for a game exposes Hearthstone to 15000 young people who are mainly playing LoL and are therefore Riot's customers. 15000 customers getting interested in another product means that 15000 customers will possibly spend some of their money elsewhere. The main point is, in civilized society the whole idea of DIRECTLY CONTROLLING POSSIBLE INTERESTS of your audience is disgusting on it's own, but when you are trying to justify the policy of forcing people into unfavourable contract conditions with it, it becomes twice as bad. Directly controlling possible interests is what advertising is though, do you complain that EG players can't drink Redbull on stream, does that then count as them controlling your possible interest in rival energy drinks and if so is that a problem? Riot is a gaming company, not a MOBA company or an esports company (their current product is a MOBA, that's all and as you've pointed out that could expand), they're spending money on esports so that people buy more things in their game (just like every other esports division in every other company, it's marketing) any currency spent on another game that is shown by their employees is a waste of said investment.As for "unfavourable contact conditions", have you ever looked through an employment contract, because this is pretty standard in business. I know people see Riot as the EA of esports (in that nothing they do can ever be right), but remember that they're in a unique position currently as the LCS players are their employees (unlike WCS, the only real equivalent), and as such they have the right to impose these restrictions (my employment contract has a similar clause just tailored towards the industry I work in). Advertising, mostly, is the indirect way of controlling possible interests, that was my gig. The poster I quoted presented the model in which 15000 LoL players couldn't get into Hearthstone without LCS proplayer playing it on a stream, therefore Riot loses a reasonable amount of money if they didn't restrict their streamers. If it were that way, it would be DIRECT CONTROL (which is baaad, remember), but, as common sense tells us, it isn't. Your point is right if we are talking about products of the same market segment (trade games and MOBAS in our case). But Blizzard franchises like Diablo, Starcraft or Warcraft belong to other segments, therefore cash spent on this game don't belong to Riot by a large margin either way. Look at comic book industry, for example. Mind telling me how many of artists have exclusive contracts with publishers? And banned for drawing fanart of franchises that don't belong to their current employers at personal sites? Yeah, that's what monopoly does for ya. @baekgok84: You can't justify someone's acts just because there is another person who did exactly the same (or even worse) and went unpunished. What Riot is doing is dictated by their corporate culture, indeed, but the idea that it's the necessary price to pay for the so called esport "professionalism" is plain out wrong.
Let me give you a dose of reality since you seem to need it.
My best friend signed a contract with an Youth sports team that he would coach them for 1 season. There isn't a lot of money in this job, and it isn't a full time job either. The contract dealing with his direct work (hours, wages, health insurance etc.) is 5 pages long.
There is another document which he had to sign, it includes what he is not allowed to do in relation to his work. He is expressively forbidden to talk/play/comment on any other sport based activity unless it is cleared with the club beforehand.
If he wants to play a charity football match with 10 other semi celebrities (mostly ex-athletes like himself) he needs to ask for a release in advance.
There are over 10 pages dealing with sponsor restrictions based on the teams sponsors. His personal brand doesn't really factor into it either, he had been sponsored personally (and through his ex-team) by a sports drink, he had to break (or rather dissolve since there were clauses for that) that prior contract because his new club is sponsored by a different drink (actually a soft drink so it isn't even a true competitor).
Of course he is still allowed to drink whatever he wants. But he cannot run around with a branded bottle during training. If he wears his uniform or his jacket in his free time he needs to adhere to all the rules of the contract simply because he is representing a brand.
So let us get back to reality again. The LCS players stream as featured streamers on the twitch site. They are listed as playing LoL (most of the time). They give free publicity to games from other developers. Of course Riot wants them to play League and only League on their channels. Doublelift might twitter and call it annoying but let us be real here, most of those guys spends 80% of their stream playing League. Hearthstone/D3/whateverflashgameisfunatthemoment might be filler for queue times, but we tune in because we want to watch league. Remember the time when TSM played Smite (organized and almost certainly paid for by the developer of Smite)? Any decent contract (and yes I mean ANY) would forbid that. Something like that simply isn't done.
I don't agree with Riots approach to esports and the LCS, I believe they made a mistake and enjoyed the previous setup (individual tourneys over short periods of time) more, but it is definitely a step into a more professional direction. Part of that is inevitably that contracts and bylaws become more complicated. Things that weren't really an issue or ignored will be examined minutely and legislated in many ways. There will likely be 20 more shitstorms around similar problems, but maybe it would make more sense to save our outrage for true issues and stuff that is outrageous instead of stuff that is fairly common sense in almost every other Business.
Heck if we are talking about what they could do, they could actually demand a cut of their streaming revenue as part of their LCS wage, legally that wouldn't be a problem.
Also a sidenote, anyone who thinks that "Blizzard games" and "Mobas" do not share a market segment should kindly remember on what page we are discussing this. Yes they are obviously different games, No they still belong to the same market segment (multiplayer oriented, online but not subscription based games).
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Uhhh... not even close. First of all, NBA players are only on TV when they're playing basketball. While they're playing basketball, they can't promote other sports or activities they may be a part of (See: Gordon Hayward who was all about SC2 when the NBA was on strike, and suddenly disappeared after it came back... huh) their lives. In fact, they can't even promote products that they're not suppose to promote or they get fined out the ass for it.
There have been players who played multiple professional sports in the same years...so...no.
Deion Sanders hit a home run in Major League Baseball and scored a touchdown in the NFL in the same week.
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EPT
