Update, 2:45PM PST: Director of Esports at Riot Games Whalen 'RiotMagus' Rozelle confirmed in a Reddit thread that the streaming and advertisement restrictions we reported on are, in fact, in place. His comment can be found below:
We say this all the time: we want League of Legends to be a legitimate sport. There are some cool things that come from that (salaried professional athletes, legitimate revenue streams, visas, Staples Center), but there’s also a lot of structural work that needs to be done to ensure a true professional setting.
We recognize there may be some differences of opinion in the perception of pro players’ streams. In the past, pro gamers only had to worry about their personal brands when streaming and, at most, may have had to worry about not using the wrong brand of keyboard to keep their sponsor happy. Now, however, these guys are professionals contracted to a professional sports league. When they’re streaming to 50,000 fans, they’re also representing the sport itself.
I can’t stress enough how these guys in the LCS are on the road to being real, legitimate athletes. This is new territory for a lot of teams (especially in esports), because the transition goes from being a group of talented individuals to being real icons of a sport and a league. Similarly, you probably wouldn’t see an NFL player promoting Arena Football or a Nike-sponsored player wearing Reebok on camera. Pro players are free to play whatever games they want – we’re simply asking them to keep in mind that, on-stream, they’re the face of competitive League of Legends. Whalen Rozelle
Update, 11:20AM PST: onGamers has confirmed with the team representatives that LCS players are disallowed from streaming the games listed below outright, not just when adjacent to a League of Legends stream. Under Section 3 Rule 4 of the new contract handling 'Non-League Events and Streaming', it states that "... the [LCS] Team shall ensure that, during the Term of this Agreement, its Team Members do not publicly stream gameplay of the titles set forth on Exhibit B". Exhibit B states "the specific restrictions on streaming are set forth in the Sponsorship and Streaming Restricted List, as updated by the League from time to time", which is the document listed below.
You should quote the article in your post, like this:
Update, 11:20AM PST: onGamers has confirmed with the team representatives that LCS players are disallowed from streaming the games listed below outright, not just when adjacent to a League of Legends stream. Under Section 3 Rule 4 of the new contract handling 'Non-League Events and Streaming', it states that "... the [LCS] Team shall ensure that, during the Term of this Agreement, its Team Members do not publicly stream gameplay of the titles set forth on Exhibit B". Exhibit B states "the specific restrictions on streaming are set forth in the Sponsorship and Streaming Restricted List, as updated by the League from time to time", which is the document listed below.
Original Story: With less than three weeks until Riot's Battle of the Atlantic tournament, teams and players are being finalized for Season 4 of Riot's League of Legends Championship Series (LCS). With the new season on the horizon, contracts have been sent out to owners of current LCS teams.
onGamers has obtained a section of the 2014 League of Legends Championship Series contracts sent to team owners. In the section we were provided, new regulations are stipulated for what games players can and and cannot stream. The "Sponsorship and Streaming Restricted List" states that 'the following companies and/or products are not to be advertised during or adjacent to League of Legends," during the term of the agreement (duration of the contract). onGamers has confirmed with several team representatives that the document provided is real.
The most notable games among the restricted list are Dota 2, Hearthstone, World of WarCraft, StarCraft, and the World of Tanks/World of Planes franchises. Gambling and poker websites, including those that do esports betting, are also off limits. Drugs, guns, pornography and tobacco products round out the list of restrictions. The full list can be found from the screenshot of the contract below.
On December 05 2013 04:52 CrazyF1r3f0x wrote: You should quote the article in your post, like this:
Why would I quote it? I generally don't quote articles. It's just one click away..
On December 05 2013 04:58 Paljas wrote: just shows that they are afraid of SMITE
Why would they be afraid? My friend told me about SMITE like 2 years ago and still not a lot of people play or stream it.. He says SMITE is doing pretty well though and is much more friendly to play than LoL, especially with the last hit.
On December 05 2013 04:58 Paljas wrote: just shows that they are afraid of SMITE
Why would they be afraid? My friend told me about SMITE like 2 years ago and still not a lot of people play or stream it.. He says SMITE is doing pretty well though and is much more friendly to play than LoL, especially with the last hit.
SMITE is quite fun and it is still in beta as of now. They have announced a March release date and a $100k tournament, as well as backing from Tencent.
I find it interesting they are banning tobacco use on stream, but not alcohol.
This is pretty much why I don't play LoL. The game is fine, I hate Riot with a passion.
This shows how big of an ego Riot has now to attempt to boss their competition around. All of there past about kicking out DotA 2 from venues seems pretty legit now. There is no way Riot can explain this away if it is in their contract.
What a joke, I hope DotA 2 outgrows LoL in the future to put Riot in there place.
On December 05 2013 04:58 Paljas wrote: just shows that they are afraid of SMITE
Why would they be afraid? My friend told me about SMITE like 2 years ago and still not a lot of people play or stream it.. He says SMITE is doing pretty well though and is much more friendly to play than LoL, especially with the last hit.
i tried to make a joke. i remember that smite was pretty fucking bad, so my post would have been funnier. but apparently, it became better
I think I find myself in the minority... but I don't care. The primary reason is that they're being paid by Riot. If they were just normal tournaments then I'd think some clause that states you can't stream any of those games or you'll be barred from the tournament would be nutso and ridiculous. As it is, Riot is paying these guys a salary and obviously advertising for rival games isn't in their best interest.
I don't like it; but it's not a big deal as it stands and I understand their reasoning.
Oh I understand the reasoning, I just don't like it.
I'm fine with alot of things (not the dota2 disbarring for teams, but that was just needless fearmongering since pretty much all the other "sources" outside the initial Scoots rumoring turned out to just be echoing the reddit pitchforkings) but this is kind of petty.
Or maybe they want pros to start streaming LoL TCG when it comes out over hearthstone, who knows
On December 05 2013 04:47 Zealos wrote: This just about sums up the problem I, and a lot of non-LoL players have with Riot.
Op needs some work though.
Why should you as a non-LoL player (and presumably non-LoL stream watcher) care which content LoL streamers stream?
Well there are guys who care about other esports and this move from riot shows again that they aren't happy til every other competitor fails. I mean i can understand why they do this, it makes sense business wise, but it feels so wrong. I hope some players will voice their opinion about it, but i fear nobody will risk the LCS spot for something like that.
On December 05 2013 04:47 Zealos wrote: This just about sums up the problem I, and a lot of non-LoL players have with Riot.
Op needs some work though.
Why should you as a non-LoL player (and presumably non-LoL stream watcher) care which content LoL streamers stream?
Well there are guys who care about other esports and this move from riot shows again that they aren't happy til every other competitor fails. I mean i can understand why they do this, it makes sense business wise, but it feels so wrong. I hope some players will voice their opinion about it, but i fear nobody will risk the LCS spot for something like that.
Imo it feels normal. If you sign with Nike, you dont wear anything from Adidas. If you are a celeb advertising for Coke, you are not supposed to be seen drinking Pepsi in public. If you are sponsored by Razor, you dont use Steelseries gear in public. It is simple professionalism.
On December 05 2013 04:47 Zealos wrote: This just about sums up the problem I, and a lot of non-LoL players have with Riot.
Op needs some work though.
Why should you as a non-LoL player (and presumably non-LoL stream watcher) care which content LoL streamers stream?
Well there are guys who care about other esports and this move from riot shows again that they aren't happy til every other competitor fails. I mean i can understand why they do this, it makes sense business wise, but it feels so wrong. I hope some players will voice their opinion about it, but i fear nobody will risk the LCS spot for something like that.
This is just a byproduct of protecting your own success. Businesses who don't protect themselves are doomed to fail.
I always have a friend who defends riot for stuff like this, if i bring up the controversy with pendragon, its all just company mentality, i mean who cares about killing esports when your making money? It's still inexcusable and i hope the community slams riot for this.
On December 05 2013 06:29 FlyingToilet wrote: I always have a friend who defends riot for stuff like this, if i bring up the controversy with pendragon, its all just company mentality, i mean who cares about killing esports when your making money? It's still inexcusable and i hope the community slams riot for this.
E-sports as a whole profits a lot from LoL's success, no matter if Riot wants it or not.
On December 05 2013 04:47 Zealos wrote: This just about sums up the problem I, and a lot of non-LoL players have with Riot.
Op needs some work though.
Why should you as a non-LoL player (and presumably non-LoL stream watcher) care which content LoL streamers stream?
Well there are guys who care about other esports and this move from riot shows again that they aren't happy til every other competitor fails. I mean i can understand why they do this, it makes sense business wise, but it feels so wrong. I hope some players will voice their opinion about it, but i fear nobody will risk the LCS spot for something like that.
Imo it feels normal. If you sign with Nike, you dont wear anything from Adidas. If you are a celeb advertising for Coke, you are not supposed to be seen drinking Pepsi in public. If you are sponsored by Razor, you dont use Steelseries gear in public. It is simple professionalism.
The difference is that lol players get money for being in the lcs, not for streaming league of legends (as far as i know). But well, riot aims for more power and they will get it, i just wonder what is next, maybe LCS players have to shittalk Blizzard and Valve next? (/jk)
On December 05 2013 04:47 Zealos wrote: This just about sums up the problem I, and a lot of non-LoL players have with Riot.
Op needs some work though.
Why should you as a non-LoL player (and presumably non-LoL stream watcher) care which content LoL streamers stream?
Well there are guys who care about other esports and this move from riot shows again that they aren't happy til every other competitor fails. I mean i can understand why they do this, it makes sense business wise, but it feels so wrong. I hope some players will voice their opinion about it, but i fear nobody will risk the LCS spot for something like that.
Imo it feels normal. If you sign with Nike, you dont wear anything from Adidas. If you are a celeb advertising for Coke, you are not supposed to be seen drinking Pepsi in public. If you are sponsored by Razor, you dont use Steelseries gear in public. It is simple professionalism.
The difference is that lol players get money for being in the lcs, not for streaming league of legends (as far as i know). But well, riot aims for more power and they will get it, i just wonder what is next, maybe LCS players have to shittalk Blizzard and Valve next? (/jk)
This is how jobs work though, my contract pays for my time spent in the office, but there's still a no-compete clause stating that I can't work for/represent/advertise any competitors at any other time.
The equivalent for other e-sports would be players representing sponsors competitors on-stream (as they are the one's paying the bills). Anyone who thinks Valve/Blizzard etc... wouldn't include the same clause if they were directly employing players are forgetting that this is a business and these companies are in it to make money.
I bet most LCS proplayers are totally okay with this, that's the joke.
I like the idea Riot's management is seriously afraid that their "employees" are eventually going to promote other products than their own so much they don't think any public backlash can hurt them more in the long run.
Ah, good luck. Let's see will LCS be intact in say, five, years. Five consecutive years with all Asian World Championship Grand Finals no matter how atrocious and rigged format higher executives will come up with.
On December 05 2013 06:29 FlyingToilet wrote: I always have a friend who defends riot for stuff like this, if i bring up the controversy with pendragon, its all just company mentality, i mean who cares about killing esports when your making money? It's still inexcusable and i hope the community slams riot for this.
We say this all the time: we want League of Legends to be a legitimate sport. There are some cool things that come from that (salaried professional athletes, legitimate revenue streams, visas, Staples Center), but there’s also a lot of structural work that needs to be done to ensure a true professional setting.
We recognize there may be some differences of opinion in the perception of pro players’ streams. In the past, pro gamers only had to worry about their personal brands when streaming and, at most, may have had to worry about not using the wrong brand of keyboard to keep their sponsor happy. Now, however, these guys are professionals contracted to a professional sports league. When they’re streaming to 50,000 fans, they’re also representing the sport itself.
I can’t stress enough how these guys in the LCS are on the road to being real, legitimate athletes. This is new territory for a lot of teams (especially in esports), because the transition goes from being a group of talented individuals to being real icons of a sport and a league. Similarly, you probably wouldn’t see an NFL player promoting Arena Football or a Nike-sponsored player wearing Reebok on camera. Pro players are free to play whatever games they want – we’re simply asking them to keep in mind that, on-stream, they’re the face of competitive League of Legends.
There's a huge kneejerk reaction to this, but it's really not that big of a deal. Reddit blew it way out of proportion, but looking at the contract (which may not even be the final draft they had the players sign), there's not too many issues here from my perspective. It's fairly standard - the NFL wouldn't want players advertising or playing in the CFL while under contract, so why would Riot want their players to advertise competing products?
It looks like all Riot wants to do is keep LoL content separate from other competitive games content, which is kind of understandable. Hearthstone might be a bit of a stretch, but I understand them wanting to keep Dota 2 out of their LoL streams, and let's be realistic. Is this really going to affect guys like qtpie playing FFX in between streams? Of course not. Are people going to have to sit there and stare awkardly at pro players while they queue? No, the pro players will find other ways to entertain their stream in between games. The most that's going to have to happen is that all the Hearthstone spammers will have to find a new game to play or way to entertain during queue times.
Yeah, if Riot are paying players they have a right to restrict what games they stream. But the NFL doing something similar doesn't make this not an issue. Maybe if the NFL would be less restrictive it would be good for all involved. Just like in this case. Riot could be less restrictive which builds good will and it might be better for them in the long run.
Remember when I brought up the idea of a player's union and the Riot employee posting here said it was completely unnecessary and harmful? LOL!
The problem isn't with Riot trying to put favorable conditions in their contracts, it's the fact that the players have no ability for collective action or negotiating power.
On December 05 2013 08:23 Slow Motion wrote: Remember when I brought up the idea of a player's union and the Riot employee posting here said it was completely unnecessary and harmful? LOL!
The problem isn't with Riot trying to put favorable conditions in their contracts, it's the fact that the players have no ability for collective action or negotiating power.
unions are harmful if they are created incorrectly. GIven how little money is in eSports, i can definitely see a union taking advantage of it's members by asking for unnecessary "fees" or monetary contributions.
On December 05 2013 08:23 Slow Motion wrote: Remember when I brought up the idea of a player's union and the Riot employee posting here said it was completely unnecessary and harmful? LOL!
The problem isn't with Riot trying to put favorable conditions in their contracts, it's the fact that the players have no ability for collective action or negotiating power.
unions are harmful if they are created incorrectly. GIven how little money is in eSports, i can definitely see a union taking advantage of it's members by asking for unnecessary "fees" or monetary contributions.
I suggested a player formed union that could be scrutinized by the public (and accountable by law). The argument the Riot employee was making is that it would have just slowed thing down and that Riot always knows what's best. It was such an absurd argument but I didn't call him out on his obvious bias at the time cause I probably would have gotten banned.
Veterans of the scene with management experience like Hotshot and Reginald need to step up.
On December 05 2013 08:53 Glasse wrote: This is pretty much the same as banning a NBA player from playing hockey in his free time.
and trying to get their hockey game broadcast on TV while taking a cut of the advertising. stop with the analogies if you're going to be wrong and or stupid.
On December 05 2013 08:53 Glasse wrote: This is pretty much the same as banning a NBA player from playing hockey in his free time.
and trying to get their hockey game broadcast on TV while taking a cut of the advertising. stop with the analogies if you're going to be wrong and or stupid.
this is just like the NBA banning gordon hayward from streaming SC2.
On December 05 2013 08:53 Glasse wrote: This is pretty much the same as banning a NBA player from playing hockey in his free time.
and trying to get their hockey game broadcast on TV while taking a cut of the advertising. stop with the analogies if you're going to be wrong and or stupid.
It's saying you can't make money by advertising our competition, a standard no-compete clause in any employment contract.
On December 05 2013 08:53 Glasse wrote: This is pretty much the same as banning a NBA player from playing hockey in his free time.
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.
Second, they can still play these games during the LCS - They just can't stream them because that makes sense. If you're going to be contracted and paid by a company, you best be promoting their product when you're showing your face to the public, not someone else's. Riot needs their players to be standing by the game 100% so companies will invest into LoL, and not have to expect players or teams to drop it because this new game came out last week, and everyone thinks it's going to be hot shit. No point in investing in something if the wind is going to change in a year or two.
Third, most people are overreacting about this. It's a step in the right direction - a giant one at that. People want Esports to be more legit, but when shit like this comes along, the viewers rant and rave about it. I'm just glad that Riot will likely not back down in this instance just because a bunch of whiney fans think they know better which they don't.
On December 05 2013 08:53 Glasse wrote: This is pretty much the same as banning a NBA player from playing hockey in his free time.
and trying to get their hockey game broadcast on TV while taking a cut of the advertising. stop with the analogies if you're going to be wrong and or stupid.
this is just like the NBA banning gordon hayward from streaming SC2.
Except SC2 is not a direct competitor to basketball, not even close, and if it were, they would ban him from doing it during the season. It makes sense, and if you disagree with it, you probably know little to nothing about how you should contract players if you want a company to invest in your team.
On December 05 2013 08:53 Glasse wrote: This is pretty much the same as banning a NBA player from playing hockey in his free time.
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.
Second, they can still play these games during the LCS - They just can't stream them because that makes sense. If you're going to be contracted and paid by a company, you best be promoting their product when you're showing your face to the public, not someone else's. Riot needs their players to be standing by the game 100% so companies will invest into LoL, and not have to expect players or teams to drop it because this new game came out last week, and everyone thinks it's going to be hot shit. No point in investing in something if the wind is going to change in a year or two.
Third, most people are overreacting about this. It's a step in the right direction - a giant one at that. People want Esports to be more legit, but when shit like this comes along, the viewers rant and rave about it. I'm just glad that Riot will likely not back down in this instance just because a bunch of whiney fans think they know better which they don't.
actually gordon stopped playing sc2 because he plays lol now.
Except SC2 is not a direct competitor to basketball, not even close, and if it were, they would ban him from doing it during the season. It makes sense, and if you disagree with it, you probably know little to nothing about how you should contract players if you want a company to invest in your team.
I thought you know riot was supposed to be talking about how lol is a real sport, and as such would be a competitor to sports. and nice argument style "if you disagree you are dumb"
I thought this was all common knowledge. I still remember Link stopping his dota 2 stream after getting a message from someone that told him to stop some 10 months ago
If the players are alright with signing the contract, then whatever. I think it's dumb, but if that's how they want to run their business, then go for it. However, don't try to say it's the same thing as real sports.
Leagues doesn't come down on athletes in professional sport X, want to play in sport Y during the off-season for fun in a public, but amateur setting. Playing a game, in your own time for fun, is not promoting a competing brand.
As an example: Players from the NHL are banned from playing hockey in a public setting, not golf. Playing golf for fun on a public course for all to see does not mean they are promoting golf. (If they were then oh boy one of the golf course near me would be a hot bed...)
The reason why NHL players are banned from playing amateur hockey is because that's giving away the "product" for free, and de-valuing the league.
The "equivalent" would be that LCS players are banned from streaming pub games, because that's giving away the LCS's product for free.
Of course, all of that kind of goes out the window if Riot was paying the players to stream, but I don't think they are?
Edit: I suppose the legal waters would be muddied a bit by the fact that they technically make money from streaming other games, but again, that's not promotion.
Edit2: I also speak more about thinks like Hearthstone being banned.
On December 05 2013 08:53 Glasse wrote: This is pretty much the same as banning a NBA player from playing hockey in his free time.
and trying to get their hockey game broadcast on TV while taking a cut of the advertising. stop with the analogies if you're going to be wrong and or stupid.
this is just like the NBA banning gordon hayward from streaming SC2.
Except SC2 is not a direct competitor to basketball, not even close, and if it were, they would ban him from doing it during the season..
SC2 may not be a direct competitor, but it can easily be a indirect one. If you think about what the term competitor means in this context, it's an activity or game that will detract from the attention or viewership from said sport. It shouldn't matter what medium the games are played on (computers, consoles, IRL), viewers/players are still individual bodies that will spend their a majority of their time following a single sport/game. Just because SC2 and basketball aren't the exact same genre, the competition between activities is still there. It also shouldn't matter if the competition is big or small. Every game starts out small and has the potential to become the next big thing. It's best to decrease the competition early before it becomes something you can't fight against with what you have. Yes, this can apply to almost anything but it's easier to target activities that have any sort of substance.
If the players are alright with signing the contract, then whatever. I think it's dumb, but if that's how they want to run their business, then go for it. However, don't try to say it's the same thing as real sports.
They don't really have a choice whether to sign it or not, if they don't then they don't have a job.
anyway I don't think its a big deal, the most annoying thing is most likely that the streamers will have to fill time in between games without Heartstone/other games.
If the players are alright with signing the contract, then whatever. I think it's dumb, but if that's how they want to run their business, then go for it. However, don't try to say it's the same thing as real sports.
They don't really have a choice whether to sign it or not, if they don't then they don't have a job.
anyway I don't think its a big deal, the most annoying thing is most likely that the streamers will have to fill time in between games without Heartstone/other games.
It's a dark day for esports. Not just because the contract is ridiculous but also because there are people who are okay with it. Being a good game is protection enough, this is just unethical bs because they force it onto teenagers and young adults who have no choice but to accept whatever contract riot presents them. Shitty company, really regret giving them money.
People are getting awfully upset over this, but as I see it, this is just an inevitable outcome of the increasing professionalism in Western e-sports. There is nothing really unethical about this; Riot has identified what it sees as its key competition, and included stipulations in their contract which prevent their employees from promoting them, indirectly or otherwise. I'm certainly not a fan of all of Riot's business practices, but the 'killing e-sports' complain is pretty pathetic considering Riot are one of the only companies that seems to be interested in building a genuine e-sports infrastructure in the West, instead of just shipping that job out to a series of third-party promoters and organisers, and then throwing a big 'World Championship' tournament once a year.
Companies put this information out first then see how the public reacts to it, then they retract it and call it a mistake. This is a simple strategy that has been repeated millions of times in not just gaming.
On December 05 2013 13:03 baekgom84 wrote: People are getting awfully upset over this, but as I see it, this is just an inevitable outcome of the increasing professionalism in Western e-sports. There is nothing really unethical about this; Riot has identified what it sees as its key competition, and included stipulations in their contract which prevent their employees from promoting them, indirectly or otherwise. I'm certainly not a fan of all of Riot's business practices, but the 'killing e-sports' complain is pretty pathetic considering Riot are one of the only companies that seems to be interested in building a genuine e-sports infrastructure in the West, instead of just shipping that job out to a series of third-party promoters and organisers, and then throwing a big 'World Championship' tournament once a year.
Congratulations, you have made me mad.
Tobacco and alcohol have suddenly became Riot's competition, and dictating the pro players what they can or not do on their own stream means company treats them only as PR's assets, and don't acknowledge their talent and charisma denying their part in LoL's success whatsoever.
On December 05 2013 14:03 ForTehDarkseid wrote: Congratulations, you have made me mad.
Tobacco and alcohol have suddenly became Riot's competition, and dictating the pro players what they can or not do on their own stream means company treats them only as PR's assets, and don't acknowledge their talent and charisma denying their part in LoL's success whatsoever.
I guess people who try to sugarcoat or defend this matter live under the exact same pressure of their employers.
The players are employed by Riot and have a very active role in promoting Riot's product. From Riot's perspective, they have decided that they don't want their product associated with the particular substances you mentioned, nor do they want their employees promoting products or companies that they see as their direct competition. Like I said, this is the trade-off that comes with being a full-time professional. I wouldn't be surprised if Riot also wanted to include offensive language on this list, but I can only assume they realised that would be pushing things too far.
I'm not saying I like these changes, but just that they are probably inevitable as long as e-sports keeps moving in this direction. These guys are essentially marketing assets for Riot, and that's how they'll be treated.
On December 05 2013 13:03 baekgom84 wrote: People are getting awfully upset over this, but as I see it, this is just an inevitable outcome of the increasing professionalism in Western e-sports. There is nothing really unethical about this; Riot has identified what it sees as its key competition, and included stipulations in their contract which prevent their employees from promoting them, indirectly or otherwise. I'm certainly not a fan of all of Riot's business practices, but the 'killing e-sports' complain is pretty pathetic considering Riot are one of the only companies that seems to be interested in building a genuine e-sports infrastructure in the West, instead of just shipping that job out to a series of third-party promoters and organisers, and then throwing a big 'World Championship' tournament once a year.
Congratulations, you have made me mad.
Tobacco and alcohol have suddenly became Riot's competition, and dictating the pro players what they can or not do on their own stream means company treats them only as PR's assets, and don't acknowledge their talent and charisma denying their part in LoL's success whatsoever.
First off, to the best of my knowledge based on tweets and reading the actual, posted contract + article, alcohol is never mentioned as a banned streaming item.
Secondly, the stuff about gambling, drugs, porn, weapons, and tobacco honestly are not that absurd. These players are basically Riot employees and should present a good public face. Besides, are you honestly mad that Riot is trying to make sure these players and streamers are good role models? Do you really want streamer X snorting coke and smoking while simultaneously watching porn on stream? Think of the children man.
Companies, sports associations, etc...all often have a code of conduct for their employees when on the job. IE. non-competes, no drinking on the job, no drugs, etc... Streaming is very novel. At this point, streaming for these players is not necessarily just something they do for fun. It's honestly part of their job - they're getting paid to do it.
I can't believe so many people are upset about this. These players are employed by Riot, so how is it wrong for Riot to want these players that they are investing in to promote their brand and not their competitors?
This is essentially the same thing as a conflict of interest clause, which is a standard inclusion in contracts. Would it be wrong for a consulting firm to bar one of its employees from providing services to one of its primary competitors?
I'm an intern earning close to minimum wage and I still had to sign a non-compete (who'd even care if I worked for a competitor lol I'm going back to school anyway), so I can't say I'm too upset about this. Surely people are not tuning in for Hearthstone, the streamers can find something else to fill the time with.
On December 05 2013 15:17 Redmark wrote: I'm an intern earning close to minimum wage and I still had to sign a non-compete (who'd even care if I worked for a competitor lol I'm going back to school anyway), so I can't say I'm too upset about this. Surely people are not tuning in for Hearthstone, the streamers can find something else to fill the time with.
The non-compete analogy is irrelevant here. When you stream you're not getting paid by Blizzard, Riot or any other gaming company, but by Twitch and the advertisers.
I work in software development and I'm rather certain my contract doesn't bar me from streaming myself writing code for myself, and getting paid for it via the advertisements. It's called capital income, in the same way as stock dividends, i.e. no company can forbid you from buying the stock of a competing company and profiting from the dividends.
On December 05 2013 13:03 baekgom84 wrote: People are getting awfully upset over this, but as I see it, this is just an inevitable outcome of the increasing professionalism in Western e-sports. There is nothing really unethical about this; Riot has identified what it sees as its key competition, and included stipulations in their contract which prevent their employees from promoting them, indirectly or otherwise. I'm certainly not a fan of all of Riot's business practices, but the 'killing e-sports' complain is pretty pathetic considering Riot are one of the only companies that seems to be interested in building a genuine e-sports infrastructure in the West, instead of just shipping that job out to a series of third-party promoters and organisers, and then throwing a big 'World Championship' tournament once a year.
Congratulations, you have made me mad.
Tobacco and alcohol have suddenly became Riot's competition, and dictating the pro players what they can or not do on their own stream means company treats them only as PR's assets, and don't acknowledge their talent and charisma denying their part in LoL's success whatsoever.
First off, to the best of my knowledge based on tweets and reading the actual, posted contract + article, alcohol is never mentioned as a banned streaming item.
Secondly, the stuff about gambling, drugs, porn, weapons, and tobacco honestly are not that absurd. These players are basically Riot employees and should present a good public face. Besides, are you honestly mad that Riot is trying to make sure these players and streamers are good role models? Do you really want streamer X snorting coke and smoking while simultaneously watching porn on stream? Think of the children man.
Companies, sports associations, etc...all often have a code of conduct for their employees when on the job. IE. non-competes, no drinking on the job, no drugs, etc... Streaming is very novel. At this point, streaming for these players is not necessarily just something they do for fun. It's honestly part of their job - they're getting paid to do it.
Alcohol was mentioned somewhere in comments (not on TL), and it would feel rather counterintuitive if tobacco is banned, but booze is not.
Well, nobody in his mind would object over banning all things you mentioned except smoking. It's basically a discrimination against people with certain habit and shouldn't be tolerated in a democratic society in my opinion.
As far as I understand, Riot is paying pro players for performing at LCS, not for playing streams in their leisure time yet they are setting rules in a sphere which should be by definition free of their influence. No matter how good your intentions sound on paper, it shouldn't affect another person's freedom.
On December 05 2013 09:28 OutlaW- wrote: I thought this was all common knowledge. I still remember Link stopping his dota 2 stream after getting a message from someone that told him to stop some 10 months ago
Any chance there is a vod? Or you know who message was from/what it said
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.
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.
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.
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"?
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.
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).
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?
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
Riot pays people in the LCS, making them somewhat "riot employees". Isn't it normal that they should promote league of legends and not dota 2 or hearthstone ? I can see why some people could think it is evil but honestly it is not.
I work in the IT field for a lot of clients and even if my job is a technical one I still have to promote my company when I can. It is also in my best interest to not promote our competitors. To me it just makes sense, if Dyrus wants to play hearthstone so badly he's free to do it off the stream, if I want to trash-talk my company I'm free to do it outside of my job in a private setting.
Streaming to 30 000 person is not a private setting.
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.
Just making sure this doesn't go unnoticed since Riot likes to compare themselves to other sports leagues.
On December 06 2013 00:32 Tula wrote: 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.
You won't freaking believe it, that's what twitch does.
most of those guys spends 80% of their stream playing League.
In other words, Riot's greed has virtually no limits.
it is definitely a step into a more professional direction.
When sport players behave inappropriately they don't represent the sport they are playing for, they represent themselves. Yet Riot thinks their employers aren't even allowed to smoke, because it will provide negative public image.
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.
Unfortunately, some players make more money out of streams than out of LCS. Or at least more fun. And they have dignity and personality as a human beings, yet people defending this contract speak about them as a marketing tools. We do not need this kind of professionalism in esports, right?
No they still belong to the same market segment (multiplayer oriented, online but not subscription based games).
Riot bias is strong in this one. Different genre = different target audience = different market segment, for god's sake.
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.
Just making sure this doesn't go unnoticed since Riot likes to compare themselves to other sports leagues.
it will get unnoticed.people do not follow sports that much.
I am sort of shocked of the ammount of athlethes playing in multiple sports at once that no one mentions.they have a huge wikipedia page
On December 06 2013 00:32 Tula wrote: 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.
You won't freaking believe it, that's what twitch does.
it is definitely a step into a more professional direction.
When sport players behave inappropriately they don't represent the sport they are playing for, they represent themselves. Yet Riot thinks their employers aren't even allowed to smoke, because it will provide negative public image.
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.
Unfortunately, some players make more money out of streams than out of LCS. Or at least more fun. And they have dignity and personality as a human beings, yet people defending this contract speak about them as a marketing tools. We do not need this kind of professionalism in esports, right?
On December 06 2013 00:32 Tula wrote: 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.
You won't freaking believe it, that's what twitch does.
most of those guys spends 80% of their stream playing League.
In other words, Riot's greed has virtually no limits.
it is definitely a step into a more professional direction.
When sport players behave inappropriately they don't represent the sport they are playing for, they represent themselves. Yet Riot thinks their employers aren't even allowed to smoke, because it will provide negative public image.
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.
Unfortunately, some players make more money out of streams than out of LCS. Or at least more fun. And they have dignity and personality as a human beings, yet people defending this contract speak about them as a marketing tools. We do not need this kind of professionalism in esports, right?
No they still belong to the same market segment (multiplayer oriented, online but not subscription based games).
Riot bias is strong in this one. Different genre = different target audience = different market segment, for god's sake.
you try way too hard to troll or just very bitter
How is this trolling at all? He has responded pretty intelligently to each of the points. Your bias seems pretty heavy :3
As many people have pointed out, were it not for Hearthstone being on the list of banned games, this would not have been even a tenth of the story it turned out to be. No one seems to be upset about the other games on the list except Hearthstone. I assume it was included as a blanket Blizzard ban to combat Heroes of the Storm, but who knows. I thought I heard a rumor last night that they're considering removing Hearthstone from the list to placate people, but again, that's just a rumor. If the list was just a blanket ban on MOBAs with special cases at Riot's discretion, then I don't know if it sounds so absurd anymore.
I don't really think it's extreme or something people should be against...
Riot pays the teams and players very well. In return, they ask for exclusivity (for people to not stream other games; in this case, mainly Blizzard games).
Razer pays Team Liquid through sponsorships. In return, they ask for exclusivity (that our players do not use other gaming equipment than theirs).
While I can understand that it might be boring for some people that they can't stream Hearthstone while in queue, I think it makes a lot of sense for Riot to do this. The, although extreme, alternative would be that Riot does not pay the teams or players at all, and then they could do whatever they wanted to. Then the teams would have to foot the bill on player salaries and travel themselves, just like in StarCraft and DOTA. That's not something anyone wants either.
The thing is, there's no alternative. There's no way for you to be a professional LoL player without taking Riot's money. Whereas if you don't agree to the terms of your contract you can find a different sponsor or a different employer, that option simply does not exist for a professional LoL player because the ONLY way to be a legitimate pro is to work for Riot. Any tournament player who does not take Riot's salary and who does not play in LCS is by definition an amateur because Riot has effectively killed the legitimacy of 3rd party premier events.
It's not so much the specific terms of the contract, but that there's no checks on what Riot can do with this. It's a bad precedent to set when they basically have a blank check over what can go in the contract because players have no leverage and there are no tournaments to compete with LCS for teams' participation.
On December 06 2013 03:14 Bumblebee wrote: The, although extreme, alternative would be that Riot does not pay the teams or players at all, and then they could do whatever they wanted to.
That alternative isn't even available.
There is no way to participate in LCS without taking Riot's money. And if you're not in LCS you're an amateur essentially by definition.
Obviously the option is there, but it'd be hard (and also impossible for a lot of teams). I don't think participating in LCS is much different from the people participating in the GSL or OSL for StarCraft. You'd have to live and be based out of Seoul. A lot of teams have teamhouses in that city simply because of that. However, it's not really an option go back in that direction which was my whole point from my post and that it's not outrageous for them to ask for this.
On December 06 2013 00:32 Tula wrote: 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.
You won't freaking believe it, that's what twitch does.
it is definitely a step into a more professional direction.
When sport players behave inappropriately they don't represent the sport they are playing for, they represent themselves. Yet Riot thinks their employers aren't even allowed to smoke, because it will provide negative public image.
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.
Unfortunately, some players make more money out of streams than out of LCS. Or at least more fun. And they have dignity and personality as a human beings, yet people defending this contract speak about them as a marketing tools. We do not need this kind of professionalism in esports, right?
No they still belong to the same market segment (multiplayer oriented, online but not subscription based games).
Riot bias is strong in this one. Different genre = different target audience = different market segment, for god's sake.
seriously? You are posting on TEAM LIQUID? A site based on Sc:BW and want to argue that this is a completely different target audience?
Are you trying to make fun of me? I literally cannot believe that you think these games and their fanbases do not overlap in major ways. Obviously there might be people who only like 1 specific genre and will never ever play anything else, but in the grand scheme of things their number is miniscule compared to people who apply far more generous standards ("Is it multiplayer focused" "Is it fps?").
This is probably the only esport where something like this would be acceptable, which is also the reason why this is the fastest growing, bigger and most popular esport at the same time.
Giving pros salaries and giving them real sport-like responsibilities to both them and the proteams is the way to make this esport even more accepted, mainstream and "serious".
Something like this wouldn't have even been thinkable on any other esport that doesn't give salaries and effectively gives all their pro players a living.
On December 06 2013 03:43 xuanzue wrote: I don't think the riot's position is that dominant to make this move, without consequences.
valve & activision-blizzard can ally themselves, and only give licenses to the tournaments that don't have LoL in their circuits.
LoL is the favorite of OGN, other is the tale in mlg-iem-dh.
MLG and DH aren't important for League at all. MLG provided a nice live event for the LCS last season, that's it. DH has only a few teams attending and nobody in the LoL scene cares. IEM is ESL. ESL is producing the LCS Europe, which is basically financing their studio in Cologne and the LoL IEMs are going well. They have a good relationship for us outsiders and won't even try to ruin it.
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"?
The difference with other sports is that the only individuals who have played more than 1 professionally have played sports that don't overlap. Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders are the 2 biggest name professional American athletes who played two sports (American Football and Baseball) that do not tend to overlap. You don't see any professional football/basketball stars in the USA at least. I have no idea what their contracts say, but it's entirely possible that these contracts do have clauses in them that keep players from being seen playing their other sports. Even if not, it kind of doesn't matter. By your admission "wtf is "fat princess"?" the games that these LoL pros are playing aren't nearly as currently well established as any major professional sport, at least in the USA. Knowing that professional football players play baseball as well doesn't really give advertising or information to MLB that they didn't realistically already have through millions of sponsorship and broadcast dollars.
Just thought I'd drop by and leave Totalbiscuit's thoughts on the topic. Cheers.
Thought it was funny that he found old challenger circuit stats that aren't even relevant to what "Challenger" currently is lol. That said I generally agree with his points. When he's not just shit talking LoL his points are usually pretty well thought out.
On December 06 2013 00:32 Tula wrote: 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.
You won't freaking believe it, that's what twitch does.
most of those guys spends 80% of their stream playing League.
In other words, Riot's greed has virtually no limits.
it is definitely a step into a more professional direction.
When sport players behave inappropriately they don't represent the sport they are playing for, they represent themselves. Yet Riot thinks their employers aren't even allowed to smoke, because it will provide negative public image.
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.
Unfortunately, some players make more money out of streams than out of LCS. Or at least more fun. And they have dignity and personality as a human beings, yet people defending this contract speak about them as a marketing tools. We do not need this kind of professionalism in esports, right?
No they still belong to the same market segment (multiplayer oriented, online but not subscription based games).
Riot bias is strong in this one. Different genre = different target audience = different market segment, for god's sake.
seriously? You are posting on TEAM LIQUID? A site based on Sc:BW and want to argue that this is a completely different target audience?
Are you trying to make fun of me? I literally cannot believe that you think these games and their fanbases do not overlap in major ways. Obviously there might be people who only like 1 specific genre and will never ever play anything else, but in the grand scheme of things their number is miniscule compared to people who apply far more generous standards ("Is it multiplayer focused" "Is it fps?").
We are talking about LoL stream viewers, remember, not about some general audience.
The chance someone haven't heard about SC2 and got interested after his favourite streamer played it several times during a break between LoL games is literally zero.
On December 06 2013 03:20 NotYango wrote: The thing is, there's no alternative. There's no way for you to be a professional LoL player without taking Riot's money. Whereas if you don't agree to the terms of your contract you can find a different sponsor or a different employer, that option simply does not exist for a professional LoL player because the ONLY way to be a legitimate pro is to work for Riot. Any tournament player who does not take Riot's salary and who does not play in LCS is by definition an amateur because Riot has effectively killed the legitimacy of 3rd party premier events.
The same can be true of the NBA and NFL. If you don't agree to the terms of the respective leagues, you are forced to go play "professionally" elsewhere. LoL players can go to Korea/China/SEA and compete there.
On December 06 2013 03:20 NotYango wrote: The thing is, there's no alternative. There's no way for you to be a professional LoL player without taking Riot's money. Whereas if you don't agree to the terms of your contract you can find a different sponsor or a different employer, that option simply does not exist for a professional LoL player because the ONLY way to be a legitimate pro is to work for Riot. Any tournament player who does not take Riot's salary and who does not play in LCS is by definition an amateur because Riot has effectively killed the legitimacy of 3rd party premier events.
The same can be true of the NBA and NFL. If you don't agree to the terms of the respective leagues, you are forced to go play "professionally" elsewhere. LoL players can go to Korea/China/SEA and compete there.
Which is exactly why player unions exist to give players leverage in the face of such a monopoly.
1) That's like what, not even 20 games? There's hundreds more, guess the players will figure something out. 2) Does not restrict them when they don't stream
Based on those two points I see no harm. It does however make Riot seem a little effy, monopoly stuff, Poland's been through that and I can tell you: not nice at all.
Riot is also paying salaries to these players right? You don't see other 'athletes' from various sports running around with rivals jerseys and promoting the competition. It's not like they're saying they can't play those games, they just don't want them promoting it.
On December 06 2013 04:40 Masq wrote: Makes a lot of sense and seems fair enough to me.
Riot is also paying salaries to these players right? You don't see other 'athletes' from various sports running around with rivals jerseys and promoting the competition. It's not like they're saying they can't play those games, they just don't want them promoting it.
depends what you define by competition.wow+diablo+hearthstone i doubt they are competition.dota2 maybe.and yes you see athlethes promoting other sports besides the ones they play in.in the superbowl or important basketball match athlethes form all competitions attend and are filmed in the stadium
On December 06 2013 03:20 NotYango wrote: The thing is, there's no alternative. There's no way for you to be a professional LoL player without taking Riot's money. Whereas if you don't agree to the terms of your contract you can find a different sponsor or a different employer, that option simply does not exist for a professional LoL player because the ONLY way to be a legitimate pro is to work for Riot. Any tournament player who does not take Riot's salary and who does not play in LCS is by definition an amateur because Riot has effectively killed the legitimacy of 3rd party premier events.
The same can be true of the NBA and NFL. If you don't agree to the terms of the respective leagues, you are forced to go play "professionally" elsewhere. LoL players can go to Korea/China/SEA and compete there.
Which is exactly why player unions exist to give players leverage in the face of such a monopoly.
How are unions relevant when the restrictions everyone is angry about still exists?? Just because there is a lol players union doesn't magically mean these kinds of restrictions go away.
I think what Riot did was totally reasonable, but Riot's idea was misrepresented from the initial 'leak'. Also, the average LoLers are too .... dumb, if you will ... to understand this is how it works in the real world.
On December 06 2013 04:48 Sufficiency wrote: I think what Riot did was totally reasonable, but Riot's idea was misrepresented from the initial 'leak'. Also, the average LoLers are too .... dumb, if you will ... to understand this is how it works in the real world.
Of course it was misrepresented considering who 'leaked' it.
On December 06 2013 04:43 Kaneh wrote: This is basic labor relations. But since Internet, it's getting sensationalized to a ridiculous degree.
People saying riot is evil because they're not being philanthropists And just throwing money away no strings attached.
In "basic labor relations" you either negotiate as a collective entity to protect your collective interests, or there are at least multiple employers competing for the same labor pool which keeps them in check.
On December 06 2013 03:20 NotYango wrote: The thing is, there's no alternative. There's no way for you to be a professional LoL player without taking Riot's money. Whereas if you don't agree to the terms of your contract you can find a different sponsor or a different employer, that option simply does not exist for a professional LoL player because the ONLY way to be a legitimate pro is to work for Riot. Any tournament player who does not take Riot's salary and who does not play in LCS is by definition an amateur because Riot has effectively killed the legitimacy of 3rd party premier events.
The same can be true of the NBA and NFL. If you don't agree to the terms of the respective leagues, you are forced to go play "professionally" elsewhere. LoL players can go to Korea/China/SEA and compete there.
Which is exactly why player unions exist to give players leverage in the face of such a monopoly.
How are unions relevant when the restrictions everyone is angry about still exists?? Just because there is a lol players union doesn't magically mean these kinds of restrictions go away.
It means that the players have collective bargaining power against contract terms which they disagree with (and clearly quite a few players do disagree with it).
Anyone sensible knows that the actual restriction itself has very little meaning (quite literally the only game on that list played in any sigificant capacity by LCS players is Hearthstone). It's much more a matter of precedent that makes this worrisome.
On December 06 2013 03:20 NotYango wrote: The thing is, there's no alternative. There's no way for you to be a professional LoL player without taking Riot's money. Whereas if you don't agree to the terms of your contract you can find a different sponsor or a different employer, that option simply does not exist for a professional LoL player because the ONLY way to be a legitimate pro is to work for Riot. Any tournament player who does not take Riot's salary and who does not play in LCS is by definition an amateur because Riot has effectively killed the legitimacy of 3rd party premier events.
The same can be true of the NBA and NFL. If you don't agree to the terms of the respective leagues, you are forced to go play "professionally" elsewhere. LoL players can go to Korea/China/SEA and compete there.
Which is exactly why player unions exist to give players leverage in the face of such a monopoly.
How are unions relevant when the restrictions everyone is angry about still exists?? Just because there is a lol players union doesn't magically mean these kinds of restrictions go away.
It means that players can have a lawyer review Riot's contracts and negotiate unfavorable terms. It means that a controversial restriction like this that severely limit players' activities may not make it into the contract, or if it does, the players can get something favorable to them in return. Much better for the players when their hand isn't forced by the "take it or leave it" contractual terms Riot has full power over.
Honestly I'm less annoyed by this particular restriction than I am the fact that Riot will continue to force upon players these one-sided contracts and there are still people who are against a player's union.
On December 06 2013 04:43 Kaneh wrote: This is basic labor relations. But since Internet, it's getting sensationalized to a ridiculous degree.
People saying riot is evil because they're not being philanthropists And just throwing money away no strings attached.
In "basic labor relations" you either negotiate as a collective entity to protect your collective interests, or there are at least multiple employers competing for the same labor pool which keeps them in check.
On December 06 2013 03:20 NotYango wrote: The thing is, there's no alternative. There's no way for you to be a professional LoL player without taking Riot's money. Whereas if you don't agree to the terms of your contract you can find a different sponsor or a different employer, that option simply does not exist for a professional LoL player because the ONLY way to be a legitimate pro is to work for Riot. Any tournament player who does not take Riot's salary and who does not play in LCS is by definition an amateur because Riot has effectively killed the legitimacy of 3rd party premier events.
The same can be true of the NBA and NFL. If you don't agree to the terms of the respective leagues, you are forced to go play "professionally" elsewhere. LoL players can go to Korea/China/SEA and compete there.
Which is exactly why player unions exist to give players leverage in the face of such a monopoly.
How are unions relevant when the restrictions everyone is angry about still exists?? Just because there is a lol players union doesn't magically mean these kinds of restrictions go away.
It means that the players have collective bargaining power against contract terms which they disagree with (and clearly quite a few players do disagree with it).
Players still have bargaining power in the LCS even without a union. And labor unions in the NBA NFL haven't prevented extremely restrictive contracts from being created.
Bumblebee has it right. With Riot paying for such a large portion of these teams needs( travel etc..) and in return they wish that if you are apart of the lcs do not stream certain games. In private those people can play any game they choose but in the public light riot wants it a certain way. Riot has every right to want this. I'm betting lots of teams when it comes down to it don't mind it either. Not every team is TSM, sitting on loads of cash able to cover all expenses that is needed to run a LoL team. Now, if all the teams really want this section to change... Sure, hire a group or start a union amongst all the teams. Figure of the costs it takes to have and see where negotiating goes with riot. What happen if riot says alright you have made your point, lcs teams can stream anything at anytime but we will take back a portion of the money because they feel it is not in their interest to pay the players and teams that much anymore.
I think overall for what riot does for the teams and players it is a fair middle ground.
On December 06 2013 04:40 Masq wrote: Makes a lot of sense and seems fair enough to me.
Riot is also paying salaries to these players right? You don't see other 'athletes' from various sports running around with rivals jerseys and promoting the competition. It's not like they're saying they can't play those games, they just don't want them promoting it.
depends what you define by competition.wow+diablo+hearthstone i doubt they are competition.dota2 maybe.and yes you see athlethes promoting other sports besides the ones they play in.in the superbowl or important basketball match athlethes form all competitions attend and are filmed in the stadium
Of course it is competition. When there are 30 million people playing LoL there are less people playing WoW and vice versa. As we all know League of Legend despite not being a RTS is a huge competitor to starcraft 2, it even "stole" its esport spotlight. So yes all those Blizzard games are potential competitors, ESPECIALLY hearthstone which is the "hype" game of the moment and which targets exactly the same audience : casual game, easy to play, free etc.
On December 05 2013 15:17 Redmark wrote: I'm an intern earning close to minimum wage and I still had to sign a non-compete (who'd even care if I worked for a competitor lol I'm going back to school anyway), so I can't say I'm too upset about this. Surely people are not tuning in for Hearthstone, the streamers can find something else to fill the time with.
The non-compete analogy is irrelevant here. When you stream you're not getting paid by Blizzard, Riot or any other gaming company, but by Twitch and the advertisers.
I work in software development and I'm rather certain my contract doesn't bar me from streaming myself writing code for myself, and getting paid for it via the advertisements. It's called capital income, in the same way as stock dividends, i.e. no company can forbid you from buying the stock of a competing company and profiting from the dividends.
Your analogy is irrelevant. You're not a public face.
Better example: Cristiano Ronaldo wearing Barcelona shirt in public and getting shot by paparazzi. How would real madrid feel?
On December 06 2013 04:40 Masq wrote: Makes a lot of sense and seems fair enough to me.
Riot is also paying salaries to these players right? You don't see other 'athletes' from various sports running around with rivals jerseys and promoting the competition. It's not like they're saying they can't play those games, they just don't want them promoting it.
depends what you define by competition.wow+diablo+hearthstone i doubt they are competition.dota2 maybe.and yes you see athlethes promoting other sports besides the ones they play in.in the superbowl or important basketball match athlethes form all competitions attend and are filmed in the stadium
Of course it is competition. When there are 30 million people playing LoL there are less people playing WoW and vice versa. As we all know League of Legend despite not being a RTS is a huge competitor to starcraft 2, it even "stole" its esport spotlight. So yes all those Blizzard games are potential competitors, ESPECIALLY hearthstone which is the "hype" game of the moment and which targets exactly the same audience : casual game, easy to play, free etc.
i think it is a mistake to presume that people play only 1 game.in general people try out and play dozens of games at the same time depending on which they consider the most fun.playing lol doesnt prevent you from playing wow and diablo and hearthstone.guess what:you can play all of them at the same time.the fact that riot thinks if they prevent dyrus from playing hearthstone they will slow the growth of hearthstone they have another thing coming
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.
I mean by witch hunting, that people paint Riot as being super evil for doing something that any of their competitors would also do if they were in the same position. You can critizise Riot for creating LCS the way it is, but it makes no sense to start this discussion every time Riot again behaves like a regular company.
LCS = Promotion. Lol = Computer Game. Promoting Lol = Play more LoL over any other game.
Part of it is that Riot's built up that "by gamers for gamers" image and criticizing the way other companies design their games from the start, so it's actually totally valid to call them out behaving like a regular company when their entire publicity image was built on being exceptional.
On December 05 2013 15:17 Redmark wrote: I'm an intern earning close to minimum wage and I still had to sign a non-compete (who'd even care if I worked for a competitor lol I'm going back to school anyway), so I can't say I'm too upset about this. Surely people are not tuning in for Hearthstone, the streamers can find something else to fill the time with.
The non-compete analogy is irrelevant here. When you stream you're not getting paid by Blizzard, Riot or any other gaming company, but by Twitch and the advertisers.
I work in software development and I'm rather certain my contract doesn't bar me from streaming myself writing code for myself, and getting paid for it via the advertisements. It's called capital income, in the same way as stock dividends, i.e. no company can forbid you from buying the stock of a competing company and profiting from the dividends.
Your analogy is irrelevant. You're not a public face.
Better example: Cristiano Ronaldo wearing Barcelona shirt in public and getting shot by paparazzi. How would real madrid feel?
Isn't Riot FIFA though ? It's Cristiano Ronaldo wearing an NFL shirt.
What i don't get out of all this is how they use pro athletes to defend this .. when you watch a hockey game, they show the players warming up juggling a football ( respect to the euros ) so i fail to see the point. It seems like they're trying to create an imaginary bridge between property rights and an individuals stream to control competition and i don't know how that doesn't come off as apparent when the list of games includes every other non-moba e-sport title, and coincidentally enough every other top viewed game being streamed on twitch. It might be good for riot in the short term, don't think it'll last. Just makes me more anxious for the blizzard moba tbh.
On December 06 2013 07:09 JimmiC wrote: All the people that are talking about sports its not the NFL vs the NBA. They are not competitors, most sport fans watch multiple sports it's more like competeition within the same sport. I mean there is so fear that Lebron james is going to quit the heat and play for the Oilers. Or that Peyton manning might become the new shooting gaurd for the bulls.
It's like the NBA vs the ABA or UFC vs Belator or the KHL vs NHL.
How is this not the same for video games? People play multiple video games too. It's exactly like the NFL vs. the NBA because it's absurd to think that Hearthstone is going to stop people from playing LoL. Especially when the context where it's presented is "this is just time killer because my queues are too long".
Like there's this absurd paranoia from Riot that exposing viewers to other games means that vieiwers playing other games is somehow going to negatively impact them playing LoL to some significant extent. And yes, that's what it is, paranoia. And everyone is somehow buying into this paranoia. It's exactly like TB said--Riot is the guy with the biggest dick in the room, they don't need to act so fucking insecure.
In fact, all of those sports and sponsor comparisons are awful simply because none of those organizations exerts the level of dominance over their respective sphere that Riot currently does. LoL is the top dog in E-sports by a wide margin. Everyone knows it, there's no denying it. Really at this point trying to crowd out much smaller games that have no chance of challenging Riot's position is just bullying smaller organizations, which, while within Riot's right, goes against the much more benign image that they cultivated of themselves as a company since the beginning. If they want to go back to behaving like a normal company, fine. But if that's the case they need to drop the two-faced "by gamers for gamers" bullshit that they've been touting for years.
Actually the UFC is exactly what you are describing and they do exert that kind of control over competetors. Like I said the NFL NHL and NBA do not see each other as competitors. Riot clearly see's those other compaines and products as competitors. People have switched from games in the past, I'm sure riot is attempting to protect itself from that in the future. Secondly Riot is paying people which to my knoweldge is very unique.
And that is exactly the attitude I am calling paranoia because realistically most of those games have even less to do with LoL than Basketball and Football have to do with Hockey.
Again, if they want to behave that way that's in their right. But in that case they have no right to market themselves the way they do.
On December 06 2013 08:23 JimmiC wrote: I think people are totally over reacting because either they love the drama and want to be mad at something. Or they have not been involved in much business and don't realize how common this is.
Just because it's common means I have to be OK with it happening in an industry where it's been uncommon up to this point?
If E-sports becoming a real sport comes with all the business bullshit, I say fuck that, I'd rather we stay the way we are.
Most competitive gaming communities need to bond with other similar games in order to survive, like Evo or most LAN tournaments. The competitive gaming world is generally not big enough to have exclusives and most competitive game communities benefit more from cooperation and not competition. (This also includes peripheral makers. I know Madcatz enjoys a good relationship with Hori and possibly Razer despite being competitors, same with Namco and Capcom.)
LoL, as early as season 2, was part of these LAN tournaments. Now that they are the top dog they seem to have such an ego with their game that they want to keep down other competitive games and gaming companies and be anti-competitive instead, which really damages the entire community that often has to scrap together to put on an event.
It's a scumbag move and it goes against what many competitive gaming communities have been striving for. Anybody who's invested some amount of effort into developing competitive gaming should understand how bad this is for the community as a whole.
as i allready explained in the general thread, esports and sports have almost nothing in common.
esports is used as PR/advertisement for the game. Esport does not pay for itself, League especially is boosted by riots money.
Normal sport leagues pay for themselves and are not advertisements for the sport. They even go so far to advertise for other companies in exchange for money.
So analogies to sports when it comes to bans on advertisement on player streams are pretty useless.
I personally have no opinion. On the one hand, Riot is hurting the competitiveness with their marketing thingy. As seen in worlds where they compromised the integrity of the tournament by seeding regions into the higher stages of the tournament, just to appease regional viewers. On the other hand, riot is paying millions every year and enable players to commit.
On December 06 2013 08:23 JimmiC wrote: I think people are totally over reacting because either they love the drama and want to be mad at something. Or they have not been involved in much business and don't realize how common this is.
Just because it's common means I have to be OK with it happening in an industry where it's been uncommon up to this point?
If E-sports becoming a real sport comes with all the business bullshit, I say fuck that, I'd rather we stay the way we are.
That's your right. Id rather see the players make decent incomes, benifits. More viewship options and so on. It's not like only negatives come from increased commercialization. Esspecially when the "sport" is created from a product by the company who makes the product. Compaines are only going to put more money into it if they feel they can make more. Dyrus not being able to stream hearthstone while he ques or something is not a big deal to me, and probably not to him either.
How does preventing players from streaming other games allow for better incomes or benefits.
if anything it increases reliance on Riot as streamers probably won't retain as many viewers leading to less revenue.
All this is, is an anti competitive maneuver. and not protection of players or riots IP or anything. its solely to push other out. Its corporate Aggression.
of course they can CLAIM its for protection. But no business has ever needed to push others out for its own protection, unless the other business is trying to do the same. Its all just a front so they can keep their "riot is friendly good guy company" facade, while still being anti competitive and aggressive toward any other game.
no-compete clauses are 100% standard when a person or entity is paying you to work with or advertise for them. it blows my fucking mind that anyone has a problem with this. All you people waving torches a crying about "Riot's greed" need a reality check. Riot pays a salary to these players in the LCS, a no-compete clause when those players are streaming is completely sensible, and is not shady, underhanded, or greedy in any way.
The LoL world finals SOLD OUT STAPLES CENTER. Riot deserves a hell of a lot of praise for creating actual, real, tangible progress for esports. So please, if you've never seen a contract before, or never worked on contract basis, or have never dealt with sponsorships, keep your opinion to yourself. Making half-witted analogies to processes you don't actually understand doesn't help anyone.
The best analogy might be the KeSPA back in the BW days. Everyone acknowledged that they deserved huge credit to enforce eSports as legitimate entertainment and progaming as a profession. On the other hand KeSPA had been immensely criticized for having too much power and having a stranglehold over the scene.
On December 06 2013 09:01 FakeSteve[TPR] wrote: no-compete clauses are 100% standard when a person or entity is paying you to work with or advertise for them. it blows my fucking mind that anyone has a problem with this. All you people waving torches a crying about "Riot's greed" need a reality check. Riot pays a salary to these players in the LCS, a no-compete clause when those players are streaming is completely sensible, and is not shady, underhanded, or greedy in any way.
The LoL world finals SOLD OUT STAPLES CENTER. Riot deserves a hell of a lot of praise for creating actual, real, tangible progress for esports. So please, if you've never seen a contract before, or never worked on contract basis, or have never dealt with sponsorships, keep your opinion to yourself. Making half-witted analogies to processes you don't actually understand doesn't help anyone.
This is just about the only sensible post in this thread. There is a salary involved; you have the chance to earn and win a million dollars, and you get paid even if you don't even qualify.
At best you can complain that a few of the games make no sense because they aren't direct competitors, but even then the actual anger and vitriol surrounding this gives me a headache.
This is like some players in the FGC railing against sponsorships and "watering down the scene" by removing the rampant racism and sexism. It's like, do you want your esport to be taken seriously or not?
On December 06 2013 07:09 JimmiC wrote: All the people that are talking about sports its not the NFL vs the NBA. They are not competitors, most sport fans watch multiple sports it's more like competeition within the same sport. I mean there is so fear that Lebron james is going to quit the heat and play for the Oilers. Or that Peyton manning might become the new shooting gaurd for the bulls.
It's like the NBA vs the ABA or UFC vs Belator or the KHL vs NHL.
The nfl, nba, MLB, NHL, and mls are all competitors when it comes to advertising and promotion.
Michael Jordan is never going to make the NHL money. Stop with the useless fucking analogies. Google no-compete. when you've posted your drivers license to prove you're at least 18 years old, I'll start taking any of you seriously, but the rage directed at riot is just mindblowingly retarded.
On December 06 2013 09:01 FakeSteve[TPR] wrote: no-compete clauses are 100% standard when a person or entity is paying you to work with or advertise for them. it blows my fucking mind that anyone has a problem with this. All you people waving torches a crying about "Riot's greed" need a reality check. Riot pays a salary to these players in the LCS, a no-compete clause when those players are streaming is completely sensible, and is not shady, underhanded, or greedy in any way.
The LoL world finals SOLD OUT STAPLES CENTER. Riot deserves a hell of a lot of praise for creating actual, real, tangible progress for esports. So please, if you've never seen a contract before, or never worked on contract basis, or have never dealt with sponsorships, keep your opinion to yourself. Making half-witted analogies to processes you don't actually understand doesn't help anyone.
Why does Riot deserve praise for fucking over the people that brought them to where they are? Honestly, Hotshot and Regi and their foresight with streaming and building their brands, and then the people who took the torch from them like OddOne and Saint are what brought League to #1 game status, Riot lucked out having them around.
On December 06 2013 09:10 Don_Julio wrote: The best analogy might be the KeSPA back in the BW days. Everyone acknowledged that they deserved huge credit to enforce eSports as legitimate entertainment and progaming as a profession. On the other hand KeSPA had been immensely criticized for having too much power and having a stranglehold over the scene.
They also abused and exploited the players to a crazy level. Riot is nowhere near that yet but I still wish the players are able to have some say and negotiate these things. There is a very valid argument that this clause can cut into the entertainment value and profits of streams (boring during queue times) and if the players had a competent representative maybe they could have gotten some benefits in return.
On December 06 2013 09:01 FakeSteve[TPR] wrote: no-compete clauses are 100% standard when a person or entity is paying you to work with or advertise for them. it blows my fucking mind that anyone has a problem with this. All you people waving torches a crying about "Riot's greed" need a reality check. Riot pays a salary to these players in the LCS, a no-compete clause when those players are streaming is completely sensible, and is not shady, underhanded, or greedy in any way.
The LoL world finals SOLD OUT STAPLES CENTER. Riot deserves a hell of a lot of praise for creating actual, real, tangible progress for esports. So please, if you've never seen a contract before, or never worked on contract basis, or have never dealt with sponsorships, keep your opinion to yourself. Making half-witted analogies to processes you don't actually understand doesn't help anyone.
I think you're overstating the contribution that Riot's E-sports management side has made toward the competitive success of League of Legends.
Realistically the predominant source of League's competitive success has been the popularity of the game itself. I don't think Riot's E-sports management through the LCS system has made the scene that much better or worse off than it would have been through other tournament organizers, given the rate of growth at the end of Season 2 anyway.
So they don't get credit for creating the game huh? Also, the creation of the LCS system sets an important precedent for future games that are viable as esports. Whether you think it's the best format or not, it's the first system where the producer of the game itself is paying player salaries to further the development of its competitive scene. This is a monumental change of pace, and that's where I'm saying they deserve credit. You people are far too jaded and suspicious.
Riot has made some incredibly bold decisions with how they approached their budding competitive fanbase, and those decisions have shown some incredible results thus far - namely, a proper payment system for LCS-qualified teams, and the attempt to create a single professional venue for fans and players to get behind. Not only that, but they've established that video game producers can have the clout to put on events at major NA sports arenas, and the fanbase to fill them. That's a huge step forward.
But if you all want to ignore the big picture and bicker about inconsequential bullshit all day, feel free to make a hundred more threads like this when, inevitably, another thing you don't understand gets sensationalized.
The "particular stroke" has virtually zero impact on anything.
I could have a longer discussion about what I think is bad about the LCS system at large and how I dislike the direction it's going in the long run, but that's not for this thread.
without riots sponsored LCs, almost all of the LCS players would still fght over 2000$ shared prizemoney in the monthly Crunchies Chips Are Crunchy 128 teams tournament.
Throw in an IEM and whatever survived from the american tournaments here and there. And dont forget that the european organization that now hosts the EU LCS was out of money and couldnt even pay the prizemoneys from last tournaments until they got money from riot.
yeah you're right without a company paying upfront for the prizes and taking over the competetive scene entirely, esports with any money in them are impossible
DotA 2 isn't a good comparison right now. It's effectively where LoL was in early-mid S2, and it took 3 times as long to get there.
At the current rate, it'll be 5 years from now before we know whether DotA 2 can "naturally" reach where Riot got the LoL competitive scene through direct involvement.
On December 06 2013 11:19 NotYango wrote: DotA 2 isn't a good comparison right now. It's effectively where LoL was in early-mid S2, and it took 3 times as long to get there.
At the current rate, it'll be 5 years from now before we know whether DotA 2 can "naturally" reach where Riot got the LoL competitive scene through direct involvement.
But if they can, won't it be way better for the players who aren't completely vassals of the company who made the game, and most ESPORTS companies that run tournaments?
On December 06 2013 11:19 NotYango wrote: DotA 2 isn't a good comparison right now. It's effectively where LoL was in early-mid S2, and it took 3 times as long to get there.
At the current rate, it'll be 5 years from now before we know whether DotA 2 can "naturally" reach where Riot got the LoL competitive scene through direct involvement.
But if they can, won't it be way better for the players who aren't completely vassals of the company who made the game, and most ESPORTS companies that run tournaments?
The question is if you don't want to receive a riot salary but still want to participate in the LCS are you still not allowed to stream other games than LoL? This would be way more controversial
It's an option that practically speaking nobody would ever take (I'm pretty sure Oddone's Warcraft 3 games are not worth $12,000 to him) but would be much better PR for Riot if they presented that option.
On December 06 2013 11:43 NotYango wrote: It's an option that practically speaking nobody would ever take (I'm pretty sure Oddone's Warcraft 3 games are not worth $12,000 to him) but would be much better PR for Riot if they presented that option.
Its a trade off if a player would value his HS stream time more than 12k he could do it. But if not than that would be a dick move.
On December 06 2013 11:19 NotYango wrote: DotA 2 isn't a good comparison right now. It's effectively where LoL was in early-mid S2, and it took 3 times as long to get there.
At the current rate, it'll be 5 years from now before we know whether DotA 2 can "naturally" reach where Riot got the LoL competitive scene through direct involvement.
dota2 just officially launched this summer and is already at 7 million unique monthly players something that lol hasn't actually shown.also valve through the pennant,courier and other customization systems is the first company to create a semi-sustainable esports scene in which the fans directly support the scene by buying customizable and 100% of the money goes to tournament prize pools etc.dota2 actually has something resembling a sustainable scene.if riot pulls out of the lcs the lol scene becomes dead.dota2 players have added something like 1 mil $ to ti3 prizepool,and about 100k thousand to smaller tournaments including mlg.that is what is called sustainable and revolutionary and what actually resembles how a real sport should look like:it depends solely on the fans contributions.if people stop watching nba tommorow there is no mystical basketball corporation giving players money just to have a basketball scene.for bad or for worse dota2 fans show they can sustain a scene 100% form their donations.even without valve money there will still be a dota2 scene.i can not say the same for riot who basicly makes huge profits from selling items completly unrelated to the pro scene(the skins),gives proteams money and then complains it loses money with the lcs in interviews.
On December 06 2013 12:26 perfidiusrex wrote: dota2 just officially launched this summer and is already at 7 million unique monthly players something that lol hasn't actually shown.also valve through the pennant,courier and other customization systems is the first company to create a semi-sustainable esports scene in which the fans directly support the scene by buying customizable and 100% of the money goes to tournament prize pools etc.dota2 actually has something resembling a sustainable scene.if riot pulls out of the lcs the lol scene becomes dead.dota2 players have added something like 1 mil $ to ti3 prizepool,and about 100k thousand to smaller tournaments including mlg.that is what is called sustainable and revolutionary and what actually resembles how a real sport should look like:it depends solely on the fans contributions.if people stop watching nba tommorow there is no mystical basketball corporation giving players money just to have a basketball scene.for bad or for worse dota2 fans show they can sustain a scene 100% form their donations.even without valve money there will still be a dota2 scene.i can not say the same for riot who basicly makes huge profits from selling items completly unrelated to the pro scene(the skins),gives proteams money and then complains it loses money with the lcs in interviews.
1. LoL probably have at least 7 million unique monthly players in Korea and China alone (though I can't claim to have evidence for that.) 2. If Riot pulls out of the LCS, the scene simply reverts back to what it was before i.e. very similar to what Dota 2 is now. 3. Sports look absolutely nothing like what the Dota 2 scene is now, or pre-LCS LoL. Imagine if NFL or EPL teams only played semi-regularly in 8-16 team tournaments, and were chosen by an arbitrary invitation process. The only sports I can think of that are even similar to this structure are maybe boxing and tennis, and there are specific reasons why that is the case.
Do people honestly believe that the semi-regular, third-party tournament structure is the best system for e-sports? If Western e-sports are going to develop along the same lines as Korea and China, there needs to be more centralisation and professionalism. Korean players have all kinds of restrictions placed on them by both OGN and their respective teams, and people just accept it. Yet somehow Riot is crossing a boundary here?
On December 06 2013 11:19 NotYango wrote: DotA 2 isn't a good comparison right now. It's effectively where LoL was in early-mid S2, and it took 3 times as long to get there.
At the current rate, it'll be 5 years from now before we know whether DotA 2 can "naturally" reach where Riot got the LoL competitive scene through direct involvement.
dota2 just officially launched this summer and is already at 7 million unique monthly players something that lol hasn't actually shown.also valve through the pennant,courier and other customization systems is the first company to create a semi-sustainable esports scene in which the fans directly support the scene by buying customizable and 100% of the money goes to tournament prize pools etc.dota2 actually has something resembling a sustainable scene.if riot pulls out of the lcs the lol scene becomes dead.dota2 players have added something like 1 mil $ to ti3 prizepool,and about 100k thousand to smaller tournaments including mlg.that is what is called sustainable and revolutionary and what actually resembles how a real sport should look like:it depends solely on the fans contributions.if people stop watching nba tommorow there is no mystical basketball corporation giving players money just to have a basketball scene.for bad or for worse dota2 fans show they can sustain a scene 100% form their donations.even without valve money there will still be a dota2 scene.i can not say the same for riot who basicly makes huge profits from selling items completly unrelated to the pro scene(the skins),gives proteams money and then complains it loses money with the lcs in interviews.
were you not around for the drama a while back in the dota 2 scene with Loda calling out another team for not being pro?
Many many dota 2 teams right now have the huge issue of not being able to truly dedicate themselves to dota 2 full-time precisely due to the lack of income that Riot provides the League pro scene. If you are not Alliance, Na'vi, Liquid, or any of the incredibly big name teams, you literally cannot play Dota 2 full-time.
While Riot's list of games may be overzealous and over-inclusive, which according to Saint Riot may be looking at revising, this action is not at all absurd. I can guarantee you that virtually every single company in the world would do the exact same thing in Riot's shoes. This is a non-compete clause because pro players first and foremost are, for better or for worse, walking advertisements for Riot's game. Sports analogies aren't completely accurate because sports leagues don't own the game.
And honestly, while I think Riot's control is a bit much and too Kespa-esque, the fact that there is a central authority running a regular, salaried tournament is incredibly important for the scene. Look at esports history. The most successful esport prior to League was BW, which had practically the exact same thing in Korea under Kespa.
People saying that League pro scene will collapse if Riot pulls out or that the Dota scene is "more sustainable" are delusional. League before LCS was virtually exactly the same state as the pro Dota scene now. In other words, the top teams can afford to play full-time - everyone else scrapes by with $1000 weekly Go4LoLs. If Riot pulls out of the pro scene, in all likelihood everything will just revert back to where it was 2 years ago. OR it will go the way of SC2 prior to WCS - that is, all the serious pros go to somewhere with an established infrastructure aka Korea.
On December 06 2013 09:01 FakeSteve[TPR] wrote: >no-compete clauses
>ban of smoking Feel free to scream at people more.
All you people waving torches a crying about "Riot's greed" need a reality check.
Riot apologist offers others a reality check, how cute.
The LoL world finals SOLD OUT STAPLES CENTER. Riot deserves a hell of a lot of praise for creating actual, real, tangible progress for esports.
NA LCS - Top 8 finish, EU LCS - Top 4. Progress you said? Mediocre teams with no skills to compete on the worldwide level are being paid in order to provide artificial competition that is what more than half of LCS players are about.
@Ryuu314, your info is outdated at best. if the team is talented, they'll find the way in proscene. if they can't beat top 2-5 teams in their region occasionally the progaming isn't meant for them.
If by outdated you mean the Loda drama that happened literally no more than 2 months ago? Sure.
And if you think a sustainable pro scene means there should only be 5 teams then you have a very strange definition of sustainable.
It's not about teams being good enough to beat top teams. It's about teams being marketable and popular enough for companies to want to pay them a regular salary. A scene in which its players rely purely on tournament winnings is not good. Lack of job security and a steady stream of income is bad for the scene.
I challenge you to name over 8 NA dota 2 teams that are being paid a regular salary and/or can afford to play Dota 2 on a full-time basis. Because that's basically what you're comparing the Dota 2 scene to.
I haven't followed Loda's drama, I was talking about one thousand dollars cups you mentioned.
I haven't talked about sustainability, I talked about competitive level. Making money out of your name is always welcome, but if you don't provide results outside of marketing area you don't belong to sports scene. Top 5 teams showing consistent results, 5-7 teams showing ocassional result, 5-10 teams making their way to replace someone from the said categories is more than enough for an average viewer.
NA Dota hasn't got a single home LAN tournament for upcoming teams before MLG, it's too early to speak about that, but EU scene can be compared with LCS as for now. There is a good reason Chinese tournaments invite Western teams to participate in their activities - not because they can advertise themselves to Asian audience, but because they cpar compete wiith Chinese teams on even terms - which was literally impossible 3 years ago. That's what progress is about.
Many will agree that on the grand scheme of things, there's at most 1 good NA League team. But that's exactly my point. Even though NA League pro scene is pretty shit in terms of skill, we have many NA League teams that can afford to actually play the game full time.
Having good players isn't enough to breed a healthy, sustainable competitive scene. You need money and infrastructure. For better or worse, Riot provides that for League. The lack of such infrastructure and constant stream of money is at least in part why the NA pro Dota scene is effectively non-existent despite the game being out for quite some time now.
I'm curious, how many Western pro Dota teams have a full roster of full-time players?
Realistically, the most important component of encouraging the gap closing between regional skill differences is not "infrastructure", it's exposure. None of that "infrastructure" existed in Western DotA in the year 2012-2013. The key was exposure between regions allows the weaker region to learn from the stronger region and catch up.
And yet, Riot's crusade to squelch international competition has prevented precisely this. As Western teams do not have any opportunities to play Eastern teams in international competition, the gap can only widen with no opportunities for interaction--as the stronger region gets stronger and the weaker region gets weaker.
On December 06 2013 13:59 Chexx wrote: maybe asian dota teams are just bad in comparison to LoL ones.
Everything is relative. There's no way to compare the absolute "skill" of Asian LoL teams vs. Asian DotA teams.
The only thing you can compare is the disparity between them and their respective Western counterparts.
On December 06 2013 13:59 NotYango wrote: Realistically, the most important component of encouraging the gap closing between regional skill differences is not "infrastructure", it's exposure. None of that "infrastructure" existed in Western DotA in the year 2012-2013. The key was exposure between regions allows the weaker region to learn from the stronger region and catch up.
And yet, Riot's crusade to squelch international competition has prevented precisely this. As Western teams do not have any opportunities to play Eastern teams in international competition, the gap can only widen with no opportunities for interaction--as the stronger region gets stronger and the weaker region gets weaker.
On December 06 2013 13:59 Chexx wrote: maybe asian dota teams are just bad in comparison to LoL ones.
Everything is relative. There's no way to compare the absolute "skill" of Asian LoL teams vs. Asian DotA teams.
The only thing you can compare is the disparity between them and their respective Western counterparts.
Gambit has a pretty good score for a western team against korean teams.
the only thing tourneys like mlg, iem, etc exchange is meta not personal skill level. The personal skill level can only increase in a long term exchange between asian/western teams. Where they can scrim each other regularly and not just once a weekend.
On December 06 2013 14:05 Chexx wrote: the only thing tourneys like mlg, iem, etc exchange is meta not personal skill level. The personal skill level can only increase in a long term exchange between asian/western teams. Where they can scrim each other regularly and not just once a weekend.
Not when the predominant limitation in the development of the best Western teams is not necessarily ability, but complacency.
When you are only going to play a team that's better than you once a year, there's zero motivation to play to the level of that team when 350 days of the year you win all your games and it absolutely does not matter how much you improve.
On December 06 2013 13:50 Shaella wrote: The only reason NA even got in top 8 at worlds is cause they were seeded in. They're all bad.
every single one.
Also like, every western team has a full roster, wut?
Specifically full time players. Players who do nothing but play Dota.
So basically every EU team other than filler ones like 4FC? NA's looking short of teams right now with just TL and EG, but Dig will pick up someone eventually.
On December 06 2013 11:19 NotYango wrote: DotA 2 isn't a good comparison right now. It's effectively where LoL was in early-mid S2, and it took 3 times as long to get there.
At the current rate, it'll be 5 years from now before we know whether DotA 2 can "naturally" reach where Riot got the LoL competitive scene through direct involvement.
dota2 just officially launched this summer and is already at 7 million unique monthly players something that lol hasn't actually shown.also valve through the pennant,courier and other customization systems is the first company to create a semi-sustainable esports scene in which the fans directly support the scene by buying customizable and 100% of the money goes to tournament prize pools etc.dota2 actually has something resembling a sustainable scene.if riot pulls out of the lcs the lol scene becomes dead.dota2 players have added something like 1 mil $ to ti3 prizepool,and about 100k thousand to smaller tournaments including mlg.that is what is called sustainable and revolutionary and what actually resembles how a real sport should look like:it depends solely on the fans contributions.if people stop watching nba tommorow there is no mystical basketball corporation giving players money just to have a basketball scene.for bad or for worse dota2 fans show they can sustain a scene 100% form their donations.even without valve money there will still be a dota2 scene.i can not say the same for riot who basicly makes huge profits from selling items completly unrelated to the pro scene(the skins),gives proteams money and then complains it loses money with the lcs in interviews.
Actually, if you take a look at the steamgraph, the daily user peak of Dota2 has been stagnant for 4 months, ever since Dota2 was official launched. Even when Chinese and Korean servers were open, the graph is still the same. The only instance they reached 700k user peak was when DireTide patch comes out, which Valve was not supposed to even release it this year.
Dota2 is sustainable, but not for the players. Only the tournament organizers get the best of it. And no, not 100% money goes to the tournament prize pool, only 25% that goes in there, Valve keeps 75%. A lot of people don't really know how dota2 tournament organizing works. For generic tournaments, Valve usually takes 75% of the ticket sales, the organizers get 25%. Now, you can negotiate with Valve to have a better deal. MLG for instance, got a deal with Valve that Valve only takes 30% of the ticket sales. That was the reason why MLG started to get into dota2 and really went aggressive with it. It took them a while to get the deal, what was why Adam kept hinting about dota2 for like half a year or so.
On December 06 2013 14:30 Ryuu314 wrote: does the steamgraph include Korea/China users?
As far as I'm aware, no, and even if they did, it would be almost irrelevant because the metric used is concurrent peak and Korean/Chinese peak hours obviously don't line up with NA/EU peak hours.
On December 06 2013 14:30 Ryuu314 wrote: does the steamgraph include Korea/China users?
As far as I'm aware, no, and even if they did, it would be almost irrelevant because the metric used is concurrent peak and Korean/Chinese peak hours obviously don't line up with NA/EU peak hours.
I think it includes, since it's stated that Korean/Chinese will use the same client and pool. Even if they don't line up with peak hour, you should still see a change in the chart. There's no change.
If you sign a professional contract with an organization, it's not fucked up for part of the contract to be "Don't publicly promote our immediate competition."
I don't deny Riot's track record with their management of the scene but I don't see how not being allowed to stream other games is integral to becoming "a real sport." It sounds like Riot brainwashing.
I don't even understand why people are saying this is good for the company. I'm sure that banks being complete dicks about overdraft fees and timing payments/deposits to collect fees is great for the bank but as a consumer it's awful.
And I don't understand why people keep saying non-compete clause and telling us to Google it to find examples. I did Google it and non-compete clauses are for working at competitors after termination and exchanging trade secrets, etc. Nothing to do with advertising and promotion. Even more curious is that non-compete clauses are illegal in California. Not like it matters, because it has nothing to do with anything.
non-competes are legal in california in a small subsection of instances.
and to be honest the riot contract isn't a non-compete. a non-compete would be more along the lines of ex- and current League pro-gamers can't play Dota professionally.
On December 06 2013 15:18 kainzero wrote: I don't deny Riot's track record with their management of the scene but I don't see how not being allowed to stream other games is integral to becoming "a real sport." It sounds like Riot brainwashing.
I don't even understand why people are saying this is good for the company. I'm sure that banks being complete dicks about overdraft fees and timing payments/deposits to collect fees is great for the bank but as a consumer it's awful.
And I don't understand why people keep saying non-compete clause and telling us to Google it to find examples. I did Google it and non-compete clauses are for working at competitors after termination and exchanging trade secrets, etc. Nothing to do with advertising and promotion. Even more curious is that non-compete clauses are illegal in California. Not like it matters, because it has nothing to do with anything.
Riot is a sponsor of LoL, LCS etc. As are the team sponsors, and however it all works. The players (LCS players) are paid a salary by Riot. That means Riot gets a say in what they do. If they don't like it, they can refuse to sign the contract, in which case Riot simply won't pay them money or allow them to compete in the competition.
If you want freedom to do whatever you want, play whatever you want, stream whatever you want etc, play a different game. If you want money from Riot and their partners, then you also have to take note of the conditions of the contract which gets you that money. Pretty damned standard in the world, both in industry and sports. If you do things your employer doesn't like, you will no longer be employed by them.
Unless they stop you doing things they aren't allowed to stop you doing (I would assume that things like saying your religion, sexual orientation etc) then it's not illegal. They can make their own rules, to a degree, and that's what Riot are doing.
Doesn't mean it's good for the players necessarily, but they get a benefit called being paid, not necessarily good for fans of an individual specific player, because they don't get to see him do other stuff, but they get to see him be paid for playing LoL, and it's to help preserve the image of Riot/Riot's sponsors/LoL. Which is what most people try and preserve, their image.
On December 06 2013 15:18 kainzero wrote: I don't deny Riot's track record with their management of the scene but I don't see how not being allowed to stream other games is integral to becoming "a real sport." It sounds like Riot brainwashing.
I don't even understand why people are saying this is good for the company. I'm sure that banks being complete dicks about overdraft fees and timing payments/deposits to collect fees is great for the bank but as a consumer it's awful.
And I don't understand why people keep saying non-compete clause and telling us to Google it to find examples. I did Google it and non-compete clauses are for working at competitors after termination and exchanging trade secrets, etc. Nothing to do with advertising and promotion. Even more curious is that non-compete clauses are illegal in California. Not like it matters, because it has nothing to do with anything.
Riot is a sponsor of LoL, LCS etc. As are the team sponsors, and however it all works. The players (LCS players) are paid a salary by Riot. That means Riot gets a say in what they do. If they don't like it, they can refuse to sign the contract, in which case Riot simply won't pay them money or allow them to compete in the competition.
If you want freedom to do whatever you want, play whatever you want, stream whatever you want etc, play a different game. If you want money from Riot and their partners, then you also have to take note of the conditions of the contract which gets you that money. Pretty damned standard in the world, both in industry and sports. If you do things your employer doesn't like, you will no longer be employed by them.
Unless they stop you doing things they aren't allowed to stop you doing (I would assume that things like saying your religion, sexual orientation etc) then it's not illegal. They can make their own rules, to a degree, and that's what Riot are doing.
Doesn't mean it's good for the players necessarily, but they get a benefit called being paid, not necessarily good for fans of an individual specific player, because they don't get to see him do other stuff, but they get to see him be paid for playing LoL, and it's to help preserve the image of Riot/Riot's sponsors/LoL. Which is what most people try and preserve, their image.
Riot and Riot's Contract should not reach into your ability to stream and earn money on a third party streaming service, the Viewers watching on say Twitch are twitch viewers, they just happen to be watching LoL, if you switch to Hearthstone and the viewer doesn't like it, the viewer leaves, it is your channel, not Riots, becoming a LoL player does not mean handing over your Twitch account to Riot, regardless of what a contract says, The Nike/Reebok comment is an utter farce, Nike will provide their athlete with enough Nike's so that he doesn't NEED to buy some Reeboks, if Riot cant provide enough entertainment with LoL, why dont they make some more games that people could stream when waiting for LoL ques or when they're sick of LoL, they are Riot GameSSSSS afterall and they have one game... Riots contract violates almost all streaming services ToU and basic human rights... this is the reason in all the real sports they like to compare themselves too, no body owns Basketball, no body owns Baseball, when you have the Owner a game, also calling themselves a Sponsor of the players of their game, they become abusive of the people who draw attention to their product, they look for whats to trap and contain their income, Riot has NO RIGHT to what you stream on your channel the same way your boss has no right to tell you what to post on your facebook.
it sucks from riot. but its understandable. if they pay them so much money to promote their game, wyh should they be allowed to stream the BETTER game in dota 2. they could open the eyes of many players and make them switch. business is no friggin birthdayparty its a hard fight over money and "customers"
On December 06 2013 15:18 kainzero wrote: I don't deny Riot's track record with their management of the scene but I don't see how not being allowed to stream other games is integral to becoming "a real sport." It sounds like Riot brainwashing.
I don't even understand why people are saying this is good for the company. I'm sure that banks being complete dicks about overdraft fees and timing payments/deposits to collect fees is great for the bank but as a consumer it's awful.
And I don't understand why people keep saying non-compete clause and telling us to Google it to find examples. I did Google it and non-compete clauses are for working at competitors after termination and exchanging trade secrets, etc. Nothing to do with advertising and promotion. Even more curious is that non-compete clauses are illegal in California. Not like it matters, because it has nothing to do with anything.
Riot is a sponsor of LoL, LCS etc. As are the team sponsors, and however it all works. The players (LCS players) are paid a salary by Riot. That means Riot gets a say in what they do. If they don't like it, they can refuse to sign the contract, in which case Riot simply won't pay them money or allow them to compete in the competition.
If you want freedom to do whatever you want, play whatever you want, stream whatever you want etc, play a different game. If you want money from Riot and their partners, then you also have to take note of the conditions of the contract which gets you that money. Pretty damned standard in the world, both in industry and sports. If you do things your employer doesn't like, you will no longer be employed by them.
Unless they stop you doing things they aren't allowed to stop you doing (I would assume that things like saying your religion, sexual orientation etc) then it's not illegal. They can make their own rules, to a degree, and that's what Riot are doing.
Doesn't mean it's good for the players necessarily, but they get a benefit called being paid, not necessarily good for fans of an individual specific player, because they don't get to see him do other stuff, but they get to see him be paid for playing LoL, and it's to help preserve the image of Riot/Riot's sponsors/LoL. Which is what most people try and preserve, their image.
Riot and Riot's Contract should not reach into your ability to stream and earn money on a third party streaming service, the Viewers watching on say Twitch are twitch viewers, they just happen to be watching LoL, if you switch to Hearthstone and the viewer doesn't like it, the viewer leaves, it is your channel, not Riots, becoming a LoL player does not mean handing over your Twitch account to Riot, regardless of what a contract says, The Nike/Reebok comment is an utter farce, Nike will provide their athlete with enough Nike's so that he doesn't NEED to buy some Reeboks, if Riot cant provide enough entertainment with LoL, why dont they make some more games that people could stream when waiting for LoL ques or when they're sick of LoL, they are Riot GameSSSSS afterall and they have one game... Riots contract violates almost all streaming services ToU and basic human rights... this is the reason in all the real sports they like to compare themselves too, no body owns Basketball, no body owns Baseball, when you have the Owner a game, also calling themselves a Sponsor of the players of their game, they become abusive of the people who draw attention to their product, they look for whats to trap and contain their income, Riot has NO RIGHT to what you stream on your channel the same way your boss has no right to tell you what to post on your facebook.
Your boss can fire you for what you post on your facebook, though.
They can tell you not to stream LoL on your stream as well, since it's their game.
On December 06 2013 15:18 kainzero wrote: I don't deny Riot's track record with their management of the scene but I don't see how not being allowed to stream other games is integral to becoming "a real sport." It sounds like Riot brainwashing.
I don't even understand why people are saying this is good for the company. I'm sure that banks being complete dicks about overdraft fees and timing payments/deposits to collect fees is great for the bank but as a consumer it's awful.
And I don't understand why people keep saying non-compete clause and telling us to Google it to find examples. I did Google it and non-compete clauses are for working at competitors after termination and exchanging trade secrets, etc. Nothing to do with advertising and promotion. Even more curious is that non-compete clauses are illegal in California. Not like it matters, because it has nothing to do with anything.
Riot is a sponsor of LoL, LCS etc. As are the team sponsors, and however it all works. The players (LCS players) are paid a salary by Riot. That means Riot gets a say in what they do. If they don't like it, they can refuse to sign the contract, in which case Riot simply won't pay them money or allow them to compete in the competition.
If you want freedom to do whatever you want, play whatever you want, stream whatever you want etc, play a different game. If you want money from Riot and their partners, then you also have to take note of the conditions of the contract which gets you that money. Pretty damned standard in the world, both in industry and sports. If you do things your employer doesn't like, you will no longer be employed by them.
Unless they stop you doing things they aren't allowed to stop you doing (I would assume that things like saying your religion, sexual orientation etc) then it's not illegal. They can make their own rules, to a degree, and that's what Riot are doing.
Doesn't mean it's good for the players necessarily, but they get a benefit called being paid, not necessarily good for fans of an individual specific player, because they don't get to see him do other stuff, but they get to see him be paid for playing LoL, and it's to help preserve the image of Riot/Riot's sponsors/LoL. Which is what most people try and preserve, their image.
Riot and Riot's Contract should not reach into your ability to stream and earn money on a third party streaming service, the Viewers watching on say Twitch are twitch viewers, they just happen to be watching LoL, if you switch to Hearthstone and the viewer doesn't like it, the viewer leaves, it is your channel, not Riots, becoming a LoL player does not mean handing over your Twitch account to Riot, regardless of what a contract says, The Nike/Reebok comment is an utter farce, Nike will provide their athlete with enough Nike's so that he doesn't NEED to buy some Reeboks, if Riot cant provide enough entertainment with LoL, why dont they make some more games that people could stream when waiting for LoL ques or when they're sick of LoL, they are Riot GameSSSSS afterall and they have one game... Riots contract violates almost all streaming services ToU and basic human rights... this is the reason in all the real sports they like to compare themselves too, no body owns Basketball, no body owns Baseball, when you have the Owner a game, also calling themselves a Sponsor of the players of their game, they become abusive of the people who draw attention to their product, they look for whats to trap and contain their income, Riot has NO RIGHT to what you stream on your channel the same way your boss has no right to tell you what to post on your facebook.
Of course they do, the exact same stipulation arises in the nba and nfl. When you are in the public eye, you are restricted in what you can and can not do. These restrictions are based on what could be detrimental to the league that you are apart of. This is why all public events have to approved by the NBA before players can participate.
In unrelated news, I'm surprised it took us 8 pages before the dota2 vs lol comments came out.
On December 06 2013 15:18 kainzero wrote: I don't deny Riot's track record with their management of the scene but I don't see how not being allowed to stream other games is integral to becoming "a real sport." It sounds like Riot brainwashing.
I don't even understand why people are saying this is good for the company. I'm sure that banks being complete dicks about overdraft fees and timing payments/deposits to collect fees is great for the bank but as a consumer it's awful.
And I don't understand why people keep saying non-compete clause and telling us to Google it to find examples. I did Google it and non-compete clauses are for working at competitors after termination and exchanging trade secrets, etc. Nothing to do with advertising and promotion. Even more curious is that non-compete clauses are illegal in California. Not like it matters, because it has nothing to do with anything.
Riot is a sponsor of LoL, LCS etc. As are the team sponsors, and however it all works. The players (LCS players) are paid a salary by Riot. That means Riot gets a say in what they do. If they don't like it, they can refuse to sign the contract, in which case Riot simply won't pay them money or allow them to compete in the competition.
If you want freedom to do whatever you want, play whatever you want, stream whatever you want etc, play a different game. If you want money from Riot and their partners, then you also have to take note of the conditions of the contract which gets you that money. Pretty damned standard in the world, both in industry and sports. If you do things your employer doesn't like, you will no longer be employed by them.
Unless they stop you doing things they aren't allowed to stop you doing (I would assume that things like saying your religion, sexual orientation etc) then it's not illegal. They can make their own rules, to a degree, and that's what Riot are doing.
Doesn't mean it's good for the players necessarily, but they get a benefit called being paid, not necessarily good for fans of an individual specific player, because they don't get to see him do other stuff, but they get to see him be paid for playing LoL, and it's to help preserve the image of Riot/Riot's sponsors/LoL. Which is what most people try and preserve, their image.
Riot and Riot's Contract should not reach into your ability to stream and earn money on a third party streaming service, the Viewers watching on say Twitch are twitch viewers, they just happen to be watching LoL, if you switch to Hearthstone and the viewer doesn't like it, the viewer leaves, it is your channel, not Riots, becoming a LoL player does not mean handing over your Twitch account to Riot, regardless of what a contract says, The Nike/Reebok comment is an utter farce, Nike will provide their athlete with enough Nike's so that he doesn't NEED to buy some Reeboks, if Riot cant provide enough entertainment with LoL, why dont they make some more games that people could stream when waiting for LoL ques or when they're sick of LoL, they are Riot GameSSSSS afterall and they have one game... Riots contract violates almost all streaming services ToU and basic human rights... this is the reason in all the real sports they like to compare themselves too, no body owns Basketball, no body owns Baseball, when you have the Owner a game, also calling themselves a Sponsor of the players of their game, they become abusive of the people who draw attention to their product, they look for whats to trap and contain their income, Riot has NO RIGHT to what you stream on your channel the same way your boss has no right to tell you what to post on your facebook.
So if you are sponsored by Coke, then Coke should also let you be sponsored by Pepsi or even promote Pepsi without getting paid money? Hell no, if you do so, Coke will say "we aren't paying you money because you are promoting a competitor".
Basic human rights? They don't force anyone to do anything, it's a contract that the players CHOOSE to sign. You're just going off on one with your rant that ignores the reality of the entire world and lacks any kind of business sense or sense of reality at all.
If you want to stream whatever games you choose, you can do that. Riot aren't stopping you. If you want Riot to pay money, THEN you can't stream whatever you like. Riot gives you money. In exchange you play by their rules. Don't like their rules? Then don't take their money. It's called a business transaction, and yes, they can tell you what to do. You don't have to obey them, but if you don't obey their reasonable terms, then you won't get your money, and these are in fact reasonable commercial and common terms of business.
And Riot aren't stopping people playing other games, they are stopping people effectively promoting other games. All of these players can play whatever the fuck they want all day long if they want, as long as they don't publicly show that they are doing so. No restriction on the players having all the fun they want in other games.
And I'm pretty sure that no streaming TOU are being broken by Riot. Can you point to something on Twitch, for example, that says players who get paid by a sponsor must be allowed to stream anything they want?
Unless you mean this little gem:
You agree that you will abide by these Terms of Service and will not: intentionally interfere with or damage operation of the Twitch Service or any user’s enjoyment of them, by any means, including uploading or otherwise disseminating viruses, adware, spyware, worms, or other malicious code;
And all of your comments about employers having no right to tell you A, B, C or what to do or what you can say. That's all true. Equally they have no obligation to continue paying you if you do something that harms them and they have a contract stating that such actions are liable to get you terminated. Riot aren't stopping anyone doing anything they want in the entire world, as long as they don't expect to still get paid when they do things. If you work for a company, and then post publicly on your Facebook that the company is terrible etc, then you almost certainly will get FIRED. Does that mean your employer has prevented you from talking shit about them? Pretty much yes, because when you do, you lose your job. Which most people would agree is fair.
I feel like this will turn into these streamers just playing their intermittent games on their second monitor so you will hear the sounds of the game but not be able to see it. Considering these guys' queues are near the 20-40 min marks at times, who can blame them.
With regards to everyone else's statements yeah it's unfortunate that Riot is doing it, but also they have the right and it should be looked at as a company not wanting to give other games free advertising. I'm waiting for bloons TD or geometry wars during queues now.
On December 07 2013 00:45 Atokad wrote: I feel like this will turn into these streamers just playing their intermittent games on their second monitor so you will hear the sounds of the game but not be able to see it. Considering these guys' queues are near the 20-40 min marks at times, who can blame them.
With regards to everyone else's statements yeah it's unfortunate that Riot is doing it, but also they have the right and it should be looked at as a company not wanting to give other games free advertising. I'm waiting for bloons TD or geometry wars during queues now.
I mean there are plenty of other games for them to play. I feel as though they will find an alternative to Hearthstone. A lot of Steam games I suspect.
On December 07 2013 00:45 Atokad wrote: I feel like this will turn into these streamers just playing their intermittent games on their second monitor so you will hear the sounds of the game but not be able to see it. Considering these guys' queues are near the 20-40 min marks at times, who can blame them.
With regards to everyone else's statements yeah it's unfortunate that Riot is doing it, but also they have the right and it should be looked at as a company not wanting to give other games free advertising. I'm waiting for bloons TD or geometry wars during queues now.
Having the right to do it doesn't make it beneficial to the consumer (also known as me), and that's what I'm getting at. I'm sure that AT&T is well within their right to possess exclusive high-speed internet in a neighborhood in the city but refuse to upgrade to fiber and provide shitty customer service, but that doesn't mean it's good for me.
I don't know about the legitimacy or legality of the contract. Leave that up to Riot's lawyers and the player's lawyers if they want it so badly.
And it's not really standard practice either when you think about the uniqueness of the situation. Has any other gaming company, whether openly or behind closed doors, restricted streaming of other games? We've already noted that Riot is the only company to salary professional gaming players, how is this NOT unique?
All I see is Riot shoving out other competitive games when historically competitive gaming communities were all trying to group together and expand together. Remember the flak that Blizzard received for scheduling WCS at the same time as TI3?
When questioned about the contract, the only thing Riot has said was that it's necessary to provide legitimacy to LoL as a professional sport, which honestly doesn't have any bearing on it. Sure, if they said "We need to maximize our investment in our players by having them promote LoL as much as possible," that works better than "Coke spokespersons can't drink Pepsi" and "*insert 41519884th sports analogy*"
OMG the haters are coming. Someone needs to update the OP, the athletes can play any game they want but no on stream, not mention the game on twitter, and make your steam account private. Also all the big companies have a agreement that competition products are banned.
On December 06 2013 15:18 kainzero wrote: I don't deny Riot's track record with their management of the scene but I don't see how not being allowed to stream other games is integral to becoming "a real sport." It sounds like Riot brainwashing.
I don't even understand why people are saying this is good for the company. I'm sure that banks being complete dicks about overdraft fees and timing payments/deposits to collect fees is great for the bank but as a consumer it's awful.
And I don't understand why people keep saying non-compete clause and telling us to Google it to find examples. I did Google it and non-compete clauses are for working at competitors after termination and exchanging trade secrets, etc. Nothing to do with advertising and promotion. Even more curious is that non-compete clauses are illegal in California. Not like it matters, because it has nothing to do with anything.
Riot is a sponsor of LoL, LCS etc. As are the team sponsors, and however it all works. The players (LCS players) are paid a salary by Riot. That means Riot gets a say in what they do. If they don't like it, they can refuse to sign the contract, in which case Riot simply won't pay them money or allow them to compete in the competition.
If you want freedom to do whatever you want, play whatever you want, stream whatever you want etc, play a different game. If you want money from Riot and their partners, then you also have to take note of the conditions of the contract which gets you that money. Pretty damned standard in the world, both in industry and sports. If you do things your employer doesn't like, you will no longer be employed by them.
Unless they stop you doing things they aren't allowed to stop you doing (I would assume that things like saying your religion, sexual orientation etc) then it's not illegal. They can make their own rules, to a degree, and that's what Riot are doing.
Doesn't mean it's good for the players necessarily, but they get a benefit called being paid, not necessarily good for fans of an individual specific player, because they don't get to see him do other stuff, but they get to see him be paid for playing LoL, and it's to help preserve the image of Riot/Riot's sponsors/LoL. Which is what most people try and preserve, their image.
Riot and Riot's Contract should not reach into your ability to stream and earn money on a third party streaming service, the Viewers watching on say Twitch are twitch viewers, they just happen to be watching LoL, if you switch to Hearthstone and the viewer doesn't like it, the viewer leaves, it is your channel, not Riots, becoming a LoL player does not mean handing over your Twitch account to Riot, regardless of what a contract says, The Nike/Reebok comment is an utter farce, Nike will provide their athlete with enough Nike's so that he doesn't NEED to buy some Reeboks, if Riot cant provide enough entertainment with LoL, why dont they make some more games that people could stream when waiting for LoL ques or when they're sick of LoL, they are Riot GameSSSSS afterall and they have one game... Riots contract violates almost all streaming services ToU and basic human rights... this is the reason in all the real sports they like to compare themselves too, no body owns Basketball, no body owns Baseball, when you have the Owner a game, also calling themselves a Sponsor of the players of their game, they become abusive of the people who draw attention to their product, they look for whats to trap and contain their income, Riot has NO RIGHT to what you stream on your channel the same way your boss has no right to tell you what to post on your facebook.
You know I didn't want to post in this thread, but after seeing this post I think I'll take the proverbial jab as to why from a business standpoint, I'm not really against such ideas as this.
You just listed one of the differences between real sports and electronic gaming. If they're paying you to play the game on their time for exposure purposes then it's their job and guess what? Considering Facebook is public realm that can blow up in your face as well. Many people lose their jobs for posting stupid shit on social media (whether it be Twitter/Facebook/etc). It happens all the time and you guys even seen instances of it in this very industry. Given that, you can post whatever you want on social media, but you could definitely lose your job or lose a promotion if you do something that they feel is out of line. It's not just your boss who you have to look out for. It's your co-workers as well.
On December 06 2013 23:07 Lonyo wrote: So if you are sponsored by Coke, then Coke should also let you be sponsored by Pepsi or even promote Pepsi without getting paid money? Hell no, if you do so, Coke will say "we aren't paying you money because you are promoting a competitor".
I consider it laughable that Riot considers any of these games to be competitors, except maybe DotA 2.
About half these games got more publicity from being on this list than they ever would have from LCS streamers playing them on stream.
On December 06 2013 23:07 Lonyo wrote: So if you are sponsored by Coke, then Coke should also let you be sponsored by Pepsi or even promote Pepsi without getting paid money? Hell no, if you do so, Coke will say "we aren't paying you money because you are promoting a competitor".
I consider it laughable that Riot considers any of these games to be competitors, except maybe DotA 2.
About half these games got more publicity from being on this list than they ever would have from LCS streamers playing them on stream.
they are scared that a new F2P game will blow up huge, just as they did themselves, and eat them. Which i guess will eventually happen at some point. Its a very likely scenario.
Obiously, they forgot to put in some non reveal rule into the contract, i doubt they wanted to make that list public :D
On December 07 2013 02:46 LaNague wrote: they are scared that a new F2P game will blow up huge, just as they did themselves, and eat them. Which i guess will eventually happen at some point. Its a very likely scenario.
I would argue that for that purpose this contract change is totally ineffective. If that was their purpose then they should have made the contract include all other video games to begin with. Because the way it is now, they have to revise/re-negotiate the contract for a new game to be added to it. By the time such a game is on the radar enough and they can actually add it to the list, such a change would be meaningless--it would be too big to stop by then. If the game really is better than League and can "eat them", then forcing your players to choose between the two games is exactly how you'd lose players, rather than accepting that gamers can and do play multiple games.
So much hate, I actually think this is good thing TBH, Making the scene much more profesional as well as the attitude the player should have towards the game, They are not forcing them to play LoL only, but only to stream LoL at a competitive level, they can still play pokemon or something during queues . I really think this is a great decision and maybe Blizzard should learn something from Riot if they plan on making SC2 a real e-sport
On December 06 2013 23:07 Lonyo wrote: So if you are sponsored by Coke, then Coke should also let you be sponsored by Pepsi or even promote Pepsi without getting paid money? Hell no, if you do so, Coke will say "we aren't paying you money because you are promoting a competitor".
I consider it laughable that Riot considers any of these games to be competitors, except maybe DotA 2.
About half these games got more publicity from being on this list than they ever would have from LCS streamers playing them on stream.
Hearthstone and LoL are competing for customers. Sure, you can play both games but many players have a limited budget. Money spent on a Hearthstone microtransaction is money not spent on a Riot product.
On December 06 2013 23:07 Lonyo wrote: So if you are sponsored by Coke, then Coke should also let you be sponsored by Pepsi or even promote Pepsi without getting paid money? Hell no, if you do so, Coke will say "we aren't paying you money because you are promoting a competitor".
I consider it laughable that Riot considers any of these games to be competitors, except maybe DotA 2.
About half these games got more publicity from being on this list than they ever would have from LCS streamers playing them on stream.
I think it's more professionalism than fear. Imagine a player plays a 30 minute lol games then spend the next 15 minutes playing hearthstone, that is not good. I know it's because the queue time is too long, but if you watch a lot of stream, there're a lot of time players just don't even click Search, and just sit there playing Hearthstone. Moreover, a lot of time, players pay too much attention to the hearthstone games that they don't even care about what is happening on the chat, or refuse to interact with viewers out of laziness.
On December 07 2013 03:20 canikizu wrote: I think it's more professionalism than fear. Imagine a player plays a 30 minute lol games then spend the next 15 minutes playing hearthstone, that is not good. I know it's because the queue time is too long, but if you watch a lot of stream, there're a lot of time players just don't even click Search, and just sit there playing Hearthstone. Moreover, a lot of time, players pay too much attention to the hearthstone games that they don't even care about what is happening on the chat, or refuse to interact with viewers out of laziness.
That's because Hearthstone is a better and more enjoyable game, that's hardly the streamers fault.
On December 07 2013 03:20 canikizu wrote: I think it's more professionalism than fear. Imagine a player plays a 30 minute lol games then spend the next 15 minutes playing hearthstone, that is not good. I know it's because the queue time is too long, but if you watch a lot of stream, there're a lot of time players just don't even click Search, and just sit there playing Hearthstone. Moreover, a lot of time, players pay too much attention to the hearthstone games that they don't even care about what is happening on the chat, or refuse to interact with viewers out of laziness.
That's because Hearthstone is a better and more enjoyable game, that's hardly the streamers fault.
It's like saying you can drink Coke in the public because it's better drink although you're sponsored by Pepsi.
That's why it's called professionalism. It doesn't matter if the game is better or not, if you're bounded by a contract, then follow it.
On December 07 2013 03:16 Don_Julio wrote: Hearthstone and LoL are competing for customers. Sure, you can play both games but many players have a limited budget. Money spent on a Hearthstone microtransaction is money not spent on a Riot product.
I don't mean that they aren't competing for customers, I mean that LoL's business is so large compared to anyone else that even competing for the same customers, the impact on LoL's playerbase is going to be so small that I think it's petty for Riot to be so anal about it.
People use the Coke/Pepsi analogy here while ignoring the fact that their relative market share is close enough for Coke to be concerned about Pepsi. Riot's market share in this sphere is an order of magnitude higher than the next competitor on that list, and the majority of them are utterly inconsequential.
If we're using the Coke/Pepsi analogy, none of these other games are Pepsi. The closest ones like Hearthstone or DotA 2 are like RC Cola, and most of these are like the generic supermarket brands that no one further than 30 miles from you has ever heard of.
On December 06 2013 23:07 Lonyo wrote: So if you are sponsored by Coke, then Coke should also let you be sponsored by Pepsi or even promote Pepsi without getting paid money? Hell no, if you do so, Coke will say "we aren't paying you money because you are promoting a competitor".
I consider it laughable that Riot considers any of these games to be competitors, except maybe DotA 2.
About half these games got more publicity from being on this list than they ever would have from LCS streamers playing them on stream.
I think it's more professionalism than fear. Imagine a player plays a 30 minute lol games then spend the next 15 minutes playing hearthstone, that is not good. I know it's because the queue time is too long, but if you watch a lot of stream, there're a lot of time players just don't even click Search, and just sit there playing Hearthstone. Moreover, a lot of time, players pay too much attention to the hearthstone games that they don't even care about what is happening on the chat, or refuse to interact with viewers out of laziness.
The thing is, streamers do that anyway, with games not included on that list. In fact, Hearthstone is probably the only game on the list that supports that kind of "between-queue" play, as mobas and RTS games don't suit playing in such a small timeframe.
These are the necessary steps to take #esports to the next level, there's gotta be a clear distinction between stream clowns and professional players. Props to Riot for doing this (and not banning osu!).
On December 07 2013 03:16 Don_Julio wrote: Hearthstone and LoL are competing for customers. Sure, you can play both games but many players have a limited budget. Money spent on a Hearthstone microtransaction is money not spent on a Riot product.
I don't mean that they aren't competing for customers, I mean that LoL's business is so large compared to anyone else that even competing for the same customers, the impact on LoL's playerbase is going to be so small that I think it's petty for Riot to be so anal about it.
People use the Coke/Pepsi analogy here while ignoring the fact that their relative market share is close enough for Coke to be concerned about Pepsi. Riot's market share in this sphere is an order of magnitude higher than the next competitor on that list, and the majority of them are utterly inconsequential.
If we're using the Coke/Pepsi analogy, none of these other games are Pepsi. The closest ones like Hearthstone or DotA 2 are like RC Cola, and most of these are like the generic supermarket brands that no one further than 30 miles from you has ever heard of.
On December 06 2013 23:07 Lonyo wrote: So if you are sponsored by Coke, then Coke should also let you be sponsored by Pepsi or even promote Pepsi without getting paid money? Hell no, if you do so, Coke will say "we aren't paying you money because you are promoting a competitor".
I consider it laughable that Riot considers any of these games to be competitors, except maybe DotA 2.
About half these games got more publicity from being on this list than they ever would have from LCS streamers playing them on stream.
I think it's more professionalism than fear. Imagine a player plays a 30 minute lol games then spend the next 15 minutes playing hearthstone, that is not good. I know it's because the queue time is too long, but if you watch a lot of stream, there're a lot of time players just don't even click Search, and just sit there playing Hearthstone. Moreover, a lot of time, players pay too much attention to the hearthstone games that they don't even care about what is happening on the chat, or refuse to interact with viewers out of laziness.
The thing is, streamers do that anyway, with games not included on that list. In fact, Hearthstone is probably the only game on the list that supports that kind of "between-queue" play, as mobas and RTS games don't suit playing in such a small timeframe.
Just because they're not suitable doesn't mean they can't be. If I remember right, ROBERTXLEE has always been playing SC2 between queue, he's known for not accepting queue and just go on with SC2 games too. I've not seen pros playing WoW lately, but that was a thing in when I started playing LoL and watching LoL stream. Rekkles or Diamondpox have been playing Diablo3 when playing LoL too.
Of course I'm not saying the list is right. It's clearly not a fully thought list, there're outdated games, games that make no sense,.v..v.v. I doubt they put too much thought about what's on the list, and I think they can revise it later if not already (assuming what Saint said is true)
On December 07 2013 03:16 Don_Julio wrote: Hearthstone and LoL are competing for customers. Sure, you can play both games but many players have a limited budget. Money spent on a Hearthstone microtransaction is money not spent on a Riot product.
I don't mean that they aren't competing for customers, I mean that LoL's business is so large compared to anyone else that even competing for the same customers, the impact on LoL's playerbase is going to be so small that I think it's petty for Riot to be so anal about it.
People use the Coke/Pepsi analogy here while ignoring the fact that their relative market share is close enough for Coke to be concerned about Pepsi. Riot's market share in this sphere is an order of magnitude higher than the next competitor on that list, and the majority of them are utterly inconsequential.
If we're using the Coke/Pepsi analogy, none of these other games are Pepsi. The closest ones like Hearthstone or DotA 2 are like RC Cola, and most of these are like the generic supermarket brands that no one further than 30 miles from you has ever heard of.
On December 07 2013 03:20 canikizu wrote:
On December 07 2013 02:33 NotYango wrote:
On December 06 2013 23:07 Lonyo wrote: So if you are sponsored by Coke, then Coke should also let you be sponsored by Pepsi or even promote Pepsi without getting paid money? Hell no, if you do so, Coke will say "we aren't paying you money because you are promoting a competitor".
I consider it laughable that Riot considers any of these games to be competitors, except maybe DotA 2.
About half these games got more publicity from being on this list than they ever would have from LCS streamers playing them on stream.
I think it's more professionalism than fear. Imagine a player plays a 30 minute lol games then spend the next 15 minutes playing hearthstone, that is not good. I know it's because the queue time is too long, but if you watch a lot of stream, there're a lot of time players just don't even click Search, and just sit there playing Hearthstone. Moreover, a lot of time, players pay too much attention to the hearthstone games that they don't even care about what is happening on the chat, or refuse to interact with viewers out of laziness.
The thing is, streamers do that anyway, with games not included on that list. In fact, Hearthstone is probably the only game on the list that supports that kind of "between-queue" play, as mobas and RTS games don't suit playing in such a small timeframe.
Just because they're not suitable doesn't mean they can't be. If I remember right, ROBERTXLEE has always been playing SC2 between queue, he's known for not accepting queue and just go on with SC2 games too. I've not seen pros playing WoW lately, but that was a thing in when I started playing LoL and watching LoL stream. Rekkles or Diamondpox have been playing Diablo3 when playing LoL too.
Of course I'm not saying the list is right. It's clearly not a fully thought list, there're outdated games, games that make no sense,.v..v.v. I doubt they put too much thought about what's on the list, and I think they can revise it later if not already (assuming what Saint said is true)
maybe riot should make their game less fucking boring then.
The more I read all the complaints about monopoly this or fairness that.... Did you know all this stuff was already hashed out by unions and factory owners ages ago? Is like the Internet suddenly discovered the mess that was labor and unions and monopolies that Better people than us paid blood to figure out in the industrial revolution.
The bottom line is that this stuff is not even remotely close to being unfair or monopolistic.
On December 07 2013 03:16 Don_Julio wrote: Hearthstone and LoL are competing for customers. Sure, you can play both games but many players have a limited budget. Money spent on a Hearthstone microtransaction is money not spent on a Riot product.
I don't mean that they aren't competing for customers, I mean that LoL's business is so large compared to anyone else that even competing for the same customers, the impact on LoL's playerbase is going to be so small that I think it's petty for Riot to be so anal about it.
People use the Coke/Pepsi analogy here while ignoring the fact that their relative market share is close enough for Coke to be concerned about Pepsi. Riot's market share in this sphere is an order of magnitude higher than the next competitor on that list, and the majority of them are utterly inconsequential.
If we're using the Coke/Pepsi analogy, none of these other games are Pepsi. The closest ones like Hearthstone or DotA 2 are like RC Cola, and most of these are like the generic supermarket brands that no one further than 30 miles from you has ever heard of.
On December 07 2013 03:20 canikizu wrote:
On December 07 2013 02:33 NotYango wrote:
On December 06 2013 23:07 Lonyo wrote: So if you are sponsored by Coke, then Coke should also let you be sponsored by Pepsi or even promote Pepsi without getting paid money? Hell no, if you do so, Coke will say "we aren't paying you money because you are promoting a competitor".
I consider it laughable that Riot considers any of these games to be competitors, except maybe DotA 2.
About half these games got more publicity from being on this list than they ever would have from LCS streamers playing them on stream.
I think it's more professionalism than fear. Imagine a player plays a 30 minute lol games then spend the next 15 minutes playing hearthstone, that is not good. I know it's because the queue time is too long, but if you watch a lot of stream, there're a lot of time players just don't even click Search, and just sit there playing Hearthstone. Moreover, a lot of time, players pay too much attention to the hearthstone games that they don't even care about what is happening on the chat, or refuse to interact with viewers out of laziness.
The thing is, streamers do that anyway, with games not included on that list. In fact, Hearthstone is probably the only game on the list that supports that kind of "between-queue" play, as mobas and RTS games don't suit playing in such a small timeframe.
Just because they're not suitable doesn't mean they can't be. If I remember right, ROBERTXLEE has always been playing SC2 between queue, he's known for not accepting queue and just go on with SC2 games too. I've not seen pros playing WoW lately, but that was a thing in when I started playing LoL and watching LoL stream. Rekkles or Diamondpox have been playing Diablo3 when playing LoL too.
Of course I'm not saying the list is right. It's clearly not a fully thought list, there're outdated games, games that make no sense,.v..v.v. I doubt they put too much thought about what's on the list, and I think they can revise it later if not already (assuming what Saint said is true)
maybe riot should make their game less fucking boring then.
I mean, if their pros can't even stay interested.
I wouldn't say that. Let me put it this way, when you get ranked as high as these guys you can wait for a very, very long time just to get a game. That's why you see them playing other games like Hearthstone, OSU, and all sorts of indy games because that's just what a lot of them do while they're waiting. When they don't feel like laddering, they'll open up some games for their subscribers and do giveaways during downtime as well. It's not as cut and dry as you make it out to be. The downtime does suck and there isn't much you can do about it.
On December 07 2013 05:24 Kaneh wrote: The more I read all the complaints about monopoly this or fairness that.... Did you know all this stuff was already hashed out by unions and factory owners ages ago? Is like the Internet suddenly discovered the mess that was labor and unions and monopolies that Better people than us paid blood to figure out in the industrial revolution.
The bottom line is that this stuff is not even remotely close to being unfair or monopolistic.
Yep, just wait for the day that a games big enough to have player unions and all that jazz. People will bitch about it no matter what as we see in sports when there are lock outs and bargaining agreements. We already shit on a lot of the stuff KeSPA and co. does already, but they do serve a purpose.
They're already used to getting screwed by kespa. :/
They're used to their salaried athletes having rules placed upon what they can do in the public eye like every other contracted athlete in the world.
Very wow.
well fucking said
if you want to legitimize "esports" (cringe), start acting like professionals and not fucking teenagers playing a video game
Maybe riot should pay them like professionals instead of like fast food employees first.
That's dumb. Professional athletes shouldn't get payed nearly as much as they do anyway.
Not to mention they're making more than fast food employees do.
Not off riot. From teams they do. It wouldn't be much of an issue if teams tell their players what they can or can't do in regards to public image because the teams are paying majority of salary. I rather Riot treat their relationship with the teams in regards to LCS as a tournament organizer than as opposed to employer.
If riot wants control of player streams they should be paying players for their stream imo, which is clearly not the case.
@shallowbay You don't think highly specialized skill that requires 40+ hours a week, that requires a lot of travel, group housing, and promotional gigs doesn't deserve 6figure paycheck? you're the one thats delusional.
i'll ignore the 40+ hours a week part, since that's a normal workweek for almost anyone
it must really suck to have a mansion paid for by your team
travel and promo suck, yes, but any job has its downsides. could be worse from a job with 0 marketable skills outside of the specific industry
You could say that about a lot of jobs, and a lot of those jobs pay 6 figures. Saying that Dyrus making 6 figures for playing LoL is insane, is absurd, that's quite reasonable pay considering his fanbase, specialized skillsets, lack of possible replacements, and workload for the job.
funny how you're arguing for the professionalism of LoL, but then mock how much the players should get paid for playing a "video game".
from the other thread.
are we on the same page when i say 6 figures? as in, at least $100,000? i dont think that LOTS of jobs pay that much
i'm arguing that if the players want to get respect for playing a "video game" and rise above that stigma, they need to accept professional responsibilities.
On December 07 2013 01:55 wei2coolman wrote: [quote] They're already used to getting screwed by kespa. :/
They're used to their salaried athletes having rules placed upon what they can do in the public eye like every other contracted athlete in the world.
Very wow.
well fucking said
if you want to legitimize "esports" (cringe), start acting like professionals and not fucking teenagers playing a video game
Maybe riot should pay them like professionals instead of like fast food employees first.
That's dumb. Professional athletes shouldn't get payed nearly as much as they do anyway.
Not to mention they're making more than fast food employees do.
Not off riot. From teams they do. It wouldn't be much of an issue if teams tell their players what they can or can't do in regards to public image because the teams are paying majority of salary. I rather Riot treat their relationship with the teams in regards to LCS as a tournament organizer than as opposed to employer.
If riot wants control of player streams they should be paying players for their stream imo, which is clearly not the case.
@shallowbay You don't think highly specialized skill that requires 40+ hours a week, that requires a lot of travel, group housing, and promotional gigs doesn't deserve 6figure paycheck? you're the one thats delusional.
i'll ignore the 40+ hours a week part, since that's a normal workweek for almost anyone
it must really suck to have a mansion paid for by your team
travel and promo suck, yes, but any job has its downsides. could be worse from a job with 0 marketable skills outside of the specific industry
You could say that about a lot of jobs, and a lot of those jobs pay 6 figures. Saying that Dyrus making 6 figures for playing LoL is insane, is absurd, that's quite reasonable pay considering his fanbase, specialized skillsets, lack of possible replacements, and workload for the job.
funny how you're arguing for the professionalism of LoL, but then mock how much the players should get paid for playing a "video game".
from the other thread.
are we on the same page when i say 6 figures? as in, at least $100,000? i dont think that LOTS of jobs pay that much
i'm arguing that if the players want to get respect for playing a "video game" and rise above that stigma, they need to accept professional responsibilities.
professional responsibilities should come with actual professional paycheck.
Name jobs that have the selectivity of Dyrus's position, and I guarantee you most of those jobs are all 6 figures.
On December 07 2013 05:36 JimmiC wrote: The facts are its great that they are getting paid at all. Out side of korea it rarely happens. And the reason it's low is it's just starting. Not like NFL players made millions when it first started (not even if you take inflation) they made terrible money.
Right now there is a ton of people willing to do it for little to no money so they don't have to pay more. And riot makes way more money off micro transactions then the ad revenue brought in from the pro scene. If that changes and the pro scene advertizers start paying 5.4 billion, which is what a canadian TV network paid the NHL to broadcast the games in Canada, not to mention all the revenue at stadiums and so on. Then they will pay the pros more. For now they just want enough of a scene to keep it popular. And I think they legitimatly want a pro scene which is cool. Not sure why everyone puts negative spins on shit. Yes is could always be better and you could have more, but it could also be worse and you could have less.
People are pretty spoiled to complain about making a living playing a game, if they want a shitty job that pays more, no one is stopping these guys.
Whether or not they're getting paid isn't the point, the question is whether or not they're getting paid enough to justify Riot's interference with their streams.
It's a pointless discussion, they have the power of choice, they can choose to not accept the contract. And then one of the 1000's of other people that would die for the opportunity will take it. And lets not forget they can still make money in other ways then riot. Some are paid by teams, streaming league, coaching, winning prize money, so on.
Yes, they make money other way from Riot. that means Riot should not be interfering with them. Such as streaming. Riot is not involved with the money they make from streaming, so why should Riot be involving themselves in such a way?
At this point I don't really care about the contract itself. I just think it's really petty for Riot to go after a list of B-rate moba games that, at the end of the day, would have a smaller effect on Riot's brand image and profit margins were they not on this list than the existence of this list does.
Riot's delusional if they think the number of players who'd potentially spend less money on LoL because a streamer played a game of Infinite Crisis or Fat Princess is more than the number of people who raised eyebrows at this.
Wei, you're using some sort of logical fallacy. NFL players get paid a lot and are the best in their field, so LCS players should get paid a lot because they are the best in their field. There's a disconnect in there.
Basic economics tells us that if these players have something better to do with their time than get $12,000 to compete in LCS, they will leave LCS and go do it.
On December 07 2013 05:58 Figgy wrote: Everyone in the LCS is on Salary.
They get it waaaaaaaaaay better than anyone in the business of pro-gaming by a longshot.
It's a small price to pay for League to hold onto it's stranglehold of the MOBA market.
Obviously, they don't want their Employees advertising for the competition.
This is the thing, everyone keeps calling the players Riot employees, when in reality I consider them more like contractors.
1.3 No Riot Employees Players may not be employees of Riot Games Inc. (“RGI”) or League of Legends eSports Federation LLC or any of their respective affiliates at the start of or at any point during the LCS regular season or playoffs. “Affiliate” is defined as any person or other entity which own or controls, is under the ownership or control of, or is under common ownership or control with, an Owner. “Control” shall mean the power, through any means, to determine the policies or management of an entity, whether through the power to elect, appoint or approve, directly or indirectly, the directors, officers, managers or trustees of such entity or otherwise.
On December 07 2013 02:55 Brad` wrote: [quote] They're used to their salaried athletes having rules placed upon what they can do in the public eye like every other contracted athlete in the world.
Very wow.
well fucking said
if you want to legitimize "esports" (cringe), start acting like professionals and not fucking teenagers playing a video game
Maybe riot should pay them like professionals instead of like fast food employees first.
That's dumb. Professional athletes shouldn't get payed nearly as much as they do anyway.
Not to mention they're making more than fast food employees do.
Not off riot. From teams they do. It wouldn't be much of an issue if teams tell their players what they can or can't do in regards to public image because the teams are paying majority of salary. I rather Riot treat their relationship with the teams in regards to LCS as a tournament organizer than as opposed to employer.
If riot wants control of player streams they should be paying players for their stream imo, which is clearly not the case.
@shallowbay You don't think highly specialized skill that requires 40+ hours a week, that requires a lot of travel, group housing, and promotional gigs doesn't deserve 6figure paycheck? you're the one thats delusional.
i'll ignore the 40+ hours a week part, since that's a normal workweek for almost anyone
it must really suck to have a mansion paid for by your team
travel and promo suck, yes, but any job has its downsides. could be worse from a job with 0 marketable skills outside of the specific industry
You could say that about a lot of jobs, and a lot of those jobs pay 6 figures. Saying that Dyrus making 6 figures for playing LoL is insane, is absurd, that's quite reasonable pay considering his fanbase, specialized skillsets, lack of possible replacements, and workload for the job.
funny how you're arguing for the professionalism of LoL, but then mock how much the players should get paid for playing a "video game".
from the other thread.
are we on the same page when i say 6 figures? as in, at least $100,000? i dont think that LOTS of jobs pay that much
i'm arguing that if the players want to get respect for playing a "video game" and rise above that stigma, they need to accept professional responsibilities.
professional responsibilities should come with actual professional paycheck.
Name jobs that have the selectivity of Dyrus's position, and I guarantee you most of those jobs are all 6 figures.
On December 07 2013 05:36 JimmiC wrote: The facts are its great that they are getting paid at all. Out side of korea it rarely happens. And the reason it's low is it's just starting. Not like NFL players made millions when it first started (not even if you take inflation) they made terrible money.
Right now there is a ton of people willing to do it for little to no money so they don't have to pay more. And riot makes way more money off micro transactions then the ad revenue brought in from the pro scene. If that changes and the pro scene advertizers start paying 5.4 billion, which is what a canadian TV network paid the NHL to broadcast the games in Canada, not to mention all the revenue at stadiums and so on. Then they will pay the pros more. For now they just want enough of a scene to keep it popular. And I think they legitimatly want a pro scene which is cool. Not sure why everyone puts negative spins on shit. Yes is could always be better and you could have more, but it could also be worse and you could have less.
People are pretty spoiled to complain about making a living playing a game, if they want a shitty job that pays more, no one is stopping these guys.
Whether or not they're getting paid isn't the point, the question is whether or not they're getting paid enough to justify Riot's interference with their streams.
It's a pointless discussion, they have the power of choice, they can choose to not accept the contract. And then one of the 1000's of other people that would die for the opportunity will take it. And lets not forget they can still make money in other ways then riot. Some are paid by teams, streaming league, coaching, winning prize money, so on.
Yes, they make money other way from Riot. that means Riot should not be interfering with them. Such as streaming. Riot is not involved with the money they make from streaming, so why should Riot be involving themselves in such a way?
Sorry to interrupt your discussion guys. but someone questioned that 100k is insane.
On December 07 2013 06:02 remedium wrote: Wei, you're using some sort of logical fallacy. NFL players get paid a lot and are the best in their field, so LCS players should get paid a lot because they are the best in their field. There's a disconnect in there.
Basic economics tells us that if these players have something better to do with their time than get $12,000 to compete in LCS, they will leave LCS and go do it.
The problem is the LCS is that it is the only league that legitimizes the teams to sponsors, as far as Western LoL is concerned. So they are strong arming teams to follow their contracts or risk losing sponsors by being DQ'd out of LCS. That's called doing business out of bad faith, sure they can do it. But it's a huge dick move. Especially considering the problem was initially created by Riot (long queue times.)
On December 07 2013 04:28 ShaLLoW[baY] wrote: [quote]
well fucking said
if you want to legitimize "esports" (cringe), start acting like professionals and not fucking teenagers playing a video game
Maybe riot should pay them like professionals instead of like fast food employees first.
That's dumb. Professional athletes shouldn't get payed nearly as much as they do anyway.
Not to mention they're making more than fast food employees do.
Not off riot. From teams they do. It wouldn't be much of an issue if teams tell their players what they can or can't do in regards to public image because the teams are paying majority of salary. I rather Riot treat their relationship with the teams in regards to LCS as a tournament organizer than as opposed to employer.
If riot wants control of player streams they should be paying players for their stream imo, which is clearly not the case.
@shallowbay You don't think highly specialized skill that requires 40+ hours a week, that requires a lot of travel, group housing, and promotional gigs doesn't deserve 6figure paycheck? you're the one thats delusional.
i'll ignore the 40+ hours a week part, since that's a normal workweek for almost anyone
it must really suck to have a mansion paid for by your team
travel and promo suck, yes, but any job has its downsides. could be worse from a job with 0 marketable skills outside of the specific industry
You could say that about a lot of jobs, and a lot of those jobs pay 6 figures. Saying that Dyrus making 6 figures for playing LoL is insane, is absurd, that's quite reasonable pay considering his fanbase, specialized skillsets, lack of possible replacements, and workload for the job.
funny how you're arguing for the professionalism of LoL, but then mock how much the players should get paid for playing a "video game".
from the other thread.
are we on the same page when i say 6 figures? as in, at least $100,000? i dont think that LOTS of jobs pay that much
i'm arguing that if the players want to get respect for playing a "video game" and rise above that stigma, they need to accept professional responsibilities.
professional responsibilities should come with actual professional paycheck.
Name jobs that have the selectivity of Dyrus's position, and I guarantee you most of those jobs are all 6 figures.
On December 07 2013 05:47 JimmiC wrote:
On December 07 2013 05:38 wei2coolman wrote:
On December 07 2013 05:36 JimmiC wrote: The facts are its great that they are getting paid at all. Out side of korea it rarely happens. And the reason it's low is it's just starting. Not like NFL players made millions when it first started (not even if you take inflation) they made terrible money.
Right now there is a ton of people willing to do it for little to no money so they don't have to pay more. And riot makes way more money off micro transactions then the ad revenue brought in from the pro scene. If that changes and the pro scene advertizers start paying 5.4 billion, which is what a canadian TV network paid the NHL to broadcast the games in Canada, not to mention all the revenue at stadiums and so on. Then they will pay the pros more. For now they just want enough of a scene to keep it popular. And I think they legitimatly want a pro scene which is cool. Not sure why everyone puts negative spins on shit. Yes is could always be better and you could have more, but it could also be worse and you could have less.
People are pretty spoiled to complain about making a living playing a game, if they want a shitty job that pays more, no one is stopping these guys.
Whether or not they're getting paid isn't the point, the question is whether or not they're getting paid enough to justify Riot's interference with their streams.
It's a pointless discussion, they have the power of choice, they can choose to not accept the contract. And then one of the 1000's of other people that would die for the opportunity will take it. And lets not forget they can still make money in other ways then riot. Some are paid by teams, streaming league, coaching, winning prize money, so on.
Yes, they make money other way from Riot. that means Riot should not be interfering with them. Such as streaming. Riot is not involved with the money they make from streaming, so why should Riot be involving themselves in such a way?
Sorry to interrupt your discussion guys. but someone questioned that 100k is insane.
On December 07 2013 05:58 Figgy wrote: Everyone in the LCS is on Salary.
They get it waaaaaaaaaay better than anyone in the business of pro-gaming by a longshot.
It's a small price to pay for League to hold onto it's stranglehold of the MOBA market.
Obviously, they don't want their Employees advertising for the competition.
This is the thing, everyone keeps calling the players Riot employees, when in reality I consider them more like contractors.
They are contractors.
Also, the Riot Salary is just basically the way that Riot ensures that there are less-successful teams available for the good/popular teams to wail on (in theory). That is the real point of the league: To give VES and C9 a chance to be VES and C9, while continuously showcasing TSM/CLG.
On December 07 2013 05:58 Figgy wrote: Everyone in the LCS is on Salary.
They get it waaaaaaaaaay better than anyone in the business of pro-gaming by a longshot.
It's a small price to pay for League to hold onto it's stranglehold of the MOBA market.
Obviously, they don't want their Employees advertising for the competition.
This is the thing, everyone keeps calling the players Riot employees, when in reality I consider them more like contractors.
They are contractors.
Also, the Riot Salary is just basically the way that Riot ensures that there are less-successful teams available for the good/popular teams to wail on (in theory). That is the real point of the league: To give VES and C9 a chance to be VES and C9, while continuously showcasing TSM/CLG.
Then salary should just be tied to what they're contracted to do, which is play LCS. and everything else is moot.
On December 07 2013 05:58 Figgy wrote: Everyone in the LCS is on Salary.
They get it waaaaaaaaaay better than anyone in the business of pro-gaming by a longshot.
It's a small price to pay for League to hold onto it's stranglehold of the MOBA market.
Obviously, they don't want their Employees advertising for the competition.
This is the thing, everyone keeps calling the players Riot employees, when in reality I consider them more like contractors.
They are contractors.
Also, the Riot Salary is just basically the way that Riot ensures that there are less-successful teams available for the good/popular teams to wail on (in theory). That is the real point of the league: To give VES and C9 a chance to be VES and C9, while continuously showcasing TSM/CLG.
This is why losing Lautemortis sucks so much. He has one of the best personalities in the game. Could have given OddOne a run for his money.
I find it strange that consumers are willing to be against a free market where the best product wins in favour of a market where the most highly advertised product wins. I mean, dunno about you but I've had enough of that in "real life" as it were.
People construing this as a reasonable business move are forgetting that this, as a business move, is not a "win-win" move but rather a zero sum move. The more riot gains from this, the more the community loses. If the streamers and the community benefited from something like this, they wouldn't be streaming other things in the first place and Riot wouldn't have to put this shit in their contracts. If this is a "reasonable business move" (which i'm not disagreeing with) then the community should still be hard set against it.
Its like the community is begging to get fucked over by Riot because "thats what real businesses do". Has anybody been paying attention to EA/Blizzard recently? Lol.
On December 07 2013 06:02 remedium wrote: Wei, you're using some sort of logical fallacy. NFL players get paid a lot and are the best in their field, so LCS players should get paid a lot because they are the best in their field. There's a disconnect in there.
Basic economics tells us that if these players have something better to do with their time than get $12,000 to compete in LCS, they will leave LCS and go do it.
The problem is the LCS is that it is the only league that legitimizes the teams to sponsors, as far as Western LoL is concerned. So they are strong arming teams to follow their contracts or risk losing sponsors by being DQ'd out of LCS. That's called doing business out of bad faith, sure they can do it. But it's a huge dick move. Especially considering the problem was initially created by Riot (long queue times.)
On December 07 2013 04:31 wei2coolman wrote: [quote] Maybe riot should pay them like professionals instead of like fast food employees first.
That's dumb. Professional athletes shouldn't get payed nearly as much as they do anyway.
Not to mention they're making more than fast food employees do.
Not off riot. From teams they do. It wouldn't be much of an issue if teams tell their players what they can or can't do in regards to public image because the teams are paying majority of salary. I rather Riot treat their relationship with the teams in regards to LCS as a tournament organizer than as opposed to employer.
If riot wants control of player streams they should be paying players for their stream imo, which is clearly not the case.
@shallowbay You don't think highly specialized skill that requires 40+ hours a week, that requires a lot of travel, group housing, and promotional gigs doesn't deserve 6figure paycheck? you're the one thats delusional.
i'll ignore the 40+ hours a week part, since that's a normal workweek for almost anyone
it must really suck to have a mansion paid for by your team
travel and promo suck, yes, but any job has its downsides. could be worse from a job with 0 marketable skills outside of the specific industry
You could say that about a lot of jobs, and a lot of those jobs pay 6 figures. Saying that Dyrus making 6 figures for playing LoL is insane, is absurd, that's quite reasonable pay considering his fanbase, specialized skillsets, lack of possible replacements, and workload for the job.
funny how you're arguing for the professionalism of LoL, but then mock how much the players should get paid for playing a "video game".
from the other thread.
are we on the same page when i say 6 figures? as in, at least $100,000? i dont think that LOTS of jobs pay that much
i'm arguing that if the players want to get respect for playing a "video game" and rise above that stigma, they need to accept professional responsibilities.
professional responsibilities should come with actual professional paycheck.
Name jobs that have the selectivity of Dyrus's position, and I guarantee you most of those jobs are all 6 figures.
On December 07 2013 05:47 JimmiC wrote:
On December 07 2013 05:38 wei2coolman wrote:
On December 07 2013 05:36 JimmiC wrote: The facts are its great that they are getting paid at all. Out side of korea it rarely happens. And the reason it's low is it's just starting. Not like NFL players made millions when it first started (not even if you take inflation) they made terrible money.
Right now there is a ton of people willing to do it for little to no money so they don't have to pay more. And riot makes way more money off micro transactions then the ad revenue brought in from the pro scene. If that changes and the pro scene advertizers start paying 5.4 billion, which is what a canadian TV network paid the NHL to broadcast the games in Canada, not to mention all the revenue at stadiums and so on. Then they will pay the pros more. For now they just want enough of a scene to keep it popular. And I think they legitimatly want a pro scene which is cool. Not sure why everyone puts negative spins on shit. Yes is could always be better and you could have more, but it could also be worse and you could have less.
People are pretty spoiled to complain about making a living playing a game, if they want a shitty job that pays more, no one is stopping these guys.
Whether or not they're getting paid isn't the point, the question is whether or not they're getting paid enough to justify Riot's interference with their streams.
It's a pointless discussion, they have the power of choice, they can choose to not accept the contract. And then one of the 1000's of other people that would die for the opportunity will take it. And lets not forget they can still make money in other ways then riot. Some are paid by teams, streaming league, coaching, winning prize money, so on.
Yes, they make money other way from Riot. that means Riot should not be interfering with them. Such as streaming. Riot is not involved with the money they make from streaming, so why should Riot be involving themselves in such a way?
Sorry to interrupt your discussion guys. but someone questioned that 100k is insane.
On December 07 2013 06:02 remedium wrote: Wei, you're using some sort of logical fallacy. NFL players get paid a lot and are the best in their field, so LCS players should get paid a lot because they are the best in their field. There's a disconnect in there.
Basic economics tells us that if these players have something better to do with their time than get $12,000 to compete in LCS, they will leave LCS and go do it.
The problem is the LCS is that it is the only league that legitimizes the teams to sponsors, as far as Western LoL is concerned. So they are strong arming teams to follow their contracts or risk losing sponsors by being DQ'd out of LCS. That's called doing business out of bad faith, sure they can do it. But it's a huge dick move. Especially considering the problem was initially created by Riot (long queue times.)
On December 07 2013 06:06 illusiongamer wrote:
On December 07 2013 05:50 wei2coolman wrote:
On December 07 2013 05:47 ShaLLoW[baY] wrote:
On December 07 2013 05:28 wei2coolman wrote:
On December 07 2013 05:23 ShaLLoW[baY] wrote:
On December 07 2013 04:38 wei2coolman wrote:
On December 07 2013 04:33 Ketara wrote:
On December 07 2013 04:32 Requizen wrote: [quote] That's dumb. Professional athletes shouldn't get payed nearly as much as they do anyway.
Not to mention they're making more than fast food employees do.
Not off riot. From teams they do. It wouldn't be much of an issue if teams tell their players what they can or can't do in regards to public image because the teams are paying majority of salary. I rather Riot treat their relationship with the teams in regards to LCS as a tournament organizer than as opposed to employer.
If riot wants control of player streams they should be paying players for their stream imo, which is clearly not the case.
@shallowbay You don't think highly specialized skill that requires 40+ hours a week, that requires a lot of travel, group housing, and promotional gigs doesn't deserve 6figure paycheck? you're the one thats delusional.
i'll ignore the 40+ hours a week part, since that's a normal workweek for almost anyone
it must really suck to have a mansion paid for by your team
travel and promo suck, yes, but any job has its downsides. could be worse from a job with 0 marketable skills outside of the specific industry
You could say that about a lot of jobs, and a lot of those jobs pay 6 figures. Saying that Dyrus making 6 figures for playing LoL is insane, is absurd, that's quite reasonable pay considering his fanbase, specialized skillsets, lack of possible replacements, and workload for the job.
funny how you're arguing for the professionalism of LoL, but then mock how much the players should get paid for playing a "video game".
from the other thread.
are we on the same page when i say 6 figures? as in, at least $100,000? i dont think that LOTS of jobs pay that much
i'm arguing that if the players want to get respect for playing a "video game" and rise above that stigma, they need to accept professional responsibilities.
professional responsibilities should come with actual professional paycheck.
Name jobs that have the selectivity of Dyrus's position, and I guarantee you most of those jobs are all 6 figures.
On December 07 2013 05:47 JimmiC wrote:
On December 07 2013 05:38 wei2coolman wrote:
On December 07 2013 05:36 JimmiC wrote: The facts are its great that they are getting paid at all. Out side of korea it rarely happens. And the reason it's low is it's just starting. Not like NFL players made millions when it first started (not even if you take inflation) they made terrible money.
Right now there is a ton of people willing to do it for little to no money so they don't have to pay more. And riot makes way more money off micro transactions then the ad revenue brought in from the pro scene. If that changes and the pro scene advertizers start paying 5.4 billion, which is what a canadian TV network paid the NHL to broadcast the games in Canada, not to mention all the revenue at stadiums and so on. Then they will pay the pros more. For now they just want enough of a scene to keep it popular. And I think they legitimatly want a pro scene which is cool. Not sure why everyone puts negative spins on shit. Yes is could always be better and you could have more, but it could also be worse and you could have less.
People are pretty spoiled to complain about making a living playing a game, if they want a shitty job that pays more, no one is stopping these guys.
Whether or not they're getting paid isn't the point, the question is whether or not they're getting paid enough to justify Riot's interference with their streams.
It's a pointless discussion, they have the power of choice, they can choose to not accept the contract. And then one of the 1000's of other people that would die for the opportunity will take it. And lets not forget they can still make money in other ways then riot. Some are paid by teams, streaming league, coaching, winning prize money, so on.
Yes, they make money other way from Riot. that means Riot should not be interfering with them. Such as streaming. Riot is not involved with the money they make from streaming, so why should Riot be involving themselves in such a way?
Sorry to interrupt your discussion guys. but someone questioned that 100k is insane.
On December 07 2013 05:58 Figgy wrote: Everyone in the LCS is on Salary.
They get it waaaaaaaaaay better than anyone in the business of pro-gaming by a longshot.
It's a small price to pay for League to hold onto it's stranglehold of the MOBA market.
Obviously, they don't want their Employees advertising for the competition.
This is the thing, everyone keeps calling the players Riot employees, when in reality I consider them more like contractors.
They are contractors.
Also, the Riot Salary is just basically the way that Riot ensures that there are less-successful teams available for the good/popular teams to wail on (in theory). That is the real point of the league: To give VES and C9 a chance to be VES and C9, while continuously showcasing TSM/CLG.
Then salary should just be tied to what they're contracted to do, which is play LCS. and everything else is moot.
Riot isn't paying them money to play in the LCS. Riot is paying them money for the entire package -- playing the LCS, not streaming competitors' games, not smoking/using drugs on stream, not being toxic in solo queue, etc. It's easier to say the simple thing of "We are paying you to play in the LCS" but the contract shows what they're really paying the players to do.
On December 07 2013 06:02 remedium wrote: Wei, you're using some sort of logical fallacy. NFL players get paid a lot and are the best in their field, so LCS players should get paid a lot because they are the best in their field. There's a disconnect in there.
Basic economics tells us that if these players have something better to do with their time than get $12,000 to compete in LCS, they will leave LCS and go do it.
The problem is the LCS is that it is the only league that legitimizes the teams to sponsors, as far as Western LoL is concerned. So they are strong arming teams to follow their contracts or risk losing sponsors by being DQ'd out of LCS. That's called doing business out of bad faith, sure they can do it. But it's a huge dick move. Especially considering the problem was initially created by Riot (long queue times.)
On December 07 2013 06:06 illusiongamer wrote:
On December 07 2013 05:50 wei2coolman wrote:
On December 07 2013 05:47 ShaLLoW[baY] wrote:
On December 07 2013 05:28 wei2coolman wrote:
On December 07 2013 05:23 ShaLLoW[baY] wrote:
On December 07 2013 04:38 wei2coolman wrote:
On December 07 2013 04:33 Ketara wrote:
On December 07 2013 04:32 Requizen wrote: [quote] That's dumb. Professional athletes shouldn't get payed nearly as much as they do anyway.
Not to mention they're making more than fast food employees do.
Not off riot. From teams they do. It wouldn't be much of an issue if teams tell their players what they can or can't do in regards to public image because the teams are paying majority of salary. I rather Riot treat their relationship with the teams in regards to LCS as a tournament organizer than as opposed to employer.
If riot wants control of player streams they should be paying players for their stream imo, which is clearly not the case.
@shallowbay You don't think highly specialized skill that requires 40+ hours a week, that requires a lot of travel, group housing, and promotional gigs doesn't deserve 6figure paycheck? you're the one thats delusional.
i'll ignore the 40+ hours a week part, since that's a normal workweek for almost anyone
it must really suck to have a mansion paid for by your team
travel and promo suck, yes, but any job has its downsides. could be worse from a job with 0 marketable skills outside of the specific industry
You could say that about a lot of jobs, and a lot of those jobs pay 6 figures. Saying that Dyrus making 6 figures for playing LoL is insane, is absurd, that's quite reasonable pay considering his fanbase, specialized skillsets, lack of possible replacements, and workload for the job.
funny how you're arguing for the professionalism of LoL, but then mock how much the players should get paid for playing a "video game".
from the other thread.
are we on the same page when i say 6 figures? as in, at least $100,000? i dont think that LOTS of jobs pay that much
i'm arguing that if the players want to get respect for playing a "video game" and rise above that stigma, they need to accept professional responsibilities.
professional responsibilities should come with actual professional paycheck.
Name jobs that have the selectivity of Dyrus's position, and I guarantee you most of those jobs are all 6 figures.
On December 07 2013 05:47 JimmiC wrote:
On December 07 2013 05:38 wei2coolman wrote:
On December 07 2013 05:36 JimmiC wrote: The facts are its great that they are getting paid at all. Out side of korea it rarely happens. And the reason it's low is it's just starting. Not like NFL players made millions when it first started (not even if you take inflation) they made terrible money.
Right now there is a ton of people willing to do it for little to no money so they don't have to pay more. And riot makes way more money off micro transactions then the ad revenue brought in from the pro scene. If that changes and the pro scene advertizers start paying 5.4 billion, which is what a canadian TV network paid the NHL to broadcast the games in Canada, not to mention all the revenue at stadiums and so on. Then they will pay the pros more. For now they just want enough of a scene to keep it popular. And I think they legitimatly want a pro scene which is cool. Not sure why everyone puts negative spins on shit. Yes is could always be better and you could have more, but it could also be worse and you could have less.
People are pretty spoiled to complain about making a living playing a game, if they want a shitty job that pays more, no one is stopping these guys.
Whether or not they're getting paid isn't the point, the question is whether or not they're getting paid enough to justify Riot's interference with their streams.
It's a pointless discussion, they have the power of choice, they can choose to not accept the contract. And then one of the 1000's of other people that would die for the opportunity will take it. And lets not forget they can still make money in other ways then riot. Some are paid by teams, streaming league, coaching, winning prize money, so on.
Yes, they make money other way from Riot. that means Riot should not be interfering with them. Such as streaming. Riot is not involved with the money they make from streaming, so why should Riot be involving themselves in such a way?
Sorry to interrupt your discussion guys. but someone questioned that 100k is insane.
Oce is a special case, he has his own brand, which is not the norm for world class pro players.
Do you care to give more details why he is a special case?
There is a small number of players who have build a brand around themselves/there team.
Hotshotgg & Reginald were the 2 biggest US LoL personality's aswell and owners of there own teams. They build a brand around that team when LoL went big (CLG/TSM) and they earn a lot of money off that brand. Ocelot is similar in the EU although he doesnt have own team. He is a well known personality and makes a lot of money outside of directly playing. For most players there salary is a small bit of stream income is what they make, still a healthy number all things considered but it pales to what people like Hotshot/Regi/Ocelot make.
On December 07 2013 06:13 Sn0_Man wrote: I find it strange that consumers are willing to be against a free market where the best product wins in favour of a market where the most highly advertised product wins. I mean, dunno about you but I've had enough of that in "real life" as it were.
People construing this as a reasonable business move are forgetting that this, as a business move, is not a "win-win" move but rather a zero sum move. The more riot gains from this, the more the community loses. If the streamers and the community benefited from something like this, they wouldn't be streaming other things in the first place and Riot wouldn't have to put this shit in their contracts. If this is a "reasonable business move" (which i'm not disagreeing with) then the community should still be hard set against it.
Its like the community is begging to get fucked over by Riot because "thats what real businesses do". Has anybody been paying attention to EA/Blizzard recently? Lol.
Finally, someone gets it.
For all this talk about Coke and Pepsi, if I go to a restaurant and I want Pepsi for some reason but they are Coke exclusive, well, I'm out of luck. Congrats, Coke wins, but the customers lose having choice. If I were to work for Coke, that'd be great, but I don't so I don't give a damn about the well-being of Coke.
If I like watching TOO play Warcraft 3 during server downtime, and now he's unable to, that sucks for me and it sucks for TOO who is losing money on me not watching. But it's okay because it's a great business move for Riot? Why the hell do I care about Riot?
On December 07 2013 05:58 Figgy wrote: Everyone in the LCS is on Salary.
They get it waaaaaaaaaay better than anyone in the business of pro-gaming by a longshot.
It's a small price to pay for League to hold onto it's stranglehold of the MOBA market.
Obviously, they don't want their Employees advertising for the competition.
This is the thing, everyone keeps calling the players Riot employees, when in reality I consider them more like contractors.
They are contractors.
Also, the Riot Salary is just basically the way that Riot ensures that there are less-successful teams available for the good/popular teams to wail on (in theory). That is the real point of the league: To give VES and C9 a chance to be VES and C9, while continuously showcasing TSM/CLG.
Then salary should just be tied to what they're contracted to do, which is play LCS. and everything else is moot.
Well, the unknown teams are paid to either get good enough to survive on their own, or to lose. The good teams are paid to essentially be beloved characters for Riot. Think of TOO and Dyrus as Winnie the Pooh and Mickey Mouse.
What I don't understand is how the teams have allowed this to happen. Its like, really risky to me for a TSM, etc to accept these terms.
Imagine: Xspecial streams Hearthstone. Riot can: Suspend Xspecial from LCS, Ban Him, dock the team wins, or remove the team from LCS. They would probably do #1, and for a week or 2 only. But that could be several losses for TSM, and could force them to play C9 in the playoffs, or it could knock them to relegation, etc. Moreover, the salary is not that much for TSM, so I wonder if they have actually negotiated sweetheart deals with Riot to get paid more than other teams in the LCS (which I totally think they should).
On December 07 2013 06:13 Sn0_Man wrote: I find it strange that consumers are willing to be against a free market where the best product wins in favour of a market where the most highly advertised product wins. I mean, dunno about you but I've had enough of that in "real life" as it were.
People construing this as a reasonable business move are forgetting that this, as a business move, is not a "win-win" move but rather a zero sum move. The more riot gains from this, the more the community loses. If the streamers and the community benefited from something like this, they wouldn't be streaming other things in the first place and Riot wouldn't have to put this shit in their contracts. If this is a "reasonable business move" (which i'm not disagreeing with) then the community should still be hard set against it.
Its like the community is begging to get fucked over by Riot because "thats what real businesses do". Has anybody been paying attention to EA/Blizzard recently? Lol.
Those of us saying it's a business move and something real businesses do are bringing some reality to the situation where various people have some absurd notion that it's illegal/unheard of/crazy etc.
Saying that it happens in the real world is a counterpoint to idiots saying it is against human rights/illegal/etc. It's not, and it's a common thing. That doesn't mean it's good or bad, it is what it is and everyone will have and is entitled to their own opinion. What they shouldn't be doing is making stupid statements and claims about legality etc. Make judgements about ethics, that's fine.
It's a reasonable business move in the grand real world of business. That doesn't make it win-win, but Riot are interested in themselves, not us. Do you think, for example, that Valve making Steam OS is really a win-win? No, it's a self interest move with a long term goal which isn't about consumers at all, but they can spin it as being win-win in the short term, which is all most people people think about. Pretty much everyone moves in their own interest, they just do it in their own way, and often manage to spin it in a PR positive way (like Valve) rather than having it negatively impact them (like this).
On December 07 2013 06:13 Sn0_Man wrote: I find it strange that consumers are willing to be against a free market where the best product wins in favour of a market where the most highly advertised product wins. I mean, dunno about you but I've had enough of that in "real life" as it were.
People construing this as a reasonable business move are forgetting that this, as a business move, is not a "win-win" move but rather a zero sum move. The more riot gains from this, the more the community loses. If the streamers and the community benefited from something like this, they wouldn't be streaming other things in the first place and Riot wouldn't have to put this shit in their contracts. If this is a "reasonable business move" (which i'm not disagreeing with) then the community should still be hard set against it.
Its like the community is begging to get fucked over by Riot because "thats what real businesses do". Has anybody been paying attention to EA/Blizzard recently? Lol.
Finally, someone gets it.
For all this talk about Coke and Pepsi, if I go to a restaurant and I want Pepsi for some reason but they are Coke exclusive, well, I'm out of luck. Congrats, Coke wins, but the customers lose having choice. If I were to work for Coke, that'd be great, but I don't so I don't give a damn about the well-being of Coke.
If I like watching TOO play Warcraft 3 during server downtime, and now he's unable to, that sucks for me and it sucks for TOO who is losing money on me not watching. But it's okay because it's a great business move for Riot? Why the hell do I care about Riot?
The implication is that in the long run a move that supports Coke/Riot in the short term gives them the means to improve their product which translates into an improvement for the customer in the long run.
The implication is that supporting Riot in their control over the LCS system will allow them to provide a better E-sports "product". Which, well, that depends on your view of the LCS system as a whole.
On December 07 2013 06:28 cLutZ wrote: Imagine: Xspecial streams Hearthstone. Riot can: Suspend Xspecial from LCS, Ban Him, dock the team wins, or remove the team from LCS. They would probably do #1, and for a week or 2 only. But that could be several losses for TSM, and could force them to play C9 in the playoffs, or it could knock them to relegation, etc. Moreover, the salary is not that much for TSM, so I wonder if they have actually negotiated sweetheart deals with Riot to get paid more than other teams in the LCS (which I totally think they should).
They can also fine him off TSM's salary, which realistically is the most likely case.
On December 07 2013 06:13 Sn0_Man wrote: I find it strange that consumers are willing to be against a free market where the best product wins in favour of a market where the most highly advertised product wins. I mean, dunno about you but I've had enough of that in "real life" as it were.
People construing this as a reasonable business move are forgetting that this, as a business move, is not a "win-win" move but rather a zero sum move. The more riot gains from this, the more the community loses. If the streamers and the community benefited from something like this, they wouldn't be streaming other things in the first place and Riot wouldn't have to put this shit in their contracts. If this is a "reasonable business move" (which i'm not disagreeing with) then the community should still be hard set against it.
Its like the community is begging to get fucked over by Riot because "thats what real businesses do". Has anybody been paying attention to EA/Blizzard recently? Lol.
Finally, someone gets it.
For all this talk about Coke and Pepsi, if I go to a restaurant and I want Pepsi for some reason but they are Coke exclusive, well, I'm out of luck. Congrats, Coke wins, but the customers lose having choice. If I were to work for Coke, that'd be great, but I don't so I don't give a damn about the well-being of Coke.
If I like watching TOO play Warcraft 3 during server downtime, and now he's unable to, that sucks for me and it sucks for TOO who is losing money on me not watching. But it's okay because it's a great business move for Riot? Why the hell do I care about Riot?
The implication is that in the long run a move that supports Coke/Riot in the short term gives them the means to improve their product which translates into an improvement for the customer in the long run.
The implication is that supporting Riot in their control over the LCS system will allow them to provide a better E-sports "product". Which, well, that depends on your view of the LCS system as a whole.
On December 07 2013 06:28 cLutZ wrote: Imagine: Xspecial streams Hearthstone. Riot can: Suspend Xspecial from LCS, Ban Him, dock the team wins, or remove the team from LCS. They would probably do #1, and for a week or 2 only. But that could be several losses for TSM, and could force them to play C9 in the playoffs, or it could knock them to relegation, etc. Moreover, the salary is not that much for TSM, so I wonder if they have actually negotiated sweetheart deals with Riot to get paid more than other teams in the LCS (which I totally think they should).
They can also fine him off TSM's salary, which realistically is the most likely case.
If Coke used their market advantage to kill Pepsi and had no competition, it's pretty bad for the market and the consumer, isn't it?
Oh yes sorry Steam OS exists so that consumers get fucked over by having choices. Gotcha.
I'm all for more choice (Steam OS) and very much against one company unilaterally crushing choice (this). Things that are good: Open markets that offer consumers choice. Things that are bad: Closed markets where businesses can say "My way or the Highway". Also known as monopolies.
The fact that in your words "Riot are interested in themselves and not us" is a problem. The community really ought to whine, bitch, moan and campaign until Riot does what the community wants, because if the community doesn't then Riot is gonna do whatever it damn well pleases at the consumer's expense just like any other business. If thats what you want, then I don't really know what to tell you.
One thing I think is a bit overlooked is that riot offers their streamers something which is unusual in the business. Doesn't riot advertise some players as "featured streamers"? Additionally to that, streamers benefit from the regulated competitive scene with only a few but meaningful games in the way that they have more time streaming and less competition. Compare that to dota where pros play 10+ games a week and tournaments are running 24/7. It's a much harsher environment for streamers.
On December 07 2013 06:38 Sn0_Man wrote: Oh yes sorry Steam OS exists so that consumers get fucked over by having choices. Gotcha.
I'm all for more choice (Steam OS) and very much against one company unilaterally crushing choice (this). Things that are good: Open systems that offer consumers choice. Things that are bad: Closed systems where businesses can say "My way or the Highway".
The fact that "Riot are interested in themselves and not us" is a problem. The community really ought to whine, bitch, moan and campaign until Riot does what the community wants, because if the community doesn't then Riot is gonna do whatever it damn well pleases at the consumer's expense just like any other business. If thats what you want, then I don't really know what to tell you.
How is the company crushing choice? The players can play whatever the hell game they want. They just won't get paid by Riot if they choose to stream themselves doing so. No one is stopping people from doing what they want, they just won't get paid as much if they do it. because Riot won't pay them.
Unless you don't think there is any competition for LoL. You seem to think that the players are being forced to play LoL or something. Last I checked, they chose to play LoL. If they don't want to suffer under Riot's rules, they are free to play Dota 2 or anything else they want.
On December 07 2013 06:38 Sn0_Man wrote: The fact that "Riot are interested in themselves and not us" is a problem. The community really ought to whine, bitch, moan and campaign until Riot does what the community wants, because if the community doesn't then Riot is gonna do whatever it damn well pleases at the consumer's expense just like any other business. If thats what you want, then I don't really know what to tell you.
Well, no, that's sort of the extreme.
The reality is that everyone will protect their own interests, and the medium we eventually reach is where those interests connect.
Riot will protect their own interests. They're in their right to do so. But at the same time, we as consumers are equally within our rights to protect our own interests, and to speak out against something we dislike. It is not somehow distasteful or wrong for people to speak out against this decision if it does not feel like it does not align with their own, as some people seem to suggest.
Put simply, there is no obligation for Riot to act in the consumer's best interest. But equally so, there is no obligation for us as consumers to accept their decision when we feel it does not align with our interest. What aligns with our interest is something that people will disagree on, but I find it hypocritical how condescending some people have been in this thread toward people who dislike the terms of the contract.
On December 07 2013 06:37 Seiuchi wrote: If Coke used their market advantage to kill Pepsi and had no competition, it's pretty bad for the market and the consumer, isn't it?
Anti-trust law applies in some fashion before you reach that logical extreme so that slippery slope doesn't apply.
On December 07 2013 06:38 Sn0_Man wrote: The fact that "Riot are interested in themselves and not us" is a problem. The community really ought to whine, bitch, moan and campaign until Riot does what the community wants, because if the community doesn't then Riot is gonna do whatever it damn well pleases at the consumer's expense just like any other business. If thats what you want, then I don't really know what to tell you.
Well, no, that's sort of the extreme.
The reality is that everyone will protect their own interests, and the medium we eventually reach is where those interests connect.
Riot will protect their own interests. They're in their right to do so. But at the same time, we as consumers are equally within our rights to protect our own interests, and to speak out against something we dislike. It is not somehow distasteful or wrong for people to speak out against this decision if it does not feel like it does not align with their own, as some people seem to suggest.
On December 07 2013 06:37 Seiuchi wrote: If Coke used their market advantage to kill Pepsi and had no competition, it's pretty bad for the market and the consumer, isn't it?
Anti-trust law applies in some fashion before you reach that logical extreme so that slippery slope doesn't apply.
Riot's already succeeded at getting tournaments to ban games it doesn't want shown along LoL, it tried to get teams to not have DotA squads if they had LoL squads before the teams disputed it, and with this contract dispute, haven't we already pretty much gone down the slope?
Not to mention anti-trust as a form of law has basically withered on the vine, but I guess that's a different debate and I go to TL to escape looking at the law more.
On December 07 2013 06:02 remedium wrote: Wei, you're using some sort of logical fallacy. NFL players get paid a lot and are the best in their field, so LCS players should get paid a lot because they are the best in their field. There's a disconnect in there.
Basic economics tells us that if these players have something better to do with their time than get $12,000 to compete in LCS, they will leave LCS and go do it.
The problem is the LCS is that it is the only league that legitimizes the teams to sponsors, as far as Western LoL is concerned. So they are strong arming teams to follow their contracts or risk losing sponsors by being DQ'd out of LCS. That's called doing business out of bad faith, sure they can do it. But it's a huge dick move. Especially considering the problem was initially created by Riot (long queue times.)
On December 07 2013 06:06 illusiongamer wrote:
On December 07 2013 05:50 wei2coolman wrote:
On December 07 2013 05:47 ShaLLoW[baY] wrote:
On December 07 2013 05:28 wei2coolman wrote:
On December 07 2013 05:23 ShaLLoW[baY] wrote:
On December 07 2013 04:38 wei2coolman wrote:
On December 07 2013 04:33 Ketara wrote: [quote]
Not to mention they're making more than fast food employees do.
Not off riot. From teams they do. It wouldn't be much of an issue if teams tell their players what they can or can't do in regards to public image because the teams are paying majority of salary. I rather Riot treat their relationship with the teams in regards to LCS as a tournament organizer than as opposed to employer.
If riot wants control of player streams they should be paying players for their stream imo, which is clearly not the case.
@shallowbay You don't think highly specialized skill that requires 40+ hours a week, that requires a lot of travel, group housing, and promotional gigs doesn't deserve 6figure paycheck? you're the one thats delusional.
i'll ignore the 40+ hours a week part, since that's a normal workweek for almost anyone
it must really suck to have a mansion paid for by your team
travel and promo suck, yes, but any job has its downsides. could be worse from a job with 0 marketable skills outside of the specific industry
You could say that about a lot of jobs, and a lot of those jobs pay 6 figures. Saying that Dyrus making 6 figures for playing LoL is insane, is absurd, that's quite reasonable pay considering his fanbase, specialized skillsets, lack of possible replacements, and workload for the job.
funny how you're arguing for the professionalism of LoL, but then mock how much the players should get paid for playing a "video game".
from the other thread.
are we on the same page when i say 6 figures? as in, at least $100,000? i dont think that LOTS of jobs pay that much
i'm arguing that if the players want to get respect for playing a "video game" and rise above that stigma, they need to accept professional responsibilities.
professional responsibilities should come with actual professional paycheck.
Name jobs that have the selectivity of Dyrus's position, and I guarantee you most of those jobs are all 6 figures.
On December 07 2013 05:47 JimmiC wrote:
On December 07 2013 05:38 wei2coolman wrote:
On December 07 2013 05:36 JimmiC wrote: The facts are its great that they are getting paid at all. Out side of korea it rarely happens. And the reason it's low is it's just starting. Not like NFL players made millions when it first started (not even if you take inflation) they made terrible money.
Right now there is a ton of people willing to do it for little to no money so they don't have to pay more. And riot makes way more money off micro transactions then the ad revenue brought in from the pro scene. If that changes and the pro scene advertizers start paying 5.4 billion, which is what a canadian TV network paid the NHL to broadcast the games in Canada, not to mention all the revenue at stadiums and so on. Then they will pay the pros more. For now they just want enough of a scene to keep it popular. And I think they legitimatly want a pro scene which is cool. Not sure why everyone puts negative spins on shit. Yes is could always be better and you could have more, but it could also be worse and you could have less.
People are pretty spoiled to complain about making a living playing a game, if they want a shitty job that pays more, no one is stopping these guys.
Whether or not they're getting paid isn't the point, the question is whether or not they're getting paid enough to justify Riot's interference with their streams.
It's a pointless discussion, they have the power of choice, they can choose to not accept the contract. And then one of the 1000's of other people that would die for the opportunity will take it. And lets not forget they can still make money in other ways then riot. Some are paid by teams, streaming league, coaching, winning prize money, so on.
Yes, they make money other way from Riot. that means Riot should not be interfering with them. Such as streaming. Riot is not involved with the money they make from streaming, so why should Riot be involving themselves in such a way?
Sorry to interrupt your discussion guys. but someone questioned that 100k is insane.
Oce is a special case, he has his own brand, which is not the norm for world class pro players.
Do you care to give more details why he is a special case?
There is a small number of players who have build a brand around themselves/there team.
Hotshotgg & Reginald were the 2 biggest US LoL personality's aswell and owners of there own teams. They build a brand around that team when LoL went big (CLG/TSM) and they earn a lot of money off that brand. Ocelot is similar in the EU although he doesnt have own team. He is a well known personality and makes a lot of money outside of directly playing. For most players there salary is a small bit of stream income is what they make, still a healthy number all things considered but it pales to what people like Hotshot/Regi/Ocelot make.
Thanks for the information. I only start follow LoL with OGN Summer semi-finals.
On December 07 2013 05:58 Figgy wrote: Everyone in the LCS is on Salary.
They get it waaaaaaaaaay better than anyone in the business of pro-gaming by a longshot.
It's a small price to pay for League to hold onto it's stranglehold of the MOBA market.
Obviously, they don't want their Employees advertising for the competition.
This is the thing, everyone keeps calling the players Riot employees, when in reality I consider them more like contractors.
They are contractors.
Also, the Riot Salary is just basically the way that Riot ensures that there are less-successful teams available for the good/popular teams to wail on (in theory). That is the real point of the league: To give VES and C9 a chance to be VES and C9, while continuously showcasing TSM/CLG.
Yes they're contractors. Basically Riot Games is just a promotions company and the LCS teams are their fighters.
Would you see a UFC fighter hyping up a Strifeforce event? I bet they aren't even aloud to attend the events of a rival promotion l0l.
I don't really know how I feel about this whole ordeal. I get the parallels to 'real business' but at the same time I feel there is a uniqueness to the medium of streaming and the role it plays for these gamers/personalities that also happen to be LCS pros, that complicates the issue in my head on whether I think it's fair play or not.
I really wish I knew what Riot's endgame with all of this was. Do they want to continue to control all things related to League, or do they eventually want to be able to hand the game over to leagues and broadcasting networks ala Korea and China.
On December 07 2013 07:34 red_ wrote: I don't really know how I feel about this whole ordeal. I get the parallels to 'real business' but at the same time I feel there is a uniqueness to the medium of streaming and the role it plays for these gamers/personalities that also happen to be LCS pros, that complicates the issue in my head on whether I think it's fair play or not.
I really wish I knew what Riot's endgame with all of this was. Do they want to continue to control all things related to League, or do they eventually want to be able to hand the game over to leagues and broadcasting networks ala Korea and China.
I'm rather excited that Riot's willing to try, but we'll see how it pans out.
On December 07 2013 06:38 Sn0_Man wrote: The fact that "Riot are interested in themselves and not us" is a problem. The community really ought to whine, bitch, moan and campaign until Riot does what the community wants, because if the community doesn't then Riot is gonna do whatever it damn well pleases at the consumer's expense just like any other business. If thats what you want, then I don't really know what to tell you.
Well, no, that's sort of the extreme.
The reality is that everyone will protect their own interests, and the medium we eventually reach is where those interests connect.
Riot will protect their own interests. They're in their right to do so. But at the same time, we as consumers are equally within our rights to protect our own interests, and to speak out against something we dislike. It is not somehow distasteful or wrong for people to speak out against this decision if it does not feel like it does not align with their own, as some people seem to suggest.
On December 07 2013 06:37 Seiuchi wrote: If Coke used their market advantage to kill Pepsi and had no competition, it's pretty bad for the market and the consumer, isn't it?
Anti-trust law applies in some fashion before you reach that logical extreme so that slippery slope doesn't apply.
Riot's already succeeded at getting tournaments to ban games it doesn't want shown along LoL, it tried to get teams to not have DotA squads if they had LoL squads before the teams disputed it, and with this contract dispute, haven't we already pretty much gone down the slope?
Not to mention anti-trust as a form of law has basically withered on the vine, but I guess that's a different debate and I go to TL to escape looking at the law more.
There are actually significant anti-trust ramifications to some of Riot's deals with IPL and MLG if the DOJ ever really starts to care about esports. That is also a huge motivator for them having their own league: they get complete control with no risk of being exposed to the risk of an antitrust suit.
Edit, also, Coke could drive Pepsi out of business totally legally, as long as they do it by making a better product, more cheaply, etc. They just can't negotiate in bad faith, etc, which is why grocery stores all have both.
On December 07 2013 06:38 Sn0_Man wrote: The fact that "Riot are interested in themselves and not us" is a problem. The community really ought to whine, bitch, moan and campaign until Riot does what the community wants, because if the community doesn't then Riot is gonna do whatever it damn well pleases at the consumer's expense just like any other business. If thats what you want, then I don't really know what to tell you.
Well, no, that's sort of the extreme.
The reality is that everyone will protect their own interests, and the medium we eventually reach is where those interests connect.
Riot will protect their own interests. They're in their right to do so. But at the same time, we as consumers are equally within our rights to protect our own interests, and to speak out against something we dislike. It is not somehow distasteful or wrong for people to speak out against this decision if it does not feel like it does not align with their own, as some people seem to suggest.
On December 07 2013 06:37 Seiuchi wrote: If Coke used their market advantage to kill Pepsi and had no competition, it's pretty bad for the market and the consumer, isn't it?
Anti-trust law applies in some fashion before you reach that logical extreme so that slippery slope doesn't apply.
Riot's already succeeded at getting tournaments to ban games it doesn't want shown along LoL, it tried to get teams to not have DotA squads if they had LoL squads before the teams disputed it, and with this contract dispute, haven't we already pretty much gone down the slope?
Not to mention anti-trust as a form of law has basically withered on the vine, but I guess that's a different debate and I go to TL to escape looking at the law more.
There are actually significant anti-trust ramifications to some of Riot's deals with IPL and MLG if the DOJ ever really starts to care about esports. That is also a huge motivator for them having their own league: they get complete control with no risk of being exposed to the risk of an antitrust suit.
Edit, also, Coke could drive Pepsi out of business totally legally, as long as they do it by making a better product, more cheaply, etc. They just can't negotiate in bad faith, etc, which is why grocery stores all have both.
What? What Riot did was equivalent of a business negotiating for exclusivity for it's product at an event. This happens everywhere.
But the reality is, the case would hinge on how the DOJ and a Federal Judge defined the "Relevant Market". Is the market esports events in the US? Is it MOBAs at esports events held in California? These are arguments good AT lawyers (not me) would make.
I doubt antitrust can even exist in the eSports market, especially when consider that someone like Valve controls their made Dota 2 tournament which is like 90% of the prizemoney in Dota 2. Riot can't do anything to harm their competitor directly while their competitor is set up like that.
Also you'd have to define what you were anti trusting, since is eSports different to gaming, or is it the same?
On December 07 2013 06:38 Sn0_Man wrote: Oh yes sorry Steam OS exists so that consumers get fucked over by having choices. Gotcha.
I'm all for more choice (Steam OS) and very much against one company unilaterally crushing choice (this). Things that are good: Open systems that offer consumers choice. Things that are bad: Closed systems where businesses can say "My way or the Highway".
The fact that "Riot are interested in themselves and not us" is a problem. The community really ought to whine, bitch, moan and campaign until Riot does what the community wants, because if the community doesn't then Riot is gonna do whatever it damn well pleases at the consumer's expense just like any other business. If thats what you want, then I don't really know what to tell you.
How is the company crushing choice? The players can play whatever the hell game they want. They just won't get paid by Riot if they choose to stream themselves doing so. No one is stopping people from doing what they want, they just won't get paid as much if they do it. because Riot won't pay them.
Unless you don't think there is any competition for LoL. You seem to think that the players are being forced to play LoL or something. Last I checked, they chose to play LoL. If they don't want to suffer under Riot's rules, they are free to play Dota 2 or anything else they want.
Let's say I enjoy watching Dyrus play Hearthstone for some reason.
Well, now I can't.
As a consumer, I am denied a choice. Now I need to watch Trump play Hearthstone or watch Dyrus play LoL.
Also about Gordon Heyward since he was brought up(I didn't read a lot of pages in the middle of this thread so sorry of this was clarified already), it isn't some crazy non-compete that made him stop streaming when the NBA lockout ended, it's the fact that THE FUCKING NBA LOCKOUT ENDED. Turns out being a pro athlete is a ton of work, and he started streaming significantly less when he was actually playing pro ball.
He still streams(League of Legends even, lulz), the Utah Jazz aren't worried about him advertising another 'sport.'
On December 07 2013 08:34 red_ wrote: Also about Gordon Heyward since he was brought up(I didn't read a lot of pages in the middle of this thread so sorry of this was clarified already), it isn't some crazy non-compete that made him stop streaming when the NBA lockout ended, it's the fact that THE FUCKING NBA LOCKOUT ENDED. Turns out being a pro athlete is a ton of work, and he started streaming significantly less when he was actually playing pro ball.
He still streams(League of Legends even, lulz), the Utah Jazz aren't worried about him advertising another 'sport.'
Riot aren't worried about people streaming basketball either (obv not NBA since that would be copyright infringement probably, but other basketball would be fine, apart from being against the TOS of Twitch, unless it was an NBA game).
Or did you magically see basketball on the list of banned things for streaming where I missed it?
On December 07 2013 08:34 red_ wrote: Also about Gordon Heyward since he was brought up(I didn't read a lot of pages in the middle of this thread so sorry of this was clarified already), it isn't some crazy non-compete that made him stop streaming when the NBA lockout ended, it's the fact that THE FUCKING NBA LOCKOUT ENDED. Turns out being a pro athlete is a ton of work, and he started streaming significantly less when he was actually playing pro ball.
He still streams(League of Legends even, lulz), the Utah Jazz aren't worried about him advertising another 'sport.'
Riot aren't worried about people streaming basketball either (obv not NBA since that would be copyright infringement probably, but other basketball would be fine, apart from being against the TOS of Twitch, unless it was an NBA game).
Or did you magically see basketball on the list of banned things for streaming where I missed it?
Is this supposed to be some magical 'gotcha' moment where you caught me being intellectually irresponsible? It's a response to the specific insinuation that Heyward stopped streaming video games when the lockout ended because it was some sort of rule he had to follow. Nowhere in my post am I stating anything near what you assert I have(in fact, I'm basically saying the opposite, since I am clearly putting forth that pro sports and video game streams are of no interrelated business concern).
There’s been a ton of discussion around our LCS team contracts, which stipulated active LCS players couldn’t stream a variety of other games.
First, background on why we did this: there’ve been instances of other game studios trying to buy access to League fans by using (or trying to use) LCS teams/players to promote their competing games on stream.
The way we chose to deal with this was clearly an overreach. It hit our goal of preventing companies from advertising through LCS players, but it also encroached on pros’ ability to have fun and entertain viewers during long Challenger queues – and we realize that’s not cool.
After reading all of your comments and having a LOT of internal debate over the last 24 hours, we’re going to be changing the LCS team requirement to something that more closely matches our intent. While under contract to the LCS, teams and players can’t accept sponsorship from other game companies to promote other titles. Besides that, they are free to stream any games they want.
The whole " people are buying promotion for their games by using LoL streamers " is so full of bullshit if you want my opinion. Valve and Blizzard don't care enough, and the other games are on the list are by very small developpers who can't afford this kind of practice.
Like I said, Riot realizes how effective their approach of paying off streamers/youtubers of other games was and how instrumental it was to LoL's rise to popularity and is taking preemptive measures to prevent that from happening, fantastic business sense.
On December 07 2013 09:25 Noocta wrote: The whole " people are buying promotion for their games by using LoL streamers " is so full of bullshit if you want my opinion. Valve and Blizzard don't care enough, and the other games are on the list are by very small developpers who can't afford this kind of practice.
You mean like how the majority of top league streamer were in the very first round of Hearthstone invites? Its not directly paying the streamer, but by doing a move like that you get free promotion of your product through the use of a streamers popularity from LoL.
On December 07 2013 05:58 Figgy wrote: Everyone in the LCS is on Salary.
They get it waaaaaaaaaay better than anyone in the business of pro-gaming by a longshot.
It's a small price to pay for League to hold onto it's stranglehold of the MOBA market.
Obviously, they don't want their Employees advertising for the competition.
This is the thing, everyone keeps calling the players Riot employees, when in reality I consider them more like contractors.
They are contractors.
Also, the Riot Salary is just basically the way that Riot ensures that there are less-successful teams available for the good/popular teams to wail on (in theory). That is the real point of the league: To give VES and C9 a chance to be VES and C9, while continuously showcasing TSM/CLG.
This is why losing Lautemortis sucks so much. He has one of the best personalities in the game. Could have given OddOne a run for his money.
On December 07 2013 09:27 Kupon3ss wrote: Like I said, Riot realizes how effective their approach of paying off streamers/youtubers of other games was and how instrumental it was to LoL's rise to popularity and is taking preemptive measures to prevent that from happening, fantastic business sense.
On December 07 2013 09:25 Noocta wrote: The whole " people are buying promotion for their games by using LoL streamers " is so full of bullshit if you want my opinion. Valve and Blizzard don't care enough, and the other games are on the list are by very small developpers who can't afford this kind of practice.
You mean like how the majority of top league streamer were in the very first round of Hearthstone invites? Its not directly paying the streamer, but by doing a move like that you get free promotion of your product through the use of a streamers popularity from LoL.
'Buying"
Blizzard didn't buy them to play it, like it probably happened with Infinite Crisis or Smite I guess. That's a whole different story than giving them money to play it on stream.
On December 07 2013 09:25 Noocta wrote: The whole " people are buying promotion for their games by using LoL streamers " is so full of bullshit if you want my opinion. Valve and Blizzard don't care enough, and the other games are on the list are by very small developpers who can't afford this kind of practice.
You mean like how the majority of top league streamer were in the very first round of Hearthstone invites? Its not directly paying the streamer, but by doing a move like that you get free promotion of your product through the use of a streamers popularity from LoL.
'Buying"
Blizzard didn't buy them to play it, like it probably happened with Infinite Crisis or Smite I guess. That's a whole different story than giving them money to play it on stream.
Infinite Crisis and Smite were exactly what I was thinking this applies to.
On December 07 2013 09:25 Noocta wrote: The whole " people are buying promotion for their games by using LoL streamers " is so full of bullshit if you want my opinion. Valve and Blizzard don't care enough, and the other games are on the list are by very small developpers who can't afford this kind of practice.
You mean like how the majority of top league streamer were in the very first round of Hearthstone invites? Its not directly paying the streamer, but by doing a move like that you get free promotion of your product through the use of a streamers popularity from LoL.
'Buying"
Blizzard didn't buy them to play it, like it probably happened with Infinite Crisis or Smite I guess. That's a whole different story than giving them money to play it on stream.
Infinite Crisis and Smite were exactly what I was thinking this applies to.
Yeah, there's definitely some hungry moba developpers out there, but banning games like Dota2 or Blizzard games is Riot pushing their luck. Well still, their new idea of not allowing their players to do promotional stuff is a lot more reasonable.
Draconian capitalistic greed is necessary for LoL's longevity, according to Riot themselves. It's a lot harder to grow when you're already the biggest.
I would like to quote this reddit post from RiotDavin.
Honestly, there is more to it than that. Responding to community concerns was definitely a part of this, but it was discussed very spiritedly internally too. Ultimately we don't want to do things we feel aren't in line with our core philosophies. There was a whoooole lot of very intense discussion that revealed, along with how players were reacting, that this just wasn't right.
Personally, I'm very happy we changed course. We're one company, but we all have different beliefs too Our internal discussion blog had a bit under a hundred very, very long posts discussing whether this was or wasn't right. We were having discussions all over the office, during lunches, at home... this kind of thing was on my mind, and on the mind of many Rioters. We're people, and we want to do right. It sucks to feel like you might not be. Thanks for giving us your good faith on this
Because it highlights an aspect that most people seem to overlook. A company like Riot is not one solid entity. It is comprised of different individuals with different opinions. People just love to paint whole groups with one brush, not only in this case. It is of course much easier. But it does not reflect the reality of the situation.
[–]Slashered Saint is wrong. I had this conversation with Saint on Skype yesterday and literally just now but it WAS the contract that was sent from Riot to the team owners to sign. It was not a rough draft that was not yet sent out. There is time for the owners to look it over, possibly come together and talk with Riot about their concerns, but this was still the intended action. If it wasn't, then Riot wouldn't have had their internal discussion and the statements they made on Wed and today. From talking to the owners, they were rather understanding of the contract and most were not going to abstain. In any case, I think this is obviously a great move all around for the players and esports as a whole.
[–]Slashered Saint is wrong. I had this conversation with Saint on Skype yesterday and literally just now but it WAS the contract that was sent from Riot to the team owners to sign. It was not a rough draft that was not yet sent out. There is time for the owners to look it over, possibly come together and talk with Riot about their concerns, but this was still the intended action. If it wasn't, then Riot wouldn't have had their internal discussion and the statements they made on Wed and today. From talking to the owners, they were rather understanding of the contract and most were not going to abstain. In any case, I think this is obviously a great move all around for the players and esports as a whole.
popcorn.gif
depends on your point of view. Saint considers anything not signed as still "in negotiation" Slasher considers it finalized if Riot didn't plan on "revising" both are right imo.
[–]Slashered Saint is wrong. I had this conversation with Saint on Skype yesterday and literally just now but it WAS the contract that was sent from Riot to the team owners to sign. It was not a rough draft that was not yet sent out. There is time for the owners to look it over, possibly come together and talk with Riot about their concerns, but this was still the intended action. If it wasn't, then Riot wouldn't have had their internal discussion and the statements they made on Wed and today. From talking to the owners, they were rather understanding of the contract and most were not going to abstain. In any case, I think this is obviously a great move all around for the players and esports as a whole.
popcorn.gif
depends on your point of view. Saint considers anything not signed as still "in negotiation" Slasher considers it finalized if Riot didn't plan on "revising" both are right imo.
[–]Slashered Saint is wrong. I had this conversation with Saint on Skype yesterday and literally just now but it WAS the contract that was sent from Riot to the team owners to sign. It was not a rough draft that was not yet sent out. There is time for the owners to look it over, possibly come together and talk with Riot about their concerns, but this was still the intended action. If it wasn't, then Riot wouldn't have had their internal discussion and the statements they made on Wed and today. From talking to the owners, they were rather understanding of the contract and most were not going to abstain. In any case, I think this is obviously a great move all around for the players and esports as a whole.
popcorn.gif
depends on your point of view. Saint considers anything not signed as still "in negotiation" Slasher considers it finalized if Riot didn't plan on "revising" both are right imo.
[–]Slashered Saint is wrong. I had this conversation with Saint on Skype yesterday and literally just now but it WAS the contract that was sent from Riot to the team owners to sign. It was not a rough draft that was not yet sent out. There is time for the owners to look it over, possibly come together and talk with Riot about their concerns, but this was still the intended action. If it wasn't, then Riot wouldn't have had their internal discussion and the statements they made on Wed and today. From talking to the owners, they were rather understanding of the contract and most were not going to abstain. In any case, I think this is obviously a great move all around for the players and esports as a whole.
popcorn.gif
depends on your point of view. Saint considers anything not signed as still "in negotiation" Slasher considers it finalized if Riot didn't plan on "revising" both are right imo.
contracts aren't final until you sign them.
Doesn't mean it's in negotiation either.
Everyone consistently ignored how the teams were affected in the same way as the players by the contract. Then when we find out the teams rejected the initial set of terms after getting community support, everyone ignores that.
Probably what happened is a few disgruntled teams intentionally leaked the terms of the contract to Slasher, and hoped that it would generate community outrage so they would have increased bargaining power.
[–]Slashered Saint is wrong. I had this conversation with Saint on Skype yesterday and literally just now but it WAS the contract that was sent from Riot to the team owners to sign. It was not a rough draft that was not yet sent out. There is time for the owners to look it over, possibly come together and talk with Riot about their concerns, but this was still the intended action. If it wasn't, then Riot wouldn't have had their internal discussion and the statements they made on Wed and today. From talking to the owners, they were rather understanding of the contract and most were not going to abstain. In any case, I think this is obviously a great move all around for the players and esports as a whole.
popcorn.gif
depends on your point of view. Saint considers anything not signed as still "in negotiation" Slasher considers it finalized if Riot didn't plan on "revising" both are right imo.
contracts aren't final until you sign them.
Doesn't mean it's in negotiation either.
Everyone consistently ignored how the teams were affected in the same way as the players by the contract. Then when we find out the teams rejected the initial set of terms after getting community support, everyone ignores that.
Probably what happened is a few disgruntled teams intentionally leaked the terms of the contract to Slasher, and hoped that it would generate community outrage so they would have increased bargaining power.
[–]Slashered Saint is wrong. I had this conversation with Saint on Skype yesterday and literally just now but it WAS the contract that was sent from Riot to the team owners to sign. It was not a rough draft that was not yet sent out. There is time for the owners to look it over, possibly come together and talk with Riot about their concerns, but this was still the intended action. If it wasn't, then Riot wouldn't have had their internal discussion and the statements they made on Wed and today. From talking to the owners, they were rather understanding of the contract and most were not going to abstain. In any case, I think this is obviously a great move all around for the players and esports as a whole.
popcorn.gif
depends on your point of view. Saint considers anything not signed as still "in negotiation" Slasher considers it finalized if Riot didn't plan on "revising" both are right imo.
contracts aren't final until you sign them.
Doesn't mean it's in negotiation either.
Everyone consistently ignored how the teams were affected in the same way as the players by the contract. Then when we find out the teams rejected the initial set of terms after getting community support, everyone ignores that.
Probably what happened is a few disgruntled teams intentionally leaked the terms of the contract to Slasher, and hoped that it would generate community outrage so they would have increased bargaining power.
That might very well be what happened.
Coming from the legal perspective, it is obvious that any contract not yet signed is still under negotiation. Slasher is wrong.
I have huge respect for Slasher since he has done so much for eSports, but honestly everything he says about League and Riot should be taken with a grain of salt. The guy has been pretty anti-League and anti-Riot for years.
On December 05 2013 09:28 OutlaW- wrote: I thought this was all common knowledge. I still remember Link stopping his dota 2 stream after getting a message from someone that told him to stop some 10 months ago
Any chance there is a vod? Or you know who message was from/what it said
It was on Azubu a really long time ago, like a year or something. I've lost all understanding of time, so yeah. I still remember, he played Kunkka mid lane.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Oi5AZn7.png)
) so i fail to see the point. It seems like they're trying to create an imaginary bridge between property rights and an individuals stream to control competition and i don't know how that doesn't come off as apparent when the list of games includes every other non-moba e-sport title, and coincidentally enough every other top viewed game being streamed on twitch. It might be good for riot in the short term, don't think it'll last. Just makes me more anxious for the blizzard moba tbh.
