Is the League of Legends in conflict with eSports?

 

 

If industry expert Zoran Cunningham is to be believed then yes, the presence and success of Riot Games’ hyper popular MOBA title is antagonizing the progress of eSports in general. Writing out of a development blog on Gamasutra earlier last week, the practitioner of game studies finds that the skyrocketing popularity of LoL (League of Legends) is coming at the expense of other competitive household names like StarCraft 2, HoN (Heroes of Newerth) and games in the fighting community. While I’m usually disposed to let opinions be, the fact that Cunningham has come out to say that this isn’t an opinion of his but more so an empirical finding has me a little uneasy (and he’s had me that way for a week).

 

Going on about how LoL is stealing the glitter and glamour of high profile competitive events and, as a result, why many professional gamers abandon their ships for the LoL bandwagon is a suggestion I think people familiar with the scene will find hard to agree. While we cannot contest the success that LoL is, the level of damage (if any) as a byproduct of that success on its fellow competitive titles as with eSports as a whole, is highly contentious.

 

LoL popularity in comparison to other popular media and mediums

 

First things first, if you’ve not read Cunningham’s write up on how the phenomenal rise of LoL is rubbing the rest of eSports the wrong way (the link’s found at the end of this article) perhaps you should give it a look; it’s a well articulated read that draws on some relevant examples. However, off the bat I would like to point out first that the premise comes across as slightly distorted. Yes we can all agree that a very big number of us gamers are summoners and or have played LoL at one point in time, but to compare those figures to pay-to-play/subscription based models of games and services so as to illustrate the extent of its popularity is a bit unfair. 32 million players on LoL versus 12 million on WoW? WoW requires a monthly fee while LoL is free-to-play; the same applies to XBL (Xbox Live) and games like Halo carry a $60 (more or less) price tag at launch.

 

In reality though, LoL is a huge brand with a massive following nonpareil. But to put things in perspective, another free to play game that has had a new lease of life on the competitive scene is the World of Tanks, with 45 million registered users as of 2012. Disregarding the competitive label then games such as RuneScape, with a registered user count soaring way over the 200 million mark, will certainly dwarf the LoL numbers. However, despite the iffy comparisons, this isn’t why we’re here. The litigious insinuation has yet to be addressed.  Are other games in the industry suffering because of the meteoric rise of LoL? My answer is no.

 

Yes there is a trend of professional gamers leaving their trade for other games but it’s hardly one that’s unique or one that has been so pronounced of late that it’s a cause for concern. Like any other industry in existence, the eSports scene is one that strives to remain evergreen and relevant. Doing so requires phasing out old games and embracing new ones, and as a consequence of which, gamers with inflexible skill sets become obsolete while new ones emerge and others adapt. This happened to WarCraft 3, Halo and even Guitar Hero. It’s a naturally occurring cycle whose rhythm is dictated by the needs of the industry and the motivations of the gamer – be it wealth, glamour, glory, or simpler things like love for the game and loyalty to his or her community. Thus before you go around saying LoL is robbing your game off its talent, greater contextual awareness should be applied because more often than not it’s gaming Darwinism at work.

 

Loren “Fanatiq” Riley

 

The adverse reaction from the “abandoned” fan base that follows though is absolutely understandable. No one likes to lose an icon, more so if the icon has still plenty to offer. However this seemed to be played up a bit more than it should in the article which makes LoL out to be some relentless talent poacher. “The fighting game community hates that trend (player migration) and they felt that League of Legends was stealing some of their best players and personalities,” Loren “Fanatiq” Riley, one of the many pro gamers interviewed in the piece, was quoted saying. While these are all good and fair examples, as an observer I’d like to point out that many games within the fighting scene, as with HoN or WoW PvP (the other games cited in the write up) never did reach the heights of StarCraft heyday, Dota 2 or even Counter Strike, so such movement here should not be met with so much shock and disapproval.

 

On the other hand, there are out there, very dedicated professional gamers who “moonlight” as summoners with negligible resistance from their fans. One such is popular StarCraft 2 streamer MaximusBlack, who occasionally took to his second channel on YouTube to stream LoL games. So really the tension here has nothing to do with playing LoL per se but the act of leaving one’s fan base for another. That said, the suggestion that games like StarCraft 2 suffer in terms of viewership due to the success of LoL is one that I find rings hollow after pointing out that both games can live alongside one another harmoniously.

 

“Meanwhile, StarCraft 2, the game largely responsible for the resurgence of eSports in 2010 now struggles for viewership and interest as the League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) consistently sets records for online viewership and fan attendance at events,” opened Cunningham in his second paragraph.

 

StarCraft 2 was a huge success and I don’t think Blizzard would have considered it to be anything else. As an eSport it’s thriving, the GSL is in full swing and casters as well as streamers are in high demand. Now the trade here might not be as bustling as the one Riot has got going on but if you do think of it, any other game in eSports would look pale in comparison to the success that LoL current is. Cunningham of all people should have known that seeing that he created the infographic fronting this article. LoL isn’t stifling the growth of other eSports; games such as StarCraft are just not growing at the rate of LoL. You don’t see any of the world’s top 30 StarCraft 2 players rushing off to form LoL teams don’t you?

 

 

What I believe the League of Legends to be really is a boon to eSports. Its success has been somewhat the envy of other games but it has created more waves in the gaming industry than many of its predecessors combined—cementing itself as the new benchmark for eSports excellence. Large prize pools aside, it has constructed a robust community for which they constantly engage to improve various aspects of the game. Following this tried and tested formula for success can only mean better times ahead for eSports and her other titles.

 

Zoran Cunningham did hit some nails though in his time talking about the League of Legends. There exists some form of tension between games in eSports and this is evident in the fanaticism and fanboyism of certain games and genres. But tension here isn’t actually a bad thing though one can’t help but get the feel otherwise in the Gamasutra blog post. Tension, not the malicious kind but the defensiveness of one’s game, is a product of passion and that is a staple for any competitive setup. Passion is a strong emotion that I am proud to say emanates from even the smallest confines or lowest levels of eSports.

 

Tension here therefore is a good thing. The kind of tension we could possibly do without though is the kind arising from suggestions that the interests of certain games within eSports are at odds with one another.

 

Do you agree or disagree? Leave us your two cents worth in the comments section below.   

Source: Gamasutra