Esports is the newest cash crop in entertainment. Everyone with money to throw says that eSports is going to be the wave of the future and you either invest in it now or be left waving when the ship sails away. By 2020 , investors think that eSports will generate over a billion dollars a year in the United States. We are reaching a point where normal people don’t lift up their noses at you when you tell them you are pursuing a career in professional video game playing. Sure, it won’t be easy, but it can be done.
Unfortunately, with the money come the problems that come with it. There is no actual thing called “eSports;” they are a series of different games owned by their respective companies. Whether it’s Blizzard with Hearthstone or Valve with DOTA 2, each company has full control over how their games are played and shown. If you want to start a huge Hearthstone tournament with thousands of dollars on the line in hopes to attract investors and fans, you are going to have to play by Blizzard's rules. Major League Baseball doesn’t own the game of baseball, anyone can pick up a bat and a ball and start swinging.
Riot owns League of Legends . There are other companies, like ESL or OGN, that showcase and play the game, but they all have to follow Riot’s rules. Montecristo, PapaSmithy and DOA are three casters for OGN who know the Korean region and their teams better than anyone else. When MSI 2016 came along, Riot refused to pony up the “industry standard” payment and they walked. One of the largest international tournaments in League of Legends had no caster representation from the region that won the whole thing, all because Riot said so.
Owning The Whole eSport
The overall authority of Riot is starting to become a major problem. Nobody can question their decisions, because the public isn’t given all the information. Take for example the banning of the North American LCS team, Renegades . Riot said in their press release that, according to their sources, RNG had problems: “confrontations between management and players, refusal to honor payment and contract provisions, and failure to maintain a safe environment for all team members.”
Montecristo was the one of the co-owners of RNG and is now banned for owning a team for a year. He talks about these claims on Twitter:
I was also told of my ban 30 minutes before the post. I was given no time to respond or present any information.
— MonteCristo (@MonteCristo) May 9, 2016
For those asking: I was never presented evidence by Riot for these claims, nor did I know most of them existed.
— MonteCristo (@MonteCristo) May 9, 2016
The jungler of RNG defended himself and his teammamtes in a Tweet:
My teammates and I aren't spineless. We would not put up with even one instance of an unsafe environment.
— Alberto Rengifo (@RNGCrumbz) May 9, 2016
Riot also banned Team Impulse for not paying their players, but did not release any of their own evidence. These are career destroying allegations that I know Riot takes very seriously. Players are the ones who get hurt the most by this. Their entire lives are put into these teams that Riot can dissolve with a snap of their fingers.
Without any transparency, it’s impossible to put faith in what they are doing. I’ve seen so many conspiracy theories on reddit about Riot’s distaste for Monte; nothing good comes of the community trying to connect their own dots.
Indefinite Bans and Tyler1
There was a time long ago when League of Legends banned people through the Tribunal. It was a website where players could vote on players’ in game chats and whether or not they deserved a ban or not. It wasn’t a perfect system though: It couldn’t issue permanent bans, it didn’t help reform players and it could be abused very easily.
In early 2014 , Riotlyte wrote on the League forums that the Tribunal was leaving. The LeaverBuster was born to take its place, a bot that would ban players who left games too often. Eventually, Riot’s banning system would evolve and now it is mostly entirely automatic, skimming chat logs for profanity and racist slurs. It’s now been two years since the Tribunal and arguably League is a friendlier game. I still get called a racial slur once every three games, but now when I report them there’s a chance I’ll see that little notification that tells me that the racist is now banned.
When bots determine bans, stuff tends to fall through the cracks. That’s where Tyler1 fits in and let me make it perfectly clear; I do not condone his actions or his in-game behavior. He was a toxic troll who reveled in the misery of others. Tyler had been playing for five years, up until he rose to popularity and became an overnight League celebrity .
His Twitch streams were getting thousands of viewers per night, often reaching the top of the most viewed streams. In a forum post, Riot Socrates announced that Tyler1 will be banned from ever playing League again, with no chance for parole. Someone will sit in Tyler1’s chat, wait for him to make a new account and start a game, then ban him afterwards. He can still play off stream though, there’s no way for Riot to catch him unless he has an audience.
TheRainman, who used to play for TSM, decided to troll in a game and feed the enemy team while running down mid lane over and over. A reddit post about it hit the front page, and his accounts were perma-banned within 25 minutes . Riot doesn’t want to seem weak when it comes to banning toxic players and are going full force on the ones in the public eye.
What Can Be Done?
Esports will continue to rise in popularity, Shaquille O’Neal and Alex Rodriguez, two sport juggernauts, just invested in a League of Legends team. People want to watch video games being played well and that’s what they are being given. Right now, the system we have set up for eSports companies, teams and players is flawed and needs fixing.
Riot needs to start being more open about its ruling, because “Just cause I say so” won’t work when millions of dollars are on the line. Players are the backbone of eSports and right now we have nothing to keep them safe. ESportslaw , an eSports lawyer and Snoopeh , a retired League of Legends pro, have set the Esports Player Resource Center that plans to help new players secure contracts and be treated well. It’s still in its infant stages and needs way more time to develop.
I love eSports; it’s my job to write about it. Riot needs to step up to the plate and stop acting like the Great Oz behind a curtain and provide facts to back up their rulings. I want the industry to grow, but it needs a backbone first.
