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Riot tells pro League of Legends players they can’t stream competing games

arstechnica.com

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Re: Riot tells pro League of Legends players they can’t stream competing games

#2
I'm not familiar enough with physical sports to know: do professional sports organizations generally do this kind of restriction? Worldwide? Is there any kind of cross-sport prohibition? I could believe it, since I've never actually seen or heard of players showing off without a contract of some kind... and yet, that might simply be because I don't hear about it.

Re: Riot tells pro League of Legends players they can’t stream competing games

#3

I'm not familiar enough with physical sports to know: do professional sports organizations generally do this kind of restriction? Worldwide? Is there any kind of cross-sport prohibition? I could believe it, since I've never actually seen or heard of players showing off without a contract of some kind... and yet, that might simply be because I don't hear about it.

College Sports have some strange rules regarding what they can do concurrently. Of particular note is the case of Jeremy Bloom[1], who was an excellent college football player and an Olympic skier. The NCAA really seems pretty anti-students-rights anyway, though, and I can't speak to more professional sports.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/30/sports/college-football-ol...

Re: Riot tells pro League of Legends players they can’t stream competing games

#4

I'm not familiar enough with physical sports to know: do professional sports organizations generally do this kind of restriction? Worldwide? Is there any kind of cross-sport prohibition? I could believe it, since I've never actually seen or heard of players showing off without a contract of some kind... and yet, that might simply be because I don't hear about it.

Sports contracts generally prohibit the player from playing other sports, even recreationally, to reduce their risk of injury.

Here, for example, is the NBA's take: http://bammgt.com/?page_id=339

Re: Riot tells pro League of Legends players they can’t stream competing games

#6
This is just a power play by Riot. League of Legends is the most popular of the games in the genre of "Aeon of Strife-Style Fortress-Assault Games Going On Two Sides," with tens of millions of players. The professional tournaments attract hundreds of millions of players. It's understandable, from Riot's perspective, the want to lock down the golden geese. The threats emerging from other ASSFAGGOTS games and the console-centred streaming are legitimate threats to (one of) Riot's income streams.

Consider the next-largest ASSFAGGOTS title, Valve's Dota 2. They have started having prize pools at their annual invitational tournament, The International, that exceed several millions of dollars. This, for a single tournament! Plus, mainstream "professional gaming" is still a pretty new phenomenon for the western world. Riot would be foolish to assume that they aren't going to be threatened by other competitive games, some of which haven't even been created yet. It's a monopolistic move, but it's understanable.

That being said, I think that it should be up to the players to choose whether or not they want to do this. Would you really want to lock yourself out of another game? Competitive fighting game payers often "play the field;" they may be really, really good at one or two games, but most have played several, even in tournaments.

Re: Riot tells pro League of Legends players they can’t stream competing games

#7
post #6

This is just a power play by Riot. League of Legends is the most popular of the games in the genre of "Aeon of Strife-Style Fortress-Assault Games Going On Two Sides," with tens of millions of players. The professional tournaments attract hundreds of millions of players. It's understandable, from Riot's perspective, the want to lock down the golden geese. The threats emerging from other ASSFAGGOTS games and the conso…

This is really where eSports will come into its own, in these (I prefer to call them MOBAs) games. Just like in professional sports, the players here will need a union.

Re: Riot tells pro League of Legends players they can’t stream competing games

#8
Alright so this only concerns SPONSORISED STREAMS, and it's not that big of a deal (calming people down before they go crazy on articles that do not provide full details to a story)

This means they can stream other games during the LCS they just can't be paid to put company logos. It's just a commercial agreement more than anything

Re: Riot tells pro League of Legends players they can’t stream competing games

#9
post #6

This is just a power play by Riot. League of Legends is the most popular of the games in the genre of "Aeon of Strife-Style Fortress-Assault Games Going On Two Sides," with tens of millions of players. The professional tournaments attract hundreds of millions of players. It's understandable, from Riot's perspective, the want to lock down the golden geese. The threats emerging from other ASSFAGGOTS games and the conso…

The point about fighting game players is spot on. I wonder if Riot will actually try to enforce this against popular players who stream Starcraft II custom maps or something similar.

Re: Riot tells pro League of Legends players they can’t stream competing games

#10
post #6

This is just a power play by Riot. League of Legends is the most popular of the games in the genre of "Aeon of Strife-Style Fortress-Assault Games Going On Two Sides," with tens of millions of players. The professional tournaments attract hundreds of millions of players. It's understandable, from Riot's perspective, the want to lock down the golden geese. The threats emerging from other ASSFAGGOTS games and the conso…

In case anyone sees the (rather derogatory) term "ASSFAGGOTS" and is wondering why it's all caps, it's ostensibly short for "(A)eon of (S)trife (S)tyled (F)ortress (A)ssault (G)ame (G)oing (O)n (T)wo (S)ides".

No, I didn't make that up.

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