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

arstechnica.com

31–40 of 64 posts

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

#31
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MOBA has essentially won as the acronym for this genre, despite having such a vague meaning that it also describes every MMO, every worms-style game, every online FPS, some MUDs, every online fighting game, every RTS, and probably some other stuff I haven't thought of.

A term only "wins" when you let it. I don't like the breadth of the term "MOBA;" I think ASSFAGGOTS better describes the specific subgenre that includes LoL, Dota, HoN, and Smite. To me, the separation is similar to using the term "backstroke" over the term "swimming."

See, I use "LoL-style".

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

#32

Currently, pro gamers have a lot of downtime between League of Legends games due to having to queue up for a game after finishing a previous one. These queue times range anywhere from 10-25 minutes on average, during which here is literally nothing to do besides playing other games, like Hearthstone. I don't think Riot thought this one through. Instead what they should do is figure out a way to fix the queue times at…

There really isn't a way to fix those queue times, though. When you have a small player pool (like you do on the far end of the skill curve), you have two choices: Accept long queue times or accept the likelihood of wildly unbalanced matches.

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

#33

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.

It's not just an American thing. There are cross-over athletes who could play competing sports (rugby union vs rugby league) but they sign multi-year contracts with one team in one sport. Australia has competing football codes and the players don't float between them if they are contracted to one.

Ronaldo famously said that there is too much modern slavery in football because they are owned professionally by the clubs they play for.

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

#34
post #13
post #5

Riot has never heard of Deion Sanders (A professional two sport athlete in the MLB & NFL)... It's a shame to limit people's personal pursuits

I remember there was a huge advertising campaign back in the '90s around the fact that Bo Jackson was an all-star player in both the NFL and MLB.

Bo Knows

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

#35

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.

Deion Sanders[1] played professional football and baseball at the same time.

Interesting little tidbit: On October 11, 1992, Sanders played in a Falcons game at Miami and then flew to Pittsburgh, hoping to play in the Braves' League Championship Series game against the Pirates that evening and become the first athlete to play in two professional leagues in the same day. Sanders ultimately did not, however, appear in the baseball game that night.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deion_Sanders

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

#36
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it is fair to call games like Call of Duty "massively multiplayer online." They are multiplayer, and they are online, but the scale isn't all that massive. Call of Duty allows, what? 20 players?

I think the global stat ledgers and unified multiplier progression paths lend themselves to qualities normally associated with other "massive" games. True, the maps are limited in player size, but the feeling that there is a huge world of individual characters of varying class/strength/expertise that you may randomly encounter is pretty similar. It's like WoW battelegrounds/instanced dungeons minus the persistent wor…

[deleted]

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

#37
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MOBA has essentially won as the acronym for this genre, despite having such a vague meaning that it also describes every MMO, every worms-style game, every online FPS, some MUDs, every online fighting game, every RTS, and probably some other stuff I haven't thought of.

A term only "wins" when you let it. I don't like the breadth of the term "MOBA;" I think ASSFAGGOTS better describes the specific subgenre that includes LoL, Dota, HoN, and Smite. To me, the separation is similar to using the term "backstroke" over the term "swimming."

Whenever someone tells me they are "a gamer", I think of posts like these and my opinion of them drops a little.

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

#38

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.

The quick answer is no, there is no cross-sport prohibition in most sports leagues. The long answer is that almost anything can be negotiated and that player are usually willing to make concessions in these deals in turn for more money.

Many modern sports contracts have clauses in them that protect the employer if an athlete is injured doing an athletic activity outsider of their normal training. A good example might be a football player blowing out his knee playing pickup basketball. These clauses usually give the team the ability to withhold future salary or even go after previously paid wages. Although these clauses aren't always exercised depending on the player's relationship with the team, the severity of the injury, and the activity that caused the injury. A team doesn't want to risk alienating a player or their fans unless there is a huge gap between the financial impact of the injury and the player's future perceived value.

There are also various sponsorship agreements that players and teams have with companies that have restrictions about supporting a competitor. For example an NBA player sponsored by Nike might not be allowed to wear an Adidas shoe during a game.

Considering these precedents and that Riot appears to act as some combination of a sponsor and team/league that employees these eathletes, I think this decision is pretty reasonable.

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

#39
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it is fair to call games like Call of Duty "massively multiplayer online." They are multiplayer, and they are online, but the scale isn't all that massive. Call of Duty allows, what? 20 players?

I think the global stat ledgers and unified multiplier progression paths lend themselves to qualities normally associated with other "massive" games. True, the maps are limited in player size, but the feeling that there is a huge world of individual characters of varying class/strength/expertise that you may randomly encounter is pretty similar. It's like WoW battelegrounds/instanced dungeons minus the persistent wor…

C'mon that's just silly. The "massive" part of an MMO is kind of an important attribute and ~20 players is about as non-massive as you can get. Quake in 1996 supported 16 players and there were leaderboards and ladders. It's not an MMO and neither is COD.

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

#40

Currently, pro gamers have a lot of downtime between League of Legends games due to having to queue up for a game after finishing a previous one. These queue times range anywhere from 10-25 minutes on average, during which here is literally nothing to do besides playing other games, like Hearthstone. I don't think Riot thought this one through. Instead what they should do is figure out a way to fix the queue times at…

I suspect it's the opposite. The current trend was to play another game (Hearthstone in particular) and in some cases the streamer would actually keep playing Hearthstone during champ select/the beginning of the game - a really bad message to be sending your customers (especially with free-to-play games where someone spending money with a competitor means disposable income they can't spend on you).

People who read the news stories might think it sounds controlling (but the number of people who read the story and get notably upset is very small compared to the people watching these streams).

Seems like a calculated and rational choice by Riot.

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