Se ha montado una buena en la scene tras unas declaraciones de Reginald (dueño de Team SoloMid) a theScore esports, durante la semifinal del domingo contra CLG, hablando sobre los cambios de meta y como afectan los cambios masivos que hace Riot en los parches, a las que ha respondido Marc Tryndamere Merril (Co-fundador de Riot) en un post en Reddit, a lo que Montecristo (caster de la LCK, baneado del competitivo por ser dueño de Renegades) ha respondido en su Twitter.
Las declaraciones de Reginald:
La respuesta de Tryndamere:
-edit to clarify what I mean-
Love me some Regi, but an important distinction here is that team owners in the League ecosystem are ones who decide how much they pay their players. We have always been concerned about player compensation and creating a viable "path to pro" and ensuring pros can actually have a meaningful career - hence why we subsidized team salaries to create minimums, etc.
Regi seemed to be calling for two things: 1. More stability for team owners 2. More stability for players (citing patch cadence)
Both of the above are important concerns and are related, but distinct issues.
Re: stability for team owners - League has attracted a huge amount of outside investment interest that has helped the successful team owners in League (like Regi) have businesses that are highly valued. The top teams have also been profitable. One of the challenges is when these profits (from League) are then allocated to other non-League games instead of continuing to invest in the scene and their players. This then impacts the second point re: stability for players. The team owners are well positioned to help address that part and Riot can't (and shouldn't) do it alone.
Regi is one of the generally "good guy" team owners, but there is still a long way to go to help get all of our owners into a better state where the balance of power between players & owners is a bit more equitable - it's not our call (nor should it be) to determine market pricing for players, but when owners don't want to shell out for top talent, that's a tricky problem.
We've done a lot historically to help support the bottom end of the ecosystem to help minimize the scenarios where bad teams / owners can exploit players and we look forward to continuing to do more to help at the other ends of the spectrum too such as for stars.
Re: patch timing, agree we need to be cognizant of it and that last year's timing for the juggernaut update was sub-optimal (ok, let's call it terrible timing). This year though, we intentionally prioritized game health and viewer experience (cool bot lane fights and early game aggression) over the ability for teams / coaches to field "safer" comps by lane swapping.
We tend to think this has worked well based on the amount of 5 game series we've seen and how bloody games have been in general - it's not like it is a big adaptation for players to do standard lanes. Coaches / owners are complaining about it because it makes it harder for them to hide certain line up / skill deficits they may have on their rosters. In our opinion, like the above, they need to continue to develop talent and pay them. We do not mind at all if there is a massive delta in compensation between the top players and the rookies - so if you're a Doublelift / Biofrost and can do well in standard lanes against the best in the world - don't be shy about recognizing your value in your negotiations with your team owner.
Aquí la respuesta sin editar
Reginald ha dicho que va a responder a Tryndamere:
Entra MonteCristo al tema en su Twitter:
Y dice que hará un video sobre el tema:
Aquí esta el video:
Travis (periodista de Yahoo Esports) sobre el tema:
Y finalmente, la respuesta de Reginald:
Based on Marc’s comment, it feels like there's a belief at Riot that team owners make a lot of money off LCS and invest it into other eSports, but that is far from the truth. I've invested more into NA LCS than any other team. Instead of investing into other games early like Dota 2 and CS:GO; TSM has spent millions on content, players and staff to support LCS. We provided the first gaming house in NA before there were any sponsors at all and were the first team to provide health benefits for players. While I continued to make bigger investments into LoL, other LCS team organizations invested into CS:GO early and made more money for players in one year from CS:GO stickers than Riot paid them in three years of stipends and icon sales combined and that game is only a fraction of the size of LoL.
Starting in 2008, I invested in the scene by creating guides, hosting tournaments and making as much content as we could because of our passion and love for LoL. I made no money for two years and had to borrow from my parents because I believed so much in the game. I worked night and day, putting thousands of hours into building the community. I love LoL eSports as much as anyone in the world and I’ve invested more of my own resources into it than I can even remember.
TSM hosted some of the very first tournaments and online circuits for LoL eSports. By constantly streaming and investing our own money, time and love, we helped viewership explode for LoL in NA. Our online circuit built viewership from nothing to as many as 60,000 concurrent viewers. But as soon as this happened, Riot made the decision to bring league operations in-house which gave them control over all of the league sponsorship and streaming revenue, which eliminated much of our profit overnight, as well as tournament organizers such as IPL, MLG, and ESL, which either folded or turned to other titles
Which brings us to Marc’s post. He makes 2 main points, both of which convey an out-of-date perspective which doesn’t take into account the current state of the eSports ecosystem.
Marc’s Point #1: TSM makes a lot of money from LCS, doesn’t invest enough in its LCS players and loses money on other eSports.
I think Marc realized quickly that this is not a helpful thing to say because he edited his post and removed it, but it’s important to be clear about economics here. It used to be true that we made money from LoL eSports, but that was before LCS and the economic situation is getting progressively worse.
Most LCS teams lose money because stipends are stagnant, sponsorships for LCS team operations are shrinking and the cost of player salaries, content production, support staff and housing costs are spiraling up.
The reason why I started to invest in other games was because LCS left me no choice. The relegation system is unstable and risky for everyone, other publishers are more collaborative and provide more opportunities for teams and players to make revenue.
Over time, LCS has become more demanding and restrictive and the dynamics of a mutually beneficial relationship have become more one-sided. LCS told team sponsors, which are a necessary source of revenue, that they can’t even go backstage to watch the players compete. Teams can’t have sponsor branding on beverages or hats. Logitech is one of our greatest and most supportive sponsors and they simply can’t get visibility through us competing in LCS because we can’t wear their headsets while competing. We had to push endlessly to get permission for our staff simply to be able to film backstage. LCS even threatened to fine us if we didn’t remove sponsor content from our YouTube channel, such as this HTC commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBeTqzErgZI.
At the same time, LCS compensation has barely budged, but the length of the season and the number of scheduled matches has skyrocketed. As a result, the LCS schedule has created a desperate time-crunch for players. By taking almost all of our players’ available time, there simply is no time or energy for the players to do other activities to make money, such as doing event activations for sponsors (e.g., PAX Prime or PAX East), creating content and streaming. In order to fulfill our activation obligations to team sponsors, we were forced to hire non-LoL players who were able to travel to these types of events.
The bottom line is that an LCS stipend only covers a fraction of the cost of an LCS team’s operations. As a result, revenue from team sponsors is absolutely necessary, but the current LCS system is leading team sponsors to reduce support or – much worse – consider shifting support to eSports other than LoL.
Marc also made some comments insinuating that I don’t pay my players enough. I’ve always been at the very top of the pay scale in player compensation and am in the process of rolling out a stock participation plan for TSM players. I’ve regularly gone above and beyond our contracts and increased player compensation even before the contracts expired. Another commitment I made was hiring a video team to help build out our players’ YouTube channels, so when they retire - they have a transition to a continuing career (http://bit.ly/2bCEcs9). I’ve increased my player salaries more significantly in the past year, but LCS player stipends have been frozen. Combined with the fact that LCS doesn’t share sponsorship revenue, streaming revenue or even give a percentage to the World Champions for their team skins, I think that it’s unfair to imply that I’m greedy. I have made a lot of money in my business, but not from LCS team operations and TSM has made the playoffs eight splits in a row. Almost all of the profit I’ve earned has been from my websites and building out my streaming network.
Marc’s comment: http://bit.ly/2bvUG1W
Marc says that I have the power to change this dynamic, but the truth is I’m not an owner in the same sense that Marc is. Traditional major sports organizations own stadiums and franchise rights in a league. In my case, Marc owns the game and the exclusive league and he just offers me a contract every December to participate in LCS, a slot which I risk losing twice a year. I can’t earn anything related to LCS except what he pays me or allows me to earn.
I’ve done all I can and it's not enough. It’s irrational to invest even more money into LCS, given how restrictive LCS is on our team coupled with the potential of being relegated every split. Even the current and potential outside investors who are now exploring the space already assume that viable rev-sharing with the teams and players exist.
The real power to fix this situation is in Riot’s hands. They can stabilize the LCS system and provide security and sufficient compensation for the players. They can share streaming and sponsorship revenue, they can expand and promote the sale of in-game items and share that revenue, they can create a robust merchandising program and sell team and player items in their online store. If they did these things, it would help justify the huge sacrifices made by young players as they strive to become true professional athletes.
Marc’s Point #2: Teams are merely “complaining” about patches without a legitimate basis.
Marc is suggesting that patches expose weaknesses in team rosters and that players need to just man up. He is missing the point; the pro LoL players who are eligible for Worlds have been furiously practicing on the previous patch and many people don’t understand that the specialized skills which LCS players practice don’t really carry over from one patch to the next.
The system should reward those players who have dedicated the most time and energy to preparing for Worlds, but introducing a new patch near the end of the season knocks everyone back to the starting point. LCS player careers are already too short and mid-season patches ratchet up the stress on them and further increase the odds of being cut. This kind of TIMING of patches can force a team to make a roster change rather than trying to coach players through a difficult patch transition. A few weeks of poor performance can end a player’s career and nobody wants to improve player job security more than me.
The community and the players want the true best teams to represent them in Worlds, but the chances of an upset due to lack of familiarity with the new patch are too high. I have played as a pro for 5 years and Marc and others may not understand how disruptive this is to the careers of players and to the integrity of Worlds gameplay. Huge patch disruptions in playoffs results in unsatisfying results and lower-quality gameplay.
I’m fully aware and understand that Riot can’t balance for Pro players. The players and community just need more understanding about the timing of changes to competitive gameplay.
I’ve dedicated my entire adult life to building the LoL eSports community and want nothing more than a stable, growing, increasingly-professional eSports environment that will ensure that players can have long-term careers with fair compensation. I’m willing to work with Marc and anyone else to make this situation better. I’m focused on the solution, not the problem.
Chachi, el dueño de Enemy Esports, habla desde la perspectiva de un dueño de los equipos de abajo:
Couldn't decide whether I'd do a TL or a vlog on this. Think I'll stick with the written version here and do a vlog later if people ask for one. Anyway. I'm not tied to the LoL scene anymore and won't be returning to it until I have more money to play with, so I've been trying to limit posts on topics I'm not really involved in. This is not one of those topics. Despite being only a FORMER owner, I'm almost certainly one of those lovely "lower-end" owners that Tryndamere's post is dripping with disdain for. I'm basically Enemy's finances. So a bunch about the LCS and financial history of Enemy compared to other games (specifically CS:GO and Smite), and then a perspective on the comments that I don't think people are considering, or, being alarmed enough with.
Regi just posted a perspective from the top end of the LCS, I'd recommend you go read that as well ( https://twitter.com/TSMReginald/status/768147953076805632 ). This is a perspective from the bottom and parts of it have also been addressed by Montecristo ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjFCS0WxJO4 ), but the key one is on teams and revenue sources, which his previous video is a good primer for. It's annotated in the video on that link. My post is going to assume as a given a few of the things they've said that I've confirmed as my experience before, so watch those, because I won't detail all that.
If you want to skip to the perspective part, that's at the bottom. Just scroll, you'll clearly see when it starts. Everything between here and there is about how Tryndamere's accusations relate to Enemy in particular; Enemy as an example of the LCS revenue system.
As Regi points out, Tryndamere had two main points. The one on patch timing I have strong opinions on in principle, but I'm not going to talk about it unless I wind up back in the LCS one day and it's still a problem. That's a conversation for the current scene's gameplay experts, of which I am not one. I'm in general agreement with the prevailing opinion on the issue among the people talking about it. I'm going to talk entirely about the other point, about owners not doing enough. Not going to be particularly flowery on it either. Suffice to say the reason I've waited almost a full day to post this is I was so livid when the comment was made that I was afraid to post anything at that point in time.
Enemy was officially founded by me and Clerkie in July 2014, about a month after my first E3 trip, where I met briefly with Steve of Liquid and got some basic esports startup advice. Suffice to say we've learned a lot more by doing since then, and especially the hard lessons that only the LCS can teach. Our first League team was a cheap expansion tournament team for November 2014 built by Otter, who we were connected to by our first manager, Angel Vigil -- we came up against a hot Fusion and lost with a roster of Cackgod, Inori, Wolfe, Otter and Bodydrop. We didn't have to spend much for that. Salary was conditional on making the LCS, and they were crammed in a tiny little apartment in San Diego being rented by Otter and Hadaka, our second manager. Working conditions there were probably worse than the old Starcraft 2 living arrangements in Korea; the entire team slept on air mattresses in a single room and received nothing but food in compensation. One of our players actually had to return to Canada because it was so claustrophobic. Needless to say, for a full challenger run, this wasn't acceptable. We invested much more, in a house in Corona, CA with more room, and gave small salary to a couple players -- as harsh as that may still seem, massive challenger salaries are a fairly recent development and I don't pretend to be a philanthropist. Our roster was Flaresz, Trashy, Innox, Otter and Bodydrop. We convincingly crushed the challenger scene, losing a total of two very close games including one in the best of 5 playoff finals, and made LCS on a grand total challenger investment of $60,000, which undercut our primary competition's expense by almost 7 digits. This was the first glimpse of the company's M.O., which is being skilled at the job and the industry. Knowing where to find the experts who can put together a dominant team without the driving typhoons of money our competition usually has access to that we don't, by keeping expenses low. That's an important strategy to hold for context in this conversation.
That's a history crash course for our League team pre-LCS. Everyone knows how LCS went. Now let's talk about some of the root behind many of these gameplay problems, and then Tryndamere's ridiculous notion that owners, particularly low end ones, "don't want to shell out for top talent" and are exploiting players.
The biggest problems with our team were fairly obvious and analysts correctly noted them. We could not close games. This is exceedingly common among new teams and could be reduced largely to stage nerves and experience, but it's a bit more complex in our case. We also had some of the bloodiest early games in the LCS. This occasionally worked out and bought us leads -- we were something like 2nd in pre-15 kills -- but was stacked far more heavily against us. Halfway through the season, after our BETTER half of the season, Flaresz led the league by himself in pre-15 deaths and Bodydrop was in sole possession of number 2. Most of Bodydrop's deaths could be reduced to poor timings warding -- a death as Annie against Ashe comes to mind as a good example of this, but I don't remember which game. The Flaresz deaths, though, are at the root of our problems. Both the early and late game struggles come down to two things.
Firstly, Flaresz is an extremely feast or famine player. If he gets a solo kill, he'll dominate the game. In our first match against TSM, he solokilled Dyrus 7 times and TSM wisely just hung Dyrus out there to die and won the 4v4. But if he dies -- well. Take a look at the game where we finally allowed him to play the Riven he was begging to play all season. When you have a player like that, he needs strong jungle support to swing that heavily important matchup in your favor. But that brings us to our second problem. Innox; our star player who smashed challenger records, while being fearsome in teamfights and pretty damn respectable in 1v1 laning, could be absolutely crippled by ganks. For whatever reason, when Trashy was not close enough to come in and help, a gank mid was a kill against us. Our first coach was also close personal friends with Innox (that's on us to resolve). As a combination of these factors, Trashy's early game was almost entirely centered around being near mid lane. When he never showed up to help top, it wasn't because Trashy sucks, which a less knowledgeable fan might have assumed -- look at Splyce now in the EULCS. His hands were effectively tied behind his back when it came to the Flaresz matchup. In challenger, he was allowed to help the side lanes because teams weren't so good at exploiting our weakness to mid ganks. You can see what happened there.
Now, a top of LCS star player might adapt to this difficult situation, since by the nature of a team, very rarely does every player get exactly what they want in the team's strategy. We knew Flaresz was going to get less jungle support than he needed. So, why not play more tanky and supportive champions? Maokai. Nautilus. He wasn't great at them, so he needed to practice them in solo queue. Only, he didn't. Riven, Rumble, Riven, Hecarim, Riven. Even after being told by coaches to play specific champions in solo queue, he would play a game and then revert to only-damage. Is it any surprise, then, how those tanky champions always ended up being played in our LCS matches? In our second CLG game, he attempted to dive Darshan's Fizz with an almost-dead-Nautilus. It wasn't even close to succeeding. Casters were stunned. We were stunned. But if he won't play the tanky style in solo queue, how is he going to play it on stage when it matters? We had reports from players during a match against Team 8 -- his Nautilus game that we lost despite 5th dragon AND Baron almost entirely on him getting caught in 2 or 3 very inopportune moments -- that he had gone top while we were vastly ahead, giggling in the team comms, to full clear a double wave as Nautilus which Otter had specifically requested for his Last Whisper. We have clear, visible evidence of a player playing solo queue on stage during the LCS. His talent, at that point, doesn't matter. Benching is the ONLY option. Which brings us to finances.
How do we bench this player? We aren't allowed to stop paying him if he's on the bench. Dropping doesn't help much, either -- he's owed something for severance. What other top lane options are available? Anyone who doesn't live in the US, even Canada, add $4000 and a month of waiting for a visa before being allowed to play in the LCS onto that severance / bench pay, along with the travel and additional housing expenses for bringing them down. Who's the best available American top laner? Is he LCS quality? Will he fix the maturity and motivation problems we're having with Flaresz without turning our individual carry potential top into a weakness? Well, it's fairly simple, if you ask Marc Merrill. I just don't want to shell out for top talent. All I have to do is bench Flaresz, pick up a star European toplaner. Maybe Zorozero will return! I offer him something reasonable like 5 point 5 fucking k a month, add to that a 4k visa fee and a month of waiting, and Flaresz's continued $3100 a month, for the remaining 3 months of LCS. Now it's 8 point 6 fucking k a month. No big deal. A modest $30,400 expense on top lane, not including travel and housing, for the remainder of the split. If only I'd known it was that simple at the time. Everything would've been resolved. All I have to do is pay more money!
Where does that money come from? You know our LCS income? A $130kish stipend. A one time $3125 on icon sales (I'm pretty sure that's a ridiculously low team share -- we receive more than that MONTHLY on skin royalties for our team skin in Hi-Rez's Smite, which does not even remotely compare to LCS in viewership, even if we are in the conversation for best team in the world). A highly impressive $0 in monthly sponsorship revenue for our LCS team. Can we improve that? Yeah, certainly. But relegation's a thing, and we're negotiating in summer, not winter. Endemic budgets are already committed, so we're getting the absolute dregs if anything. "Just get sponsors." We hired a firm that C9 and TL use to negotiate those sponsorships for us. There was nothing. It's not about our inability to negotiate. It's about the actual value of an LCS team. A logo on a jersey in front of 200,000 people is nice, but how valuable to a sponsor when we might not even be there the next split? How can we do activations for them while we have to scrim constantly to keep up with old-boy teams that are more financially stable with better talent and experience?
Let's compare it to some OTHER esports, since apparently League owners just take League money to lose money elsewhere. Maybe Dan and I aren't that great at winning. Perhaps I'd flop like Echo Fox or NRG even with an NBA star's money. But there's no result in ANY of our other titles that suggests that to be the case. Smite? We placed second at worlds last year with a team of 5 players that were predicted to finish dead last in America. We placed second against the same team, 3-2 this time instead of 3-0, at this season's MSI-equivalent, with a rookie roster replacing 3 of the 5 worlds players, who left when we wouldn't kick our support and extremely valuable team captain for them. We were predicted to finish dead last this time too. CS:GO? We picked up a hot challenger team, similar to our LoL team right before LCS occurred, and, taking some of the lessons from LCS, did a better job of steadily developing them, pushing them towards top 4 in America. We were knocking on the door of majors when they left because we wouldn't pay enough for them after our star AWPer Koosta left for Liquid. We've BARELY lost money on CS:GO, and would in fact be profiting, like we are on Smite, if our team manager wasn't still holding onto the org's $7.5k cut of MLG Columbus winnings. We just picked up the top Gears team for a single event -- MLG Columbus again -- and won that one. Frank and Hadaka, our chief partners at Enemy, spun off into a new org called Rogue and just won a huge Overwatch tournament in Europe, breaking Envy's 57 win streak. Very rarely do we pick a poor option. LoL is the ONE esport where the Enemy M.O. has failed, and even there, Enemy alumni have gone on to success. We spotted Youngbuck as a quality coaching option and Trashy as a quality jungler. Where are they now? We have three Smash players and pay their rent, losing money, because we like Smash -- for perspective, in order to lose as much as LCS cost us in three months, we would need to fund those players with no income for 25 years.
So, no, Marc. We do not "take LCS money to invest in other esports we lose money on." Right now, we are doing the reverse, and repairing the damage LoL has done to our company using money from OTHER games. They're not complaining about it either. The only thing LCS has provided us is name recognition. I could've been the Slans (they're making more money on League than anyone right now at the expense of ethics) and sold our LCS spot, but I wanted to attempt to be the good guy owner -- I failed. We had so little money we had to pay our team ridiculously late. No player on the team got more than HALF his split's salary until a month after relegation as we struggled to pull in funding from outside to cover what SHOULD be our primary moneymaker under any reasonable revenue system. I thoroughly resent the notion that it's so simple as calling me a "bad org / owner" for that. You think I WANT to pay them that late? You think I'm rolling in bathtubs of cash just going "hmmm, guess I'll finally pay them today?" Now I question even the value of being the good guy owner, looking at Riot's disdain for a demonstrable one in Reginald, as evidenced by Tryndamere's thoughts.
--------------------------- SKIP TO HERE FOR THE POINT --------------------------
This brings us to the thing I mentioned about people not seeing this quite the same way I do. I don't claim to be all-knowing, but I'm going to put it out there anyway, add it to your perspective as you will.
People seem to be under the impression that Riot and Tryndamere are simply totally disconnected from the reality of esports. I don't buy that for a second. There is plenty of material about the financial situation of LCS relative to other esports all around the web. I'm not viewing "well they just didn't know" as a valid defense here. What this looks much more like to me is a transparent attempt, in light of the recent flurry of posts about revenue and "franchising," to shift the spotlight onto owners and put them on the defensive as opposed to Riot. And I think that's a MASSIVE red flag about Riot's future intentions for this title.
When Marc references player-owner power dynamics around the bottom of the LCS, he is almost certainly, given his "cheap owner" tone in the whole post, talking about owners having an excessive degree of power over players. Barring a few extreme circumstances (Winterfox ownership of Pobelter etc.) I find the reverse to be true in the real world. Players know that a downgrade from them makes a bottom team much more likely to be relegated. One of our players had an outside negotiator come in and get him an utterly ridiculous salary for the time, partially by forcing our hand during the short offseason, partially by giving us expectations of ending up with much more sponsorship money than we were able to achieve. Players have gotten quite good at negotiating their salaries, as long as they care about it. It's owners that rarely have the capacity to respond, unless they're VC investors, in which case they pay well enough anyway for power dynamics not to raise an ethical issue.
In that context, I see no reason to assume Riot has any imminent intention of providing permanent slots to teams. A permanent slot removes the threat of relegation on picking up a lower quality player, which is one of the prime bargaining chips players have with owners. Additionally, no one will create challenger teams if promotion is abandoned. Challenger will instead be a farm team system for LCS organizations, who will focus more on developing talent than flash-in-the-pan qualification with LCS veterans followed by sale. This means ready replacements will always be available, INCREASING player accountability in the LCS, DECREASING player negotiating power. Not to mention the added control over a player's career that will come about as a result of a single team developing a player all the way from solo queue to LCS reserve. That's VERY good for owners. And the tone of Tryndamere's post is that what's good for owners is bad for players. Riot knows the fans like the players, not the owners. Consequently, nothing in this post suggests to me that "franchising" is in the near future. Before that happens, it will take Riot arbitrarily deciding who's a "good guy" owner, and declaring that everyone in the LCS currently is one. But they've decided Regi is one. Does Marc's post give you the feeling that he's interested in rewarding even the "good guy" owner with something that increases his power over players? It doesn't for me. Maybe when it's just the old boys and 6 VC orgs they'll lock it, but if they don't have a stable enough revenue stream for those VC orgs guaranteed by shortly afterwards, what's to stop those "good guy" VCs from leaving? Promotion's already gone. Challenger's already been restructured. That could be a death sentence for the game or for player salaries. Certainly for my interest as a potential investor.
In my mind, some form of revenue sharing is THE ONLY option that can maintain this esport. And that's not looking good. If Riot was planning to boost org income in the LCS, why would they post a long rant effectively denying the notion that financial problems even exist? Why would they attempt to insinuate that owners are already profiting too much and paying too little?
I don't see the light at the end of the tunnel in this post. I can't see how LoL is going to keep up with other esports rapidly enhancing their attractiveness to investors when playerbase is no longer enough to drive them forward.
If you read all the way to the end of this, thanks very much. I hope it doesn't feel like a waste of your time.
- Chachi
Y YamatoCanon, en el último Beyond the Lane, también habla del tema:
Thoorin hace un video dando su opinión también:
Seguimos, Marc Merril contesta a Reginald:
So... Andy did an interview criticizing the timing of the laneswap gameplay changes, and I reacted emotionally. Andy and I go way back, and I like him, respect him, and really appreciate everything that he and TSM have done for League. My initial response to him read as a direct attack, I know that it hurt Andy, and for that I’m sorry. My post was clearly not the best way to engage in this complex topic. It did, however, spark a larger conversation about a topic that we’re all passionate about: the future of League esports.
I admit, when thinking about how to jump into this conversation, my first instinct was to debate the reasons we’ve made certain decisions, nitpick allegations of selfish behavior or otherwise justify actions we’ve taken. It was a too-quick emotional response because of my passion and pride in the growth and state of esports today. But like Andy notes, none of these things are productive, so let’s focus on the solutions; I (along with Riot’s esports team) know that there are still gaps in the system that we need to address, and believe we owe it to the fans and teams to focus on the areas where we think League esports can be better. This won’t be comprehensive, but I’ll focus on a theme everyone has raised and an area that we really want to improve - sustainability.
This may surprise some, but I actually agree with a lot of the points Andy makes about sustainability in the LoL ecosystem: League esports (in its current form) doesn't provide the long term security and sustainability that we ultimately aspire to for teams and pros. Team costs are rising faster (and in some cases are higher) than team revenues, and while this may be the short-term reality of growing a young sport (particularly as the value of teams grow), it's not what we believe the long-term state of League esports will be.
This is why when I said that I love me some Regi, I meant it. We both believe in the same future of esports: one where fans can proudly all around the world can support their favorite teams, one where teams can invest with a confidence of return on that investment, one where pros can be paid extremely well for their dedication to our sport, and one where we create a multigenerational sport that players dream about joining.
Building a self-sustaining global sport requires more revenue generation opportunities for all parts of the ecosystem, and we know there’s more we can do to further unlock the value of the leagues for owners and pros. Our 2017 plans include new in-game team-specific items with revenue-sharing for teams and pros, as well as smaller steps like working with teams to sell more jerseys - currently in the NA LCS studio store and at the summer finals in Toronto - and with the cooperation of teams, we hope to bring them to our online store as well. These are just a couple of examples and we’re exploring a lot more major steps, like league sponsorships, franchising, media rights, etc.
As the ecosystem continues to mature and these things develop, they will come with a new set of challenges and questions that are difficult to answer. As we build additional revenue streams for multi-esport organizations, what mechanisms should we put in place to help ensure that the right amount of revenue is shared with their League pro players? Who decides what is the right amount? Is it even fair for Riot to influence these third-party teams in this way? There is no road map for this, and we need to continue to learn together with our partners the way we have since we started on this esports journey back in season one at Dreamhack.
Also, we understand sustainability goes beyond League revenues - pros are an integral part of growing a sport, and creating an environment that allows them to excel and extend their careers is something we aim for. Patch timing has an impact on pros as they prepare to compete in the season and for major tournaments like Worlds or MSI, and while we believe adaptation is an important skill in a game that constantly evolves, we acknowledge that we haven’t gotten some of our major patch timings right when it comes to esports. The Juggernaut patch last year was too close to Worlds. This year, our laneswap changes once again didn’t give teams much time to prepare, but we moved forward believing it will lead to better games and a better viewing experience for fans. We will do a better job of communicating sooner and will ensure that changes such as these that significantly impact esports happen earlier on in the split to give players more time to adjust.
I appreciate and respect the commitment that Andy and so many other long-time owners have made to help LoL esports become what it is today. We still have a long way to go and we are committed to being a more effective partner with teams and owners to help navigate through all of the future challenges we will inevitably continue to face together.
A lo que Reginald a contestado haciendole una propuesta conjunta con el resto de equipos de la LCS NA:
Marc's reply: http://bit.ly/2bWJW0l
Marc, I agree that these urgent issues need to be addressed immediately. There is a detailed proposal signed by NA LCS teams and players headed to your inbox today. We'll solve these problems together.
#LCSForever,
Andy
Después de este tweet de Reginald, casi todos los equipos de la LCS NA se han unido a la campaña #LCSForever
En EU parece que aún nada:
Por el lado de los sponsors, HTC sobre un reply de Magus en el mismo post de Reddit donde empezó todo el lio de Tryndamere.
El post de Magus:
Real talk, that TSM sponsorship wasn't an actual HTC ad. It was a promotion for a VR video game for TSM to play (the title of the YouTube clip is literally "TSM plays raw data"). Regardless of whether HTC organized this or not, it's a tactic advertisement for another game.
This is against LCS rules because LCS isn't a platform for other game companies to advertise on - yes, this means there's a category that teams don't have access to but for any sport, letting quasi competitors advertise on the league doesn't make sense.
Y la respuesta de HTC en su Facebook:
In response to RiotMagus: A Sponsor Perspective
Reference: https://www.reddit.com/…/mark_merrill_response_to_…/d6v3xfk…
http://imgur.com/a/U1Eje
In the midst of a discussion between Team SoloMid's Reginald and Riot's own Marc Merrill, some additional attention has been focused on a video we produced with TSM's LCS team in which they promoted our virtual reality system, the HTC Vive, through playing a game titled “Raw Data.” It has now become public knowledge that Riot threatened to fine TSM if they did not take down the video from their own YouTube channel for what was perceived to be—as RiotMagus put it—“a tactic advertisement for another game.”
We are sorry to hear this allegation as it was never our intention to advertise anything but the HTC Vive, nor were we strategically trying to circumvent any rules Riot has with its LCS teams and players. The “TSM Plays Raw Data” video was originally part of a three-part series planned and shot with TSM to demonstrate the Vive to their fanbase. The first video, “TSM Plays Pictionary,” was released before the Raw Data production and featured the team playing Google’s “TiltBrush.” We also produced a video of Cloud9 CS:GO’s team playing “Paranormal Activity” to—once again—demonstrate the capabilities of the Vive.
Survios, the creators of Raw Data, did not make any financial investment into the production of the video, nor did they approach us to get it made. TSM selected Raw Data themselves after reviewing a list of Vive games as they felt it would resonate most with their fans.
In marketing the Vive, we have always adopted a content-driven strategy. For effective outreach, we must showcase the many experiences and games available, much like how game consoles such as the Xbox, PlayStation, or even laptops are advertised. We simply cannot market the Vive without people playing it and showing the gameplay, and we hope that Magus and others at Riot Esports will understand this.
While Magus’s comment could be considered just one facet of a broader debate, we also believe it warrants a larger discussion. We understand that it makes sense for Riot to want to keep LCS pros from bringing attention to other games. But going forward, it would be helpful to have clarification on the questions necessary for us to operate effectively as a sponsor. For instance, what is the difference between an LCS player streaming Deus Ex and making a YouTube video of a Vive game? What is considered a competing title and what is not? Is there a certain category or degree in which the promotion of another game on a different platform goes too far?
The HTC eSports team is a small team consisting of members who have been gamers for almost the entirety of our lives, and esports fans for longer than competitive LCS itself. We watch our teams and players week in and week out, fill our social channels with LCS content (and banter), and play the game ourselves. We've produced high-quality videos and a Challenger tournament last year which brought exposure to players who are now in the LCS. We hire TSM's, Cloud9's, and Team Liquid's in-house production teams to give them additional ways to earn revenue, rather than outsourcing all of our efforts to third-party ad agencies, and our video scripts are handcrafted by our very own team members in collaboration with our teams rather than outside marketing specialists.
But as we examine the landscape of advertising in the LCS community, we find ourselves at an impasse. If Riot does not want us making videos that feature our sponsored players playing other games, we do not have many options for showcasing our products. In addition, the /r/leagueoflegends subreddit mods do not accept any of our original video advertisements, including videos as well produced as “Retirement Home,” or others that prominently feature our sponsored players. Sponsors are now very limited in what we can do to market our brand and products while still supporting the League of Legends scene.
As one of the first major non-endemic sponsors in the West, we believe we have helped pioneer marketing in esports, and we’ve loved every second of it. But with less avenues for advertisement in League of Legends, stemming from the restrictions on the teams and players, restrictions on the subreddit, and the lack of available marketing opportunities at competitions, it is becoming difficult to justify our investments into the scene.
Going forward, we would love to see clear and reasonable guidelines on how sponsors can market in the space and more marketing opportunities open up with our LCS teams. This will lead to more companies willing to invest in the LCS and create a healthier and more sustainable ecosystem. As a sponsor who genuinely wants to see esports grow, we ask for Riot to understand our difficulties. We hope to see a solution that will benefit all parties involved and ask for proper avenues to discuss problems with our videos and marketing activities if they arise in the future, rather than being informed after the fact by our teams of any issues.
We are excited to be at the NALCS playoffs this weekend to cheer on our teams. We have been humbled by the community feedback to the tournaments and content we have produced thus far, and we hope to remain a contributing member to the evolution of esports.
Sincerely,The HTC eSports Team
Veremos como se desarrolla el tema, pero la cosa está calentita.
¿Opiniones? ¿Que os parecen los cambios de meta drasticos? ¿Hacen tanto daño a los equipos? ¿O sencillamente son unos llorones porque les trastocan el entrenamiento?
