League of Legends Continues to Rise

So, in case you were wondering why Twitch was acting up a couple weeks ago, this would be why.

The Tournament

Being hosted in Los Angeles, California and taking place over the course of two weeks, the League of Legends World Championship brought together 8 teams from around the world to compete for the title of best team in League of Legends and for the prize of $1 million. The event was streamed across numerous sites, Twitch included, and statistics released by Riot games shows the peak concurrent audience was 1.1 million viewers and that the event drew in more than 8.2 million unique viewers. These numbers mean that at least 2/3rds of the game's daily active population keeps up with the professional teams and tournaments of this game. The tournament also drew in a large live crowd; the finals at the USC Basketball Arena was sold out at 10,000 attendees.

Moscow 5, Invictus Gaming, NaJin Fire Sword, Taipei Assassins, Team Solo Mid, Azubu Frost, World Elite, and Counter Logic Gaming Europe had all made it to the final stretch of Season Two for a shot at the championship trophy and the $2 million prize pool. In the end, it was Azubu Frost, representing Korea, against Taiwan's Taipei Assassins. After a four game series, the Taipei Assassins managed to come out on top after having only lost the first match to Azubu Frost and then turning it around to win the next three.

Looking Ahead

Riot Games has promised to up the ante going into Season 3 of League of Legends. We're not just talking production value either; Riot's CEO, Brandon Beck, clarified more on this in an interview with ESPN:

In season three, which is our next season, and it will follow our World Championships in October, the champion of the series, which is in a professional league, is going to have salaries. The salaries are there to cover the basic cost of living for players, and they’re going to be augmented by stipends that cover things like travel and housing, which is all meant to compliment the sponsor revenue players can make and the cash prizes for the tournament. All of that combined makes being a professional “League of Legends” player a viable career opportunity. This helps the game reach its full potential, because we want to avoid our pro players coming under financial stress and having to hold down part-time jobs. We want to make it so being a pro player is a completely viable career opportunity.

Many of the pro teams are living in game houses together, and they’re spending 12 to 14 hours a day practicing. They’re also spending time in the gym to make sure they’re in great physical shape as well. They spend the rest of the time eating, sleeping, and bonding as a team.

In our minds, they are athletes. To be a pro gamer, you have to possess tremendous manual dexterity and mental agility and toughness, and that’s akin to certain characteristics that other professional athletes have. There’s also a massive amount of team play, so these guys have to be phenomenal team players and phenomenal leaders, and they have to have an unbreakable competitive spirit just like any pro athlete has. A pro gamer’s dexterity is measured in actions per minute, and it’s phenomenal to watch pro gamers actually up there playing. Watching their hands and watching their teamwork is really exciting. That’s why you go to these pro gaming events and you’ll see an audience full of fans who are as riveted by the action as you would see at any conventional sport.

Yes, you are reading that correctly. Riot Games is essentially stepping forward and attempting to make professional gaming a career. Of course playing the same game for the majority of your life is not exactly something many people would look forward to, but it is still a step in the right direction for the competitive side of gaming. Not to mention eSports is really gaining speed and is really starting to garner media attention outside of video game journalism.

LoL's Growth and Concerns

Riot Games released statsitics about a month back regarding information on their playerbase. These stats show the League of Legends has 12 million players who play every day, 32 million who play at least once a month, and a typical day shows 3 million concurrent users. Since the third quarter of 2012, players have logged over 1 billion hours of gameplay every month making it the most played video game in the world. According to these stats, 85% of the game's playerbase are between the ages of 16 to 30 and that 60% of the playerbase are either in college or have graduated; however, 90% of the players are male. There could be several reasons for why there is such a small female population; however, I will say that the female demographic tends to be the more die-hard fans of the game. They are always the ones you see walking around cons cosplaying as one of the characters and there are actually quite a few female LoL players who stream. Of course some more reasonable designs and skins for the female characters would probably help in that regard.

League of Legends has not only grown in players since its release, but also in characters. This game currently has one-hundred and five playable characters (champions) with a new one being released every two weeks. What LoL lacks in a variety of maps, it more than makes up for in its wide range of characters and skin options for them. The downside to this being that, well, such a broad roster can be initmidating for new players. There are just so many characters, new players may not even know where to even start. Thankfully, Riot does have a Youtube series known as the Champion Spotlight that goes over the abilites and playstyles of newly released champions as well as some of the older characters that were released before the video series began.

With such a rapid growth in players, there are people concerned that perhaps League of Legends is growing too much for Riot Games. Indeed, Riot Games is an independant publisher with only one game under their belt. Should LoL ever go under, the company won't have a safety net to fall back upon. Riot Games has also made mistakes within this tournament such as a stage that allowed players to cheat, hardware problems that interrupted and delayed certain matches, and the lack of a LAN capability for continuing tournaments should such issues occur. Riot has stated that they have learned from these mistakes made, but a company that is running the most played game in the world should know to be ready and prepared for these major tournaments. That lack of foresight shook up the LoL community's faith in Riot to follow through and deliver not only entertainment, but also a fair and stable tournament environment. Only time will truly tell if Riot games can keep up with the juggernaut they created.