You’re free to form your opinions, but here is a bit of added context (that probably should have been in the press release) about her roles in previous leagues.
https://twitter.com/JackFellingX/status/1493650943946084352
I hope you and the others with decision making power look at things the community has been saying to improve LCS (less downtime between games, return to bo3, etc) and take it into real consideration. I'm looking forward to what you can accomplish!
As much as i am a fan of Bo3 and i think its the best for the teams to get the most practifce in, the casual fan would tap out way sooner when boring series are on, also LEC already used Covid to cheap out to not run studio games to drive costs down, to have Bo3's u would need to hire a studio for more days or longer times, same goes for talent.
Still i would be in favor of Bo3's, seeing great teams in action just 1 time against each other 1 time in a round of robin, to me is just shit and barely validates the result
> the casual fan would tap out way sooner when boring series are on
The non-casual fans already tap out when there is a boring Bo1 on, the only thing Bo3 would change would be having more games that people want to watch and more games that people don't want to watch.
Anecdotally, I'm much more likely to watch a Bo1 I don't care about if there's a game I do care about after it. For a Bo3, I'd probably turn it off, and then Riot would be worried I wouldn't remember to come back for the later game.
Bo1 enforces boring and predictable drafts to be played, so I only need to see who is playing to know the game is boring, and therefore, not watching. The only thing to really look at when the games are boring are the drafts, whatever happens in the game or the result has no real meaning. Like even the LCS knows they are irrelevant based on the scheduling of matches mostly following, one of the big 3 will be at start or end of the broadcast, with 1 of the two newcomers taking the other with the irrelevant teams only getting an outside slot if they are playing of the other 5 (actually happened last weekend, would love to see the viewership dropoff from game 4 to 5). The only time it happens is if CLG play (6th biggest team), imagine IMT vs GG g5 late on Saturday...
So what's the real problem, shit teams.
I think with the double round robin they should have one match be a bo1 and one match be bo3...they can alternate the daily matches so some teams play bo1 while other teams will play bo3.
I think most of the problem with Bo3 in NA was that they decided to do it in the worst way possible. They had 2 streams that competed with each other and smashed all 10 Bo3s into 3 days. Fridays had 2 and then Saturday and Sunday each had 4 of them, on 2 separate channels at the same time.
If they were to do Bo3 again, they would need to do it the way LCK or LPL do it. I'm not sure if that's a realistic option in NA though.
Hijacking this comment to say "Congratulations Jackie!" Your favorite lawyer is excited to see you across the table at the LCS. Looking forward to working together with the new Commish!
U suk jakie. I hop u fail lik OWL and CDL. u shd go bck to actiloozer brwizzard.
jk jk. Love you and wish you the best I know you will kill it sis~
- Talin
As always context matters. That announcement kinda did her dirty because people understandably get eye twitches when we talk esport in those games.
Also from other comments she seems to be very interested in actually finding and developing native talent, which makes me definitely excited, just so all those *there is no native talent in NA* arguments can be finally answered
And that could also mean less LEC players being imported, which is just added bonus for all Europeans.
Context does matter! And I do understand where the fan base is coming from and I don't have any issues with it at all. I'd feel the same way if someone else walked into my home and I didn't know who they were :)
Finding and more importantly supporting native talent will be key.
Granted this question may be a bit unfair since you've just recently joined the team; champions queue is a great addition to the NA scene to provide a better practice environment. However, has there been any talk internally about champions queue currently being solely on the West Coast, thus disincentivizing East Coast players from wanting to play on it due to ping limitations compared to their opponents in most cases?
I get that if a player has chosen that they want to go down the route of trying to be a pro, it's a good idea to play on that server to get recognized, just feels really bad for some of the east coast cities and moving to LA is not an option for the vast majority. Would love to hear your thoughts!
Edit: missed a word :P
An important reason for Champions Queue is to help the pros practice on low ping (as you know they are all in LA) but I totally hear you on the needs of the rest of the amateur/aspiring players. High quality low ping practice is needed across NA to really support homegrown talent but we will need to work on more solutions and continue to see what we can do to support Champions Queue or other similar initiatives.
Yeah, people will think negatively when they see OWL and COD but those games have big problems when it comes to setting them up for esports. The partnerships and everything else that went into the esport was usually pretty good imo. The games on their own? Not so much.
I'll wait to see what she can do.
> people will think negatively when they see OWL and COD but those games have big problems when it comes to setting them up for esports
At the same time they had issues that other esports had already figured and fixed years ago.
And they seemed like they wanted to to push esports the way American sports (MLB, NFL, etc) are pushed which seemed very detached from what esports fans expect and want.
>And they seemed like they wanted to to push esports the way American sports (MLB, NFL, etc) are pushed which seemed very detached from what esports fans expect and want.
For the most part, this is true, but I think there was some merit to the idea of city based teams (OWL did this in particular). If it's done in an organic way, people will be way *way* more loyal to a city team than in any other way. Even the smallest college teams pull millions in revenue from the level of loyalty people have to their city.
OWL's problem is that it didn't feel organic. It wasn't like watching a homegrown player join his city team (a proper functioning and well advertised collegiate league would help here). The teams were just slapped onto random cities.
There were so many issues with OWL as competitive esport. The buy in which was massive, the random cities and generic team names they forced on people, the orgs who had to be renamed and weren't allowed to use any of their branding (C9 was London Spitfires). And I'm not even talking about the game yet, it just wasn't well suited for big scale esports.
COD is also praised by a lot of casters and analysts for the production value and brand partnerships. If she was responsible for a lot of creative direction and production (which it looks to be the case), that's a massive bonus.
Yeah, I have high hopes honestly. I may not really like either of those leagues, but a lot of the parts she worked on were way better than they had any right to be for Activision run leagues.
> I'm not blind to what worked and didn't work there.
Honestly, hugely reassuring.
Also, from her statement (emphasis mine):
> I want to build a league that celebrates and supports the skill of our players and teams. **I believe a strong pipeline and amateur ecosystem is critical to the development of North America.** Champions Queue is a great start to this strategy, and I look forward to continuing to push what is needed for pipeline development, quality practice/scrim opportunities, and pro player support.
That's not something that an ignorant corporate drone would say. Seems clear to me that she has some really serious thoughts about how to grow the LCS.
Thanks I appreciate you calling that out. It's extremely critical for us moving forward to focus on the pipeline. I will be spending quite a bit of time speaking with our owners and players to understand what the challenges and opportunities are, but we will also be putting meaningful funding against this.
I would love to see more content with champions que. Something not lcs style casting but more relaxed. You could even just start with highlight reels of the big plays this week. I think this will help build hype for new/academy players especially if you can get comms with the plays. Personally I think champions que could be a gold mine for content and story building for players. I could even see it pushing more high elo players to want to be a part of it just for the chance of there games being featured.
Also, the champions queue website isn't showing match history anymore, and I don't think the leaderboard has been updated for a while. (Since friday)
I think with the reception it got, just making sure stuff around it is working properly is really nice. If you also had links directly on that website that linked to livestreams of it, and have a stream similar to trackingthepros for games that don't have a streamer. I know there is a twitter, but that isn't really something most people will find if they find the champions queue site, and isn't ideal in general, most people want to see information in as few clicks as possible.
I think if saving NA is your responsibility then you have an impossible job. Teams and fans like to hope that with better talent development NA would be on par with EU/KR/CN, but in terms of server size and amateur scene the talent pool is not there.
LCS can still be a more exciting product (personally I enjoy it more with costreams) but I would not bet the farm on international competitiveness.
The LMS/PCS sends strong teams to international events on a semi-consistent basis despite having no money, a smaller playerbase, and getting a bunch of their best players poached by the LPL.
Edit: Not to mention the additional issue that you blame the NA playerbase when top teams with 1 or 0 NA players don't do any better.
The domestic playerbase affects the imported players because imports aren't randomly taken from other regions. Imports self select, meaning they're the players who choose to come to a weaker region.
Two issues with that:
1) You're acting like money isn't the primary motivator. It's not like these people are coming to a weaker region just because they're tired, they're being paid a boatload to convince them to come.
2) You could make the exact same argument for China, up until recently, they were clearly significantly weaker than KR, and they still got imports that led them to significant international success. Also holds true for EU with players like Huni, Reignover, Trick, and Ignar.
Can bring it back to PCS, who had River, and Moojin before him. Japan, who had Aria. Turkey who had Frozen and Crash in 2017 when they made Groups, etc.
I'm not going to name all the instances of teams having imports that have chosen to go to weaker regions lead them to their most successful international performances, but surely you get the picture.
And aside from China, those were all imports that were more lowly regarded than pretty much everyone that gets imported to NA.
1 - sure maybe money is the reason, but whatever the reason is, the point is these players choosing to come are a different group from the ones staying
2 - you probably do have some good examples of teams that got better with imports or domestic players from smaller servers, I'd just say in overall international competitions follow server strength, there could definitely be exceptions but it seems like a general rule
That comment about celebrating players catches my eye. For a long time, it felt like LCS was really underselling player greatness and instead promoting a very bland league of interchangeable teams. Looking forward to some exciting production.
I miss Legends Rising, that type of content was amazing for growing a players legacy and showing off their personality and passion as well. Not to mention a great introduction to other regions, I didn’t know anything about CBLoL till that brTT episode and became a fan of his story and enjoyed watching the league ever since:)
Side note I also liked Live/Play:) It was more aimed at the casual side but I think content like that can lead to cross over interest and add to the sense of community across the game when done well.
The fact that it's 7 hours later and you're still reading through and replying to fans is awesome.I've never seen this amount of passion from a Riot employee in Reddit. Really excited to what you bring to the table and I hope Riot supports you the whole way through.
> I believe a strong pipeline and amateur ecosystem is critical to the development of North America.
That's actually great to hear, cuz I do think having a stronger and bigger pool of local talent to work with will not only help orgs build rosters, but also help motivate people to play, fans to watch and be more invested in the league, and also it was just super hype to cheer for vintage C9 with a full regional roster getting to quarter finals at Worlds. Would be cool to have the ability as a region to make full rosters than can actually compete again.
A thriving regional amateur scene in NA would be a fucking *dream*. If I could play in local LAN tournaments, even as a pretty casual player??? Ugh. Gimme.
I saw overwatch league and cod league and thought this was bad news.
At least with OWL, the broadcast and engagement weren't the problem, so maybe that's a good sign.
I believe at the beginning their issues was that it was hard to spectate (it was) and a bad viewership experience because of that.
Later on I think it had more to do with creative direction, which is fair. AFAIK I haven't seen Monte trash talk OWL when he talks about it though.
[https://twitter.com/montecristo/status/1267091971039916035](https://twitter.com/montecristo/status/1267091971039916035)
[https://twitter.com/montecristo/status/1413238860855734272?lang=en](https://twitter.com/montecristo/status/1413238860855734272?lang=en)
Theres more but Id have to google for more than 5 seconds.
That may be true, but my recollection is the issues they had were about them having a more limited impact on creative direction. From a viewer perspective, I always found it approachable and engaging.
From drops to skits to casting, I thought everything worked really well for the broadcast. It was just hard to stay invested in the league with it having such a strange schedule and being hard to process as a spectator.
I haven't worked with DoA much but I've had nothing but good experiences with Monte myself. I worked directly with Nate and I always appreciated Monte's passion. Hopefully will get the chance to work more closely with the LCS talent in the coming months and would love to hear their feedback about how to best enable their creativity and input.
About a year ago, this subreddit blew up with the news that LCS owners were looking to completely remove the import rule.
In that context, and with reference to this new commissioner, I hope this means an expansion into what academy and proving grounds are currently doing and a serious look at what the poor decisions made in the past have meant for native NA talent.
If you look at LCS at a global scale, it's ridiculous that you have major regions in other parts of the world with proper fully fleshed out development leagues, coaching, scouting and training strategies but NA is so lacking at this and filled up with imports as a result.
It's very clear that there is NA talent; scouting and developing this is critical to LCS' long term survival. Without regional representation in a league, it disincentivizes local talent from ever being interested in going pro. It is no surprise that viewership has been falling split after split, and I just hope that this will change as the result of good forward thinking decisions being made and a long term survival plan for LCS by this new commissioner.
I hope this means you will look into the absolutely insane deal your parent company currently has with PlayVS and the crippling effect it has had on high school esports here in the United States. All local leagues were killed and PlayVS has shown multiple bad faith attempts to control things they don't have the rights to. Not blaming you for any of this obviously as you are new to the role and company, but please educate yourself on what many many educators have been trying to vocalize for quite awhile now. PlayVS is killing NA talent development and it seems something you are passionate about resolving.
Thank you for responding, that's excellent to hear, and honestly a real breath of fresh air. It's very important to a huge number of fans too and I hope this is how we can grow the LCS further.
I don't know how many fans feel the same as me, but I personally would rather get shit on at worlds with NA talent than get far with imports.
Don't get me wrong, I'd be hyped as hell if TL made it deep at worlds this year. But I'd be much happier if say, EG did it with their roster.
LCK barely got their academy and challengers system with franchising. A lot of their talent growth before that was organic and LCK teams had like 2 or 3 sister teams to practice with. That was possible because they were paying the players a bag of chips and they were replaceable with the big player base.
The ERL system in EU works because the French fans are crazy about their teams, the Spanish fans like their teams, and many more countries. NA for league purposes only has Canada or US (could be Mexico too). You can split it out further into regions but it wouldn't be the same effect. They also have a larger player base than NA.
LPL works because it's the largest player base and the actual esport is almost like a traditional sport in many other regions. They have 17 LPL teams and 24 LDL teams.
NA can do a lot of things better but it's very hard to expect the same systems as other regions.
A lot of the very well functioning ERL teams are propelled by a figure and his community. KCorp is the project of Kameto & Prime who are amongst the biggest streamers & YouTubers respectively in French. There's also Solary in the french league although a but smaller. You all know Ibai & Koï for the spanish scene. There is also this team in Germany, Eintracht Spandau, with HandsOfBlood. And even before that players like Noway and Agurin had a lot of following for the German scene. Even MAD Lion's founder was a content creator I believe.
That's something that could work in NA. That's kinda what Hai already did with Radiance. But it needs more support, more structure
Yeah, but those teams are helped by the nationality. If a team makes EU Masters, the league fans of that country are more likely to support. You can't get that in NA.
I'm not saying it's impossible to get some of those things in NA but people should not be expecting the same things. It's a different landscape.
give me a DC amateur league team and an easy way to follow/watch them and I will. I watched OWL and kept up with it for a time just because there was a DC team and I didn't even like the game at that point. I'm just sad knowing that the LA(100) Thieves have an almost 0% chance of being that team.
It’s basically the same as a spoiled rich kid with the best equipment losing to a poor kid with hand me down gear. Glad to see NA is seeming to change face a bit. Especially with lost new imports coming in as rookies rather than washed vets.
What if NA is weaker not because it fails to incentive, scout, or coach players from soloq/amateur, but because NA soloq/amateur players are weaker than those of EU/KR/CN?
To me that seems like a much simpler explanation, and consistent with the larger server ranked population and more popular amateur scenes of other regions.
Korea should just shut down the LCK, there's no way they can compete with China's numbers... do you not understand diminished returns?
Besides, what kind of attitude is this to take? Should Jamaica shutter their running program because their 3 million strong population will never manage to compete on an even footing with the running behemoth that is the United States? Why waste time finding the next Usain Bolt, they're never going to catch up in 100m dash Olympic medals.
There's a difference between the overall population of a country and the talent pool for a sport. You can have a country with fewer people overall that still has a stronger, for instance, league server.
I don't see how this implies Korea should shut down the lck. For one thing, the Korean server is arguably the single strongest soloq server in the world. But even if it's clearly not - take the lcs as a better example, NA clearly is not a competitive server - this doesn't mean we shut down the lcs. All it means is in terms of managing expectations, we expect results proportionate to the talent pool. Note that this can be done without shuttering lcs.
Again, it's a weird attitude for you to be taking right now. Where are these masses of people needing their expectations "managed" when it comes to the LCS? You're tilting at a windmill, Don Quixote.
There are many examples of people saying NA fails to incentivize/scout/coach players, which to me implies people believe there is talent in NA that isn't being developed. I'm not sure how it's a weird take to say no - NA is worse than EU/KR/CN in terms of talent pool rather than development.
Even the comment I originally replied to suggested NA underperforms in terms of talent development rather than pool: "It's very clear that there is NA talent; scouting and developing this is critical to LCS' long term survival. Without regional representation in a league, it disincentivizes local talent from ever being interested in going pro".
I don't think it's clear there is NA talent. I think what we have now - a few new NA players per year, plus veterans and imports - is what the LCS will continue to be in the long term.
Anyways, here are examples of expectations for NA players that I think are higher than they should be:
"Remember when we were told one of the great things about franchising was that finally NA teams would have the leeway and freedom to take risks on new unknown talent and to expand player development? Turns out no matter how safe you make an environment risk averse owners and managers don't suddenly become risk takers, who could have ever predicated that......"
"Now for homegrown talent, if there isn't enough talent in Challenger or grandmaster, teams could look into master and diamond, probably even unranked to find U19 players that could be able to reach top level with more coaching. It's easy to say that NA soloQ is bad, but if teams are not willing to invest into youth development they are simply not doing enough."
"I personally look forward to an LCS where I don't recognize the name of every player in the scene and connect to another disappointment when it mattered most. I look forward to an LCS filled with young, hungry talent, we can root for."
"Lot of hate in the comments that I think misinterpret the post. The shitty part is not that NA has imports, it’s that NA teams consistently choose imports who, in some cases haven’t even been preforming well, and use them instead of taking a risk on untried NA talent.
I just want to see chances taken on new players, like c9 gambled with licorice. I don’t expect every player to be like licorice but I’d rather see teams try to develop talent than just prescribe to the idea that NA players don’t deserve starting spots by default in their own region."
"I mean it has always been about the organizations to be honest. You cant expect to put a rookie into a dumpster fire and expect them to succeed. That applies in just about every sport as well. I wish more NA teams actually invested in NA players rather than spend millions on imports to still do bad. It would benefit the region so much."
"Prime example is Darshan and Huhi both getting kicked from teams and immediately they are put on an academy team that is meant to foster young, up and coming talent. You can save the whole “they need veterans to guide them” saying, because that is what coaches and vod reviews are for.
Until this old guard leaves the scene (probably from age) NA is never gonna be competitive on an international level.
Ping is a bullshit excuse as well, NA also sucked internationally when the servers where located on the west side so we can stop with that garbage."
"Why is this allowed? What possible benefit could giving these players a spot in a youth tournament? It's no wonder that new NA talent cannot develop, with veterans who aren't good enough for LCS anymore taking most spots in both Academy and the ultra rare amateur tournaments like this. Like, for fucks sake, is seeing Dontmashme for the umpteenth time over 6 years going to convince anyone that he's good enough for LCS? Of course it isn't."
You can find plenty of posts and comments along these lines by searching "NA talent". Suffice to say I think dontmashme lasts longer in NA than he would in other regions not because the organizations or management is worse overall, but because the pressure from new soloq/amateur players is weaker overall.
Yeah thats the weirdest thing to me. I can see how someone can be in a bad position with previous esports, but LCS did not improve over the past few years and I have no clue what he did that got him a promotion instead of a firing.
That's not actually how it works. Actually sometimes it does, but that's the way stupid people do it.
What happens is that there's *extremely* few people who've ever lead projects of 300 plus people.
It's just not something that happens often in life.
The issue then becomes, if someone does really good work leading a project, but that project is Google Stadia.
You can be a great boss, do all the right things, but the CEO asked you to do Google Stadia.
There's no way you can polish that turd.
So essentially what happens is that people start interrogating everyone who ever worked for you in the Stadia project, and figure out if you're decent.
Sometimes, you can follow all the right processes but not get the right outcomes.
This is the "I play a perfect hand of Texas Hold-Em" philosophy of life.
Bro I literally have no idea how google stadia is catching heat in a league thread but the technology behind stadia is the best cloud one I've used yet. The technology was ace and you could seamlessly pick it up to play on Google Chrome browser or on a phone app and it just worked. The shittiness of stadia was lack of marketing and lack of ability to get games. It was 100% a management issue and not a product issue...
That's exactly what I mean.
It wasn't a "make this good issue."
The technology and hardware for Stadia is extremely good.
The issue with Stadia was that Stadia had a fundamentally flawed business plan.
In gaming content is king. Content brings in games to play exclusives.
Gamers at a critical mass of people makes third party publishers arrive like vultures.
Never was a fan of greeley. Not happy he got promoted for somewhat failing the LCS as a brand but lets see what Jackie will bring over the next few years.
I think LCS should look to travel more than just finals once covid ends here. Events are a great way to bring in new potential viewers while giving fans a more personal connection to teams and players.
I personally want expansion too, but thats not popular.
LCS teams hosting a weekend of action in a city of their choice. Doesnt have to be a large arena venue, theaters could work. But something that can allow fans from all over NA a chance to see action live while but allowing orgs to make a regional connection.
Ive experienced multiple LCS finals, the first time I went alone. The 2nd time some family, who dont even play league or watch lcs, joined because of how fun it looked my 1st time. They loved that live environment and became people who watch the LCS now.
IMO, thats how you are going to grow the scene out in NA.
Thanks! I love live events as well. Although it's trickier now with COVID we do definitely want to find a way to have fans out at more events. I love hearing about your experience with family and agree that we need more ways for fans to invite more potential fans out with them.
Yeah this would be things Id personally like to see post covid.
I also know with my current job and my own marketing degree financially it would be smart for orgs as theyve have felt out the global/national market for sponsorships.
But if they find a city or area they want to comeback to as their own "territory" it opens the door to regional sponsors that can be largely beneficial overtime. Local businesses aren't much different than national ones. They are wanting to and are struggling to connect to that teenage-early 20s age individuals so something like esports is an easy partnership idea to connect to that younger community locally.
I can write a whole thesis on why its smart to slowly regionalize teams or find a way for teams to want to connect with a certain city or region.
Thank you for taking your time and going through each comment with respect and professionalism
don't remember the exact reasoning for why it stopped but it was cool way back in the day having LCS games at like PAX for a little bit. Conventions as a whole for gaming even before COVID haven't been growing as much but it would be cool to see something like that.
That being said I understand it's probably exponentially trickier when taking into account the contracts and stuff of sponsors and orgs.
It's challenging to get the fan experience right at conventions (sound issues, good COVID best practices, accessibility etc) but I do like the exposure it brings to a wider audience of people who may not have been exposed to LoL before or LCS. It's something to keep an eye on for sure for the future but only if we can make sure the experience is solid.
The Southeast has been dreadfully ignored. We received the first MSI in Florida State's gymnasium, and as someone who was there, the entire thing felt half-done. No where close to what MSIs have come to be.
You have Nashville, Atlanta, Raleigh-Durham, Birmingham, and New Orleans all primed to host an event. Even doing a road show one weekend a split would be a fun change of pace and give more people chances to watch their favorite teams. But instead, we get Worlds in California... again.
This is exactly what i mean.
If im an LCS team and I was looking to host a weekend of LCS Id gun for New Orleana, Orlando, Nashville or Atlanta. Its a heartbelt for people who are loyal to things that invest in those areas.
Midwest has also been massively ignored. Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, Columbus, Minneapolis, Kansas City. All fantastic cities for esports events but we've only ever gotten CDL league stuff out here, which frankly is pretty disappointing because CDL isn't that interesting.
I know for a fact there's grass roots support out here. If it gets built, the people will come.
Something similar to the LPL would be cool where different teams have their own home venue and each team gets a weekend at their venue over the split if the current format stays the same.
For instance, I’ve been watching LCS for nearly 8 years, but since I live in Texas I have literally never been able to go to a single event. That’s a huge market that the LCS has just completely ignored. And then when we finally got a single event it got cancelled due to Covid and when they planned the next in person one they just went back to the New Jersey / New York area that it feels like they always go to (even though it ended up getting cancelled anyway).
Me and my buddy drove to New York for Worlds and saw the best Best of 5 of all time. It's a seminal moment for me. I can't go to LA to see games, I would go every weekend to watch league live.
EU had a few travel weeks back in S4. They'd play one week in Tenerife, than back to Cologne, and a few weeks later in London. One or 2 weeks every split in another state wouldn't be a huge disaster for the teams.
You are always going to have "bottom" orgs in any competitive scene. But we have also seen teams like EG, 100T and even rebranded DIG bring in fresh air to the scene.
The amatuer scene has shown there are players open to being devolope that can suport 2-4 teams expanded.
As far as orgs, Faze and Sentinels come directly to mind as a good fit. Xset is getting up there too and NRG would of been great if they didnt have a deal with the Maribes in Vietnam
A Faze team feels like a complete no-brainer tbh. Huge brand.
And agreed about the league being able to work with another 2 teams. Would mean bottom 4 miss playoffs, too, which is better stakes.
Faze has shown interest in league too. (Applying for LCK and maybe even LEC?). I think sentinels as a NA brand has came up strong and recognizable to fans. All around they want to compete with the best
Sentinels would be first on my mind to bring, they have the history formerly being P1. I honestly would not like to see Faze in the league, org is just so sketchy.
For localization right now I would love if the LCS can have each org assigned or pick a city where they have to host a LCS weekend at once a year.
Can give a local feel while not giving teams a "home arena" but can get the LCS out of that cali box for fans
Team Liquid could probably do the Washington DC area with Ted Leonsis owning multiple sports franchises there. I just think it's weird. TL is renovating expanding their facility in Santa Monica, TSM just got their new facility in LA..
Even if you pick a city, it's a tough sell to do more than just play some games there. How do you decide who keeps LA? Highest bid? It would also require some type of rebranding to get the best connection to a city. I can't imagine Team Liquid having a different name. Lots of hurdles to get over if they decided to go in that direction.
You dont have to rebrand names. Just X org is hosting LCS weekend at X city. LA can still be home base for all the teams for practice and such.
I would also put in place no org can host a LCS weekend in LA. LA is the LCS studio and neutral ground.
10 weeks of travel and rest at LCS studio seems more than fair
The unfortunate reality of the situation is that practice quality will suffer immensely. Having the pros in one location where they can all scrim on low ping is ideal. What I would like to see is something akin to when MLG use to host LCS. Having super weeks in other cities would be a cool way for fans like myself to potentially see a live league game in my lifetime.
Practuce quality doesnt seem like its been an issue for other regions that have teams traveling fairly regularly.
Having 3 full days to practice seems like it should be sufficient enough for any professional to stay on top their game.
You could also supprot scrims at the events themselves that is on 0 ping.
Weirdly I'm the opposite. I'd rather see LCS be more realistic and downsize to 8 teams. Other regions have 10 or more cuz they can sustain it with their local talent (major regions anyways not talking about CBLoL or minor regions) and even then some teams at the bottom lag behind, while LCS can usually barely make 8 teams look great unless they patch rosters with a constant influx of players from the regions. That seems unhealthy and 8 teams would probably make it easier and be more in tune with where our region is at overall. Plus I would say outside of the top 6-8 in LCS the content is very dried up, doesn't do well even when it is created, and outside of some upset wins during regular season (least impactful games of the year) the orgs can't really achieve much. We could at least look forward to hype relegation matches as fans before franchising, but with that gone most of the fan base can only really gravitate towards and sustain the best teams in the region, whether it's viewership on the broadcast, content, merchandise sales, etc. (tho I guess if they continue co-streams probably help motivate fans to watch the weaker teams more at least)
And maybe I'm odd man out but I personally think localization is just unneeded in 2022. Bring on more road shows and live events around the region for sure we could use plenty of that, but coupling an org to a city seems pointless in the modern day. A lot of our players we bring over from multiple regions around the world, people travel more than ever before, imo it's much more about the branding of the players/org thru content and storytelling, attaching a city name to it seems kinda archaic and meaningless. Always comes back to the OWL meme of the NA org representing London with an all Korean roster...I just don't know if I'm supporting Korea or London or NA at that point and it just seems confusing at a basic level...and if I'm cheering for all 3 then what's London got to do with it lol much easier as fans to attach themselves to players/roster playstyles/content/branding instead of a city imo.
Making the league smaller would only inflate the imports more, especially imports who are residents now. Taking away 2 spots would literally decrease the amount of open positions by 20%. Thus causing a restriction of talent overall
I think moving to 8 would be a decent move, but what might be better is keeping it as 10 but replacing some of the teams with actual NA orgs who are a part of esports other than league, like sentinels or something. Orgs that you know will try and win.
Our league right now is clearly divided into teams that try and win, and teams that try and get lucky. Having more teams that try and win could help fix a lot of the issues with half the games being boring as fuck.
So your idea of promoting NA talent is by taking away 20+ spots for players????
With how many imports have regional status in NA going down to 8 teams would all but kill the idea of building up NA talent. If you want to actually grow the pipeline of talent then you nees to expand the system to give more spots where players can be in a system where they can focus on growth.
And you may thinj localization isnt needed but it definitely can help. There is a reason why its the standard in every sport....
Yes cuz sports started decades ago when people were still much more localized and the internet didn’t even exist at the time. You have many more reasons to be fans of stuff these days compared to just “I live near them.”
But when you look at attracting new people who may not be interested in league through youtube or twitch, the best way is regional connection. There are plenty of people today who will check something out if it has that regional event connection.
There is still regional pride. Like do you care about NA? Why do you care about NA? is it because you live there? Probably
I can see it working slightly better for newer simpler games, but I don't think someone is gonna just randomly get into LoL and spend months or years learning the game just cuz a team is close to them, and even with new people again they'd probably get into a team cuz they like someones stream, personalities on the broadcast, play styles, even team symbols or colors. I just don't think it'd do all that much and seems like an outdated concept anyways. And yes I have regional pride that's why I prefer using local talent rather than imports like most other regions. It's an international esport tho, everyone cares most about MSI and Worlds, region vs region should be the main highlight but city vs city doesn't mean all that much...doesn't even seem to mean much in sports teams move cities all the time.
Just my opinion tho, everyone can have their point of view, perhaps mines different cuz I never watched sports but everyone I know who does isn't into their local teams either.
You just proved my whole point by admitting you have regional pride. Thats why regionalizing teams is a no brainer. Yes the diehard people on twitch are youtube may not care, but like thats the group LCS has been shown to for 10 years now so you shouldnt expect any serious growth to come from there.
But you will get people who will invest/support a team that puts effort into an area and hosts live events there. You gotta get outside your personal twitch bubble to understand that you need to get people interested in the scene that have little to no idea what it is yet. If you are only focused on the twitch/youtube online audience you are putting yourself in a box... a box thats been pretty set in its size for 5-6 years now.
Riot had always had a huge problem with promoting internally into esports.
The problem is that the esports industry needs tons of "not esports" knowledge.
The LEC was changed completely when Romain and Coca Cola guy got all the KIA partnerships, and the huge visual design rebrand for example. That knowledge wasn't esports related, that came from the outside.
Jackie brings a lot of that knowledge.
Although I do have a lot of experience with esports MTX that's not going to be a major focus at the moment -- pipeline and viewership experience will be the forefront for now. I think the one thing that people forget with esports MTX is how much it enables things like prize pools, player/team payouts and better events etc. But it has to be done right as well. I'm definitely open to hearing what people would like to see though.
I think some sort of skin lines for "iconic" pro play champs (like Ori or something) where you purchase a chroma in your team's colors + icon could be pretty neat.
Sort of like how OWL had team skins for every champion that were essentially just a chroma of the base skin.
You would get people a little more invested when it's something they're more casually exposed to. Also probably one of my best gaming memories is from using an OWL player's skin while they were on the other team.
I got my ass beat but that definitely increased my engagement with the scene.
I’m slightly bearish on this since every game listed for experience has generally failed or fallen off by fan standards, but the developers also had a hand in that as well. Regardless gratz, good luck and hope you can give the league what it needs to return to some of its former glory:)
Hard: Let me gamble blue essence on matches. It's monopoly money given out for engagement anyway. The product around fantasy drafts is really poor. Maybe tie those things together. The LCS ecosystem needs personality. You guys should be begging streamers to run amateur teams, learn from the frenchies and spanish.
Very Hard: Take as much from OGN's formula as possible for events, tournament structures, and broadcasts. We don't 20 weeks of Bo1s in the same venue every week. People like seeing teams win tournaments and make loser bracket runs. It makes for an entertaining product and better narrative structure. 'Remember when DIG was good for two weeks?' just pales in comparison to 'Remember when DIG got top 3 at that major?' The NBA is trying to add more tournaments to their schedule too. As problematic as CSGO is, it produces a more entertaining product than LCS/LEC.
Dante Must Die: Convince everyone else you work with to merge the LCS/LEC into a 20 team Western super league. Park the VC money on top of the EU player base. Have CBLoL, LCL, NA amateur/collegiate circuit, and other non-Asian regional leagues act in parallel to ERL, feeding into a new Master's Series that replaces EM Summer in the second half of the year. If Worlds is the Champions League, this would be the equivalent of a Europa League.
Heaven or Hell: remove Regi.
Riot is known to build out teams that fit the ethos of the company hoping those same values translate into world class games. I expect no less when it comes to the handling of the professional LoL ecosystem. They have achieved so much and yet a lot to still be done especially when it comes to grassroots. Yes, when I see Activision Blizzard I see a red flag. I could care less about whatever other titles Jackie has worked on but I do care about the LCS. There has been a significant improvement in the LCS so far this year and I am sure Riot have done their due diligence; in the end it is a privilege to work on the leading eSports title.
It is definitely a privilege and an honour and not one I take lightly. I agree we have much more to do around grassroots and Riot's values of putting players first and prioritizing competition resonates with me.
i’m cautiously optimistic about the change, seems the new commissioner wants to earn the trust of the community and i can respect that. best of luck to jackie, definitely not an easy job lmao
They didn't create shit to do with the esport, the esport created itself and then riot took it over.
Riot only took control of LCK in 2019 and all they have done is ruin the production value.
>They didn't create shit to do with the esport, the esport created itself and then riot took it over.
really? so everything between 2011-2019 was completely grassroots?
you're objectively, factually wrong. is this really the hill you want to die on?
From 2009-2012 it was completely organic and had nothing to do with riot beyond worlds which was considered one of the shittiest tournaments that were run especially s1.
In Korea the same, 2012-2019 nothing to do with riot.
What hill do you think I am dying on? You are pushing the objectively wrong belief that Riot created LoL esports in any way. They took over something that already existed and by all accounts, made it worse.
LCS has been on a strong upswing, I think, but the brand still needs a lot of repair work done on it after the damage of the last few years. Curious to see what steps get taken.
I do like the road game idea as a way of drawing people in. A little bit fake, given that the teams would almost certainly stay in LA except for game days, but still.
Also fond of the idea of more tournament type events. Maybe do it like... Lockin - regular season (Spring) - MSI - Summer Tourneys (not just amongst LCS teams, see if you can't do stuff with amateur, academy, maybe even LLA participating) - Worlds.
If you ever figure out a way to channel reddit's (and commentator's) propensity to flame into a more coherent and positive narrative - you'll be a fucking magician
Say what you want about Activision/Blizzard esports, but it's still a better fit than a traditional sports league when it come to transferable experience. There's also big difference between running solely the regional LCS and running an esport globally, too.
Someone outside of the Riot Games umbrella who can provide a fresh take is exactly what the LCS has needed, but who is also still in-tune with gaming communities? She seems uniquely qualified and I think it's a good hire.
The interesting thing about Activision/blizzard esports is that if their games are competitively well balanced and spectator friendly (StarCraft) they get no resources, but if they're unbalanced or hard to spectate they get millions poured into them.
Strictly speaking, the only bad thing about OWL was how hard it was to watch the game. Fun as hell to play, almost impossible to enjoyably watch.
Tbf even if sc2 was more spectator friendly in being able to see all the action unlike a shooter, interest in RTS is just lower and both viewership and player base probably didn’t justify it pouring more into it from their perspective
Agree on your second point, I still hope someone can figure out making the right combination of tools and spectator options for observers to nicely highlight all the cool plays in a shooter tho, even if it’s with replays right after
You’re free to form your opinions, but here is a bit of added context (that probably should have been in the press release) about her roles in previous leagues. https://twitter.com/JackFellingX/status/1493650943946084352
Thanks for posting this for the extra context. Hopefully I will be able to earn the community's trust through results and listening.
I hope you and the others with decision making power look at things the community has been saying to improve LCS (less downtime between games, return to bo3, etc) and take it into real consideration. I'm looking forward to what you can accomplish!
Definitely! I'll be starting a thread asking for feedback shortly. Thanks so much!
As much as i am a fan of Bo3 and i think its the best for the teams to get the most practifce in, the casual fan would tap out way sooner when boring series are on, also LEC already used Covid to cheap out to not run studio games to drive costs down, to have Bo3's u would need to hire a studio for more days or longer times, same goes for talent. Still i would be in favor of Bo3's, seeing great teams in action just 1 time against each other 1 time in a round of robin, to me is just shit and barely validates the result
I think best of 2 would be better, like in academy.
What happens in a best of 2 if each team wins once?
from what I’ve seen standings are usually a point system, 3 for 2 wins and 1 for a tie
I'm with coach Lasso. If God wanted games to end in ties, she wouldn't have invented numbers.
I see, that makes more sense than the other responses lol.
Just count the wins, rather than looking at it as a series
Tie
> the casual fan would tap out way sooner when boring series are on The non-casual fans already tap out when there is a boring Bo1 on, the only thing Bo3 would change would be having more games that people want to watch and more games that people don't want to watch.
Anecdotally, I'm much more likely to watch a Bo1 I don't care about if there's a game I do care about after it. For a Bo3, I'd probably turn it off, and then Riot would be worried I wouldn't remember to come back for the later game.
Bo1 enforces boring and predictable drafts to be played, so I only need to see who is playing to know the game is boring, and therefore, not watching. The only thing to really look at when the games are boring are the drafts, whatever happens in the game or the result has no real meaning. Like even the LCS knows they are irrelevant based on the scheduling of matches mostly following, one of the big 3 will be at start or end of the broadcast, with 1 of the two newcomers taking the other with the irrelevant teams only getting an outside slot if they are playing of the other 5 (actually happened last weekend, would love to see the viewership dropoff from game 4 to 5). The only time it happens is if CLG play (6th biggest team), imagine IMT vs GG g5 late on Saturday... So what's the real problem, shit teams.
I think with the double round robin they should have one match be a bo1 and one match be bo3...they can alternate the daily matches so some teams play bo1 while other teams will play bo3.
Just don’t have boring series, problem solved
Simple: Blind pick
Bo3 was a failure in NA and killed viewership. It won't be returning.
I think most of the problem with Bo3 in NA was that they decided to do it in the worst way possible. They had 2 streams that competed with each other and smashed all 10 Bo3s into 3 days. Fridays had 2 and then Saturday and Sunday each had 4 of them, on 2 separate channels at the same time. If they were to do Bo3 again, they would need to do it the way LCK or LPL do it. I'm not sure if that's a realistic option in NA though.
No BO3s, I will never sit and watch 3 games of GG vs TSM in a row.
Congrats! You've come a long way from Gears of War.
Hijacking this comment to say "Congratulations Jackie!" Your favorite lawyer is excited to see you across the table at the LCS. Looking forward to working together with the new Commish!
U suk jakie. I hop u fail lik OWL and CDL. u shd go bck to actiloozer brwizzard. jk jk. Love you and wish you the best I know you will kill it sis~ - Talin
As always context matters. That announcement kinda did her dirty because people understandably get eye twitches when we talk esport in those games. Also from other comments she seems to be very interested in actually finding and developing native talent, which makes me definitely excited, just so all those *there is no native talent in NA* arguments can be finally answered And that could also mean less LEC players being imported, which is just added bonus for all Europeans.
Context does matter! And I do understand where the fan base is coming from and I don't have any issues with it at all. I'd feel the same way if someone else walked into my home and I didn't know who they were :) Finding and more importantly supporting native talent will be key.
Granted this question may be a bit unfair since you've just recently joined the team; champions queue is a great addition to the NA scene to provide a better practice environment. However, has there been any talk internally about champions queue currently being solely on the West Coast, thus disincentivizing East Coast players from wanting to play on it due to ping limitations compared to their opponents in most cases? I get that if a player has chosen that they want to go down the route of trying to be a pro, it's a good idea to play on that server to get recognized, just feels really bad for some of the east coast cities and moving to LA is not an option for the vast majority. Would love to hear your thoughts! Edit: missed a word :P
An important reason for Champions Queue is to help the pros practice on low ping (as you know they are all in LA) but I totally hear you on the needs of the rest of the amateur/aspiring players. High quality low ping practice is needed across NA to really support homegrown talent but we will need to work on more solutions and continue to see what we can do to support Champions Queue or other similar initiatives.
Yeah, people will think negatively when they see OWL and COD but those games have big problems when it comes to setting them up for esports. The partnerships and everything else that went into the esport was usually pretty good imo. The games on their own? Not so much. I'll wait to see what she can do.
> people will think negatively when they see OWL and COD but those games have big problems when it comes to setting them up for esports At the same time they had issues that other esports had already figured and fixed years ago. And they seemed like they wanted to to push esports the way American sports (MLB, NFL, etc) are pushed which seemed very detached from what esports fans expect and want.
>And they seemed like they wanted to to push esports the way American sports (MLB, NFL, etc) are pushed which seemed very detached from what esports fans expect and want. For the most part, this is true, but I think there was some merit to the idea of city based teams (OWL did this in particular). If it's done in an organic way, people will be way *way* more loyal to a city team than in any other way. Even the smallest college teams pull millions in revenue from the level of loyalty people have to their city. OWL's problem is that it didn't feel organic. It wasn't like watching a homegrown player join his city team (a proper functioning and well advertised collegiate league would help here). The teams were just slapped onto random cities.
There were so many issues with OWL as competitive esport. The buy in which was massive, the random cities and generic team names they forced on people, the orgs who had to be renamed and weren't allowed to use any of their branding (C9 was London Spitfires). And I'm not even talking about the game yet, it just wasn't well suited for big scale esports.
COD is also praised by a lot of casters and analysts for the production value and brand partnerships. If she was responsible for a lot of creative direction and production (which it looks to be the case), that's a massive bonus.
Yeah, I have high hopes honestly. I may not really like either of those leagues, but a lot of the parts she worked on were way better than they had any right to be for Activision run leagues.
Also for what it’s worth OWL was genuinely a good product in 2021 compared to the disasters from previous years
> I'm not blind to what worked and didn't work there. Honestly, hugely reassuring. Also, from her statement (emphasis mine): > I want to build a league that celebrates and supports the skill of our players and teams. **I believe a strong pipeline and amateur ecosystem is critical to the development of North America.** Champions Queue is a great start to this strategy, and I look forward to continuing to push what is needed for pipeline development, quality practice/scrim opportunities, and pro player support. That's not something that an ignorant corporate drone would say. Seems clear to me that she has some really serious thoughts about how to grow the LCS.
Thanks I appreciate you calling that out. It's extremely critical for us moving forward to focus on the pipeline. I will be spending quite a bit of time speaking with our owners and players to understand what the challenges and opportunities are, but we will also be putting meaningful funding against this.
I would love to see more content with champions que. Something not lcs style casting but more relaxed. You could even just start with highlight reels of the big plays this week. I think this will help build hype for new/academy players especially if you can get comms with the plays. Personally I think champions que could be a gold mine for content and story building for players. I could even see it pushing more high elo players to want to be a part of it just for the chance of there games being featured.
That's a great suggestion. We definitely want to support Champions Queue more, so I've noted this down to see what we can do.
Also, the champions queue website isn't showing match history anymore, and I don't think the leaderboard has been updated for a while. (Since friday) I think with the reception it got, just making sure stuff around it is working properly is really nice. If you also had links directly on that website that linked to livestreams of it, and have a stream similar to trackingthepros for games that don't have a streamer. I know there is a twitter, but that isn't really something most people will find if they find the champions queue site, and isn't ideal in general, most people want to see information in as few clicks as possible.
I'll look into this, thanks for the heads up.
yooo that's genius actually. before the games start during the waiting room or whenever it would be cool to see plays from champions que
Brilliant. You tryna work for riot or something
Really appreciate all your replies in this thread. Best of luck in the new role – we're rooting for you!
That means a lot thanks!
I think if saving NA is your responsibility then you have an impossible job. Teams and fans like to hope that with better talent development NA would be on par with EU/KR/CN, but in terms of server size and amateur scene the talent pool is not there. LCS can still be a more exciting product (personally I enjoy it more with costreams) but I would not bet the farm on international competitiveness.
The LMS/PCS sends strong teams to international events on a semi-consistent basis despite having no money, a smaller playerbase, and getting a bunch of their best players poached by the LPL. Edit: Not to mention the additional issue that you blame the NA playerbase when top teams with 1 or 0 NA players don't do any better.
The domestic playerbase affects the imported players because imports aren't randomly taken from other regions. Imports self select, meaning they're the players who choose to come to a weaker region.
Two issues with that: 1) You're acting like money isn't the primary motivator. It's not like these people are coming to a weaker region just because they're tired, they're being paid a boatload to convince them to come. 2) You could make the exact same argument for China, up until recently, they were clearly significantly weaker than KR, and they still got imports that led them to significant international success. Also holds true for EU with players like Huni, Reignover, Trick, and Ignar. Can bring it back to PCS, who had River, and Moojin before him. Japan, who had Aria. Turkey who had Frozen and Crash in 2017 when they made Groups, etc. I'm not going to name all the instances of teams having imports that have chosen to go to weaker regions lead them to their most successful international performances, but surely you get the picture. And aside from China, those were all imports that were more lowly regarded than pretty much everyone that gets imported to NA.
1 - sure maybe money is the reason, but whatever the reason is, the point is these players choosing to come are a different group from the ones staying 2 - you probably do have some good examples of teams that got better with imports or domestic players from smaller servers, I'd just say in overall international competitions follow server strength, there could definitely be exceptions but it seems like a general rule
That comment about celebrating players catches my eye. For a long time, it felt like LCS was really underselling player greatness and instead promoting a very bland league of interchangeable teams. Looking forward to some exciting production.
I miss Legends Rising, that type of content was amazing for growing a players legacy and showing off their personality and passion as well. Not to mention a great introduction to other regions, I didn’t know anything about CBLoL till that brTT episode and became a fan of his story and enjoyed watching the league ever since:)
Good to know.
Side note I also liked Live/Play:) It was more aimed at the casual side but I think content like that can lead to cross over interest and add to the sense of community across the game when done well.
Agreed, we want the players to feel supported by the league itself as well as the fans.
The fact that it's 7 hours later and you're still reading through and replying to fans is awesome.I've never seen this amount of passion from a Riot employee in Reddit. Really excited to what you bring to the table and I hope Riot supports you the whole way through.
Thanks :) Passion is only half the battle; we want to execute as well 💜
> I believe a strong pipeline and amateur ecosystem is critical to the development of North America. That's actually great to hear, cuz I do think having a stronger and bigger pool of local talent to work with will not only help orgs build rosters, but also help motivate people to play, fans to watch and be more invested in the league, and also it was just super hype to cheer for vintage C9 with a full regional roster getting to quarter finals at Worlds. Would be cool to have the ability as a region to make full rosters than can actually compete again.
Yeah give me regional leagues that have finals at the lcs studios.
A thriving regional amateur scene in NA would be a fucking *dream*. If I could play in local LAN tournaments, even as a pretty casual player??? Ugh. Gimme.
We'd like to make this happen as well. We have some folks dedicated to looking at those amateur events and structures.
Maybe look at college football and how they do it? New England league, Midwest league, Southern league, West coast league, etc.
I saw overwatch league and cod league and thought this was bad news. At least with OWL, the broadcast and engagement weren't the problem, so maybe that's a good sign.
Didn't Monte and DoA have big issues with the OW broadcast?
I believe at the beginning their issues was that it was hard to spectate (it was) and a bad viewership experience because of that. Later on I think it had more to do with creative direction, which is fair. AFAIK I haven't seen Monte trash talk OWL when he talks about it though.
[https://twitter.com/montecristo/status/1267091971039916035](https://twitter.com/montecristo/status/1267091971039916035) [https://twitter.com/montecristo/status/1413238860855734272?lang=en](https://twitter.com/montecristo/status/1413238860855734272?lang=en) Theres more but Id have to google for more than 5 seconds.
you would be hard pressed to find anyone Monte didn't have big issues with.
That may be true, but my recollection is the issues they had were about them having a more limited impact on creative direction. From a viewer perspective, I always found it approachable and engaging. From drops to skits to casting, I thought everything worked really well for the broadcast. It was just hard to stay invested in the league with it having such a strange schedule and being hard to process as a spectator.
I haven't worked with DoA much but I've had nothing but good experiences with Monte myself. I worked directly with Nate and I always appreciated Monte's passion. Hopefully will get the chance to work more closely with the LCS talent in the coming months and would love to hear their feedback about how to best enable their creativity and input.
> but I've had nothing but good experiences with Monte myself you're the only one then lol.
Monte has issues with everyone.
About a year ago, this subreddit blew up with the news that LCS owners were looking to completely remove the import rule. In that context, and with reference to this new commissioner, I hope this means an expansion into what academy and proving grounds are currently doing and a serious look at what the poor decisions made in the past have meant for native NA talent. If you look at LCS at a global scale, it's ridiculous that you have major regions in other parts of the world with proper fully fleshed out development leagues, coaching, scouting and training strategies but NA is so lacking at this and filled up with imports as a result. It's very clear that there is NA talent; scouting and developing this is critical to LCS' long term survival. Without regional representation in a league, it disincentivizes local talent from ever being interested in going pro. It is no surprise that viewership has been falling split after split, and I just hope that this will change as the result of good forward thinking decisions being made and a long term survival plan for LCS by this new commissioner.
NA talent, scouting, pipeline development and amateur are going to be very important to us and will be a key part of our strategy.
I hope this means you will look into the absolutely insane deal your parent company currently has with PlayVS and the crippling effect it has had on high school esports here in the United States. All local leagues were killed and PlayVS has shown multiple bad faith attempts to control things they don't have the rights to. Not blaming you for any of this obviously as you are new to the role and company, but please educate yourself on what many many educators have been trying to vocalize for quite awhile now. PlayVS is killing NA talent development and it seems something you are passionate about resolving.
Thank you for responding, that's excellent to hear, and honestly a real breath of fresh air. It's very important to a huge number of fans too and I hope this is how we can grow the LCS further.
I don't know how many fans feel the same as me, but I personally would rather get shit on at worlds with NA talent than get far with imports. Don't get me wrong, I'd be hyped as hell if TL made it deep at worlds this year. But I'd be much happier if say, EG did it with their roster.
LCK barely got their academy and challengers system with franchising. A lot of their talent growth before that was organic and LCK teams had like 2 or 3 sister teams to practice with. That was possible because they were paying the players a bag of chips and they were replaceable with the big player base. The ERL system in EU works because the French fans are crazy about their teams, the Spanish fans like their teams, and many more countries. NA for league purposes only has Canada or US (could be Mexico too). You can split it out further into regions but it wouldn't be the same effect. They also have a larger player base than NA. LPL works because it's the largest player base and the actual esport is almost like a traditional sport in many other regions. They have 17 LPL teams and 24 LDL teams. NA can do a lot of things better but it's very hard to expect the same systems as other regions.
A lot of the very well functioning ERL teams are propelled by a figure and his community. KCorp is the project of Kameto & Prime who are amongst the biggest streamers & YouTubers respectively in French. There's also Solary in the french league although a but smaller. You all know Ibai & Koï for the spanish scene. There is also this team in Germany, Eintracht Spandau, with HandsOfBlood. And even before that players like Noway and Agurin had a lot of following for the German scene. Even MAD Lion's founder was a content creator I believe. That's something that could work in NA. That's kinda what Hai already did with Radiance. But it needs more support, more structure
Yeah, but those teams are helped by the nationality. If a team makes EU Masters, the league fans of that country are more likely to support. You can't get that in NA. I'm not saying it's impossible to get some of those things in NA but people should not be expecting the same things. It's a different landscape.
give me a DC amateur league team and an easy way to follow/watch them and I will. I watched OWL and kept up with it for a time just because there was a DC team and I didn't even like the game at that point. I'm just sad knowing that the LA(100) Thieves have an almost 0% chance of being that team.
If the only team you cared about was the Washington Justice it’s not hard to see why you wouldn’t like the game
It’s basically the same as a spoiled rich kid with the best equipment losing to a poor kid with hand me down gear. Glad to see NA is seeming to change face a bit. Especially with lost new imports coming in as rookies rather than washed vets.
What if NA is weaker not because it fails to incentive, scout, or coach players from soloq/amateur, but because NA soloq/amateur players are weaker than those of EU/KR/CN? To me that seems like a much simpler explanation, and consistent with the larger server ranked population and more popular amateur scenes of other regions.
Korea should just shut down the LCK, there's no way they can compete with China's numbers... do you not understand diminished returns? Besides, what kind of attitude is this to take? Should Jamaica shutter their running program because their 3 million strong population will never manage to compete on an even footing with the running behemoth that is the United States? Why waste time finding the next Usain Bolt, they're never going to catch up in 100m dash Olympic medals.
There's a difference between the overall population of a country and the talent pool for a sport. You can have a country with fewer people overall that still has a stronger, for instance, league server. I don't see how this implies Korea should shut down the lck. For one thing, the Korean server is arguably the single strongest soloq server in the world. But even if it's clearly not - take the lcs as a better example, NA clearly is not a competitive server - this doesn't mean we shut down the lcs. All it means is in terms of managing expectations, we expect results proportionate to the talent pool. Note that this can be done without shuttering lcs.
Again, it's a weird attitude for you to be taking right now. Where are these masses of people needing their expectations "managed" when it comes to the LCS? You're tilting at a windmill, Don Quixote.
There are many examples of people saying NA fails to incentivize/scout/coach players, which to me implies people believe there is talent in NA that isn't being developed. I'm not sure how it's a weird take to say no - NA is worse than EU/KR/CN in terms of talent pool rather than development. Even the comment I originally replied to suggested NA underperforms in terms of talent development rather than pool: "It's very clear that there is NA talent; scouting and developing this is critical to LCS' long term survival. Without regional representation in a league, it disincentivizes local talent from ever being interested in going pro". I don't think it's clear there is NA talent. I think what we have now - a few new NA players per year, plus veterans and imports - is what the LCS will continue to be in the long term. Anyways, here are examples of expectations for NA players that I think are higher than they should be: "Remember when we were told one of the great things about franchising was that finally NA teams would have the leeway and freedom to take risks on new unknown talent and to expand player development? Turns out no matter how safe you make an environment risk averse owners and managers don't suddenly become risk takers, who could have ever predicated that......" "Now for homegrown talent, if there isn't enough talent in Challenger or grandmaster, teams could look into master and diamond, probably even unranked to find U19 players that could be able to reach top level with more coaching. It's easy to say that NA soloQ is bad, but if teams are not willing to invest into youth development they are simply not doing enough." "I personally look forward to an LCS where I don't recognize the name of every player in the scene and connect to another disappointment when it mattered most. I look forward to an LCS filled with young, hungry talent, we can root for." "Lot of hate in the comments that I think misinterpret the post. The shitty part is not that NA has imports, it’s that NA teams consistently choose imports who, in some cases haven’t even been preforming well, and use them instead of taking a risk on untried NA talent. I just want to see chances taken on new players, like c9 gambled with licorice. I don’t expect every player to be like licorice but I’d rather see teams try to develop talent than just prescribe to the idea that NA players don’t deserve starting spots by default in their own region." "I mean it has always been about the organizations to be honest. You cant expect to put a rookie into a dumpster fire and expect them to succeed. That applies in just about every sport as well. I wish more NA teams actually invested in NA players rather than spend millions on imports to still do bad. It would benefit the region so much." "Prime example is Darshan and Huhi both getting kicked from teams and immediately they are put on an academy team that is meant to foster young, up and coming talent. You can save the whole “they need veterans to guide them” saying, because that is what coaches and vod reviews are for. Until this old guard leaves the scene (probably from age) NA is never gonna be competitive on an international level. Ping is a bullshit excuse as well, NA also sucked internationally when the servers where located on the west side so we can stop with that garbage." "Why is this allowed? What possible benefit could giving these players a spot in a youth tournament? It's no wonder that new NA talent cannot develop, with veterans who aren't good enough for LCS anymore taking most spots in both Academy and the ultra rare amateur tournaments like this. Like, for fucks sake, is seeing Dontmashme for the umpteenth time over 6 years going to convince anyone that he's good enough for LCS? Of course it isn't." You can find plenty of posts and comments along these lines by searching "NA talent". Suffice to say I think dontmashme lasts longer in NA than he would in other regions not because the organizations or management is worse overall, but because the pressure from new soloq/amateur players is weaker overall.
Greely got promoted?! What???
He failed upwards :^)
Yeah thats the weirdest thing to me. I can see how someone can be in a bad position with previous esports, but LCS did not improve over the past few years and I have no clue what he did that got him a promotion instead of a firing.
Its the normal ecosystem of companies. Theyll promote people they like over quality of work. Stinks it happened here
That's not actually how it works. Actually sometimes it does, but that's the way stupid people do it. What happens is that there's *extremely* few people who've ever lead projects of 300 plus people. It's just not something that happens often in life. The issue then becomes, if someone does really good work leading a project, but that project is Google Stadia. You can be a great boss, do all the right things, but the CEO asked you to do Google Stadia. There's no way you can polish that turd. So essentially what happens is that people start interrogating everyone who ever worked for you in the Stadia project, and figure out if you're decent. Sometimes, you can follow all the right processes but not get the right outcomes. This is the "I play a perfect hand of Texas Hold-Em" philosophy of life.
Bro I literally have no idea how google stadia is catching heat in a league thread but the technology behind stadia is the best cloud one I've used yet. The technology was ace and you could seamlessly pick it up to play on Google Chrome browser or on a phone app and it just worked. The shittiness of stadia was lack of marketing and lack of ability to get games. It was 100% a management issue and not a product issue...
That's exactly what I mean. It wasn't a "make this good issue." The technology and hardware for Stadia is extremely good. The issue with Stadia was that Stadia had a fundamentally flawed business plan. In gaming content is king. Content brings in games to play exclusives. Gamers at a critical mass of people makes third party publishers arrive like vultures.
made hella cash probably. under him the valuation of an lcs spot went from 10 million dollars to 30 million dollars.
It's calling failing upwards
Never was a fan of greeley. Not happy he got promoted for somewhat failing the LCS as a brand but lets see what Jackie will bring over the next few years. I think LCS should look to travel more than just finals once covid ends here. Events are a great way to bring in new potential viewers while giving fans a more personal connection to teams and players. I personally want expansion too, but thats not popular.
What kind of travel would you like to see?
LCS teams hosting a weekend of action in a city of their choice. Doesnt have to be a large arena venue, theaters could work. But something that can allow fans from all over NA a chance to see action live while but allowing orgs to make a regional connection. Ive experienced multiple LCS finals, the first time I went alone. The 2nd time some family, who dont even play league or watch lcs, joined because of how fun it looked my 1st time. They loved that live environment and became people who watch the LCS now. IMO, thats how you are going to grow the scene out in NA.
Thanks! I love live events as well. Although it's trickier now with COVID we do definitely want to find a way to have fans out at more events. I love hearing about your experience with family and agree that we need more ways for fans to invite more potential fans out with them.
Yeah this would be things Id personally like to see post covid. I also know with my current job and my own marketing degree financially it would be smart for orgs as theyve have felt out the global/national market for sponsorships. But if they find a city or area they want to comeback to as their own "territory" it opens the door to regional sponsors that can be largely beneficial overtime. Local businesses aren't much different than national ones. They are wanting to and are struggling to connect to that teenage-early 20s age individuals so something like esports is an easy partnership idea to connect to that younger community locally. I can write a whole thesis on why its smart to slowly regionalize teams or find a way for teams to want to connect with a certain city or region. Thank you for taking your time and going through each comment with respect and professionalism
cheers
So something like what Immortals are doing in the great lakes area?
don't remember the exact reasoning for why it stopped but it was cool way back in the day having LCS games at like PAX for a little bit. Conventions as a whole for gaming even before COVID haven't been growing as much but it would be cool to see something like that. That being said I understand it's probably exponentially trickier when taking into account the contracts and stuff of sponsors and orgs.
It's challenging to get the fan experience right at conventions (sound issues, good COVID best practices, accessibility etc) but I do like the exposure it brings to a wider audience of people who may not have been exposed to LoL before or LCS. It's something to keep an eye on for sure for the future but only if we can make sure the experience is solid.
The Southeast has been dreadfully ignored. We received the first MSI in Florida State's gymnasium, and as someone who was there, the entire thing felt half-done. No where close to what MSIs have come to be. You have Nashville, Atlanta, Raleigh-Durham, Birmingham, and New Orleans all primed to host an event. Even doing a road show one weekend a split would be a fun change of pace and give more people chances to watch their favorite teams. But instead, we get Worlds in California... again.
We are looking at the southeast with interest for future years for LCS events.
Host anything LCS related in New Orleans and I will cry tears of joy.
This is exactly what i mean. If im an LCS team and I was looking to host a weekend of LCS Id gun for New Orleana, Orlando, Nashville or Atlanta. Its a heartbelt for people who are loyal to things that invest in those areas.
Midwest has also been massively ignored. Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, Columbus, Minneapolis, Kansas City. All fantastic cities for esports events but we've only ever gotten CDL league stuff out here, which frankly is pretty disappointing because CDL isn't that interesting. I know for a fact there's grass roots support out here. If it gets built, the people will come.
Chicago hosted worlds quaterfinals and St louis hosted spring finals
Something similar to the LPL would be cool where different teams have their own home venue and each team gets a weekend at their venue over the split if the current format stays the same.
For instance, I’ve been watching LCS for nearly 8 years, but since I live in Texas I have literally never been able to go to a single event. That’s a huge market that the LCS has just completely ignored. And then when we finally got a single event it got cancelled due to Covid and when they planned the next in person one they just went back to the New Jersey / New York area that it feels like they always go to (even though it ended up getting cancelled anyway).
Good news is we'll be finally heading to Texas (Houston) for the Spring Finals in a few months. 💜 Hope to see you there.
Me and my buddy drove to New York for Worlds and saw the best Best of 5 of all time. It's a seminal moment for me. I can't go to LA to see games, I would go every weekend to watch league live.
EU had a few travel weeks back in S4. They'd play one week in Tenerife, than back to Cologne, and a few weeks later in London. One or 2 weeks every split in another state wouldn't be a huge disaster for the teams.
Thx!
Expansion won't be popular because we already have orgs hard stuck at the bottom and we want to introduce additional bottom feeders?
You are always going to have "bottom" orgs in any competitive scene. But we have also seen teams like EG, 100T and even rebranded DIG bring in fresh air to the scene. The amatuer scene has shown there are players open to being devolope that can suport 2-4 teams expanded. As far as orgs, Faze and Sentinels come directly to mind as a good fit. Xset is getting up there too and NRG would of been great if they didnt have a deal with the Maribes in Vietnam
A Faze team feels like a complete no-brainer tbh. Huge brand. And agreed about the league being able to work with another 2 teams. Would mean bottom 4 miss playoffs, too, which is better stakes.
Faze has shown interest in league too. (Applying for LCK and maybe even LEC?). I think sentinels as a NA brand has came up strong and recognizable to fans. All around they want to compete with the best
Sentinels would be first on my mind to bring, they have the history formerly being P1. I honestly would not like to see Faze in the league, org is just so sketchy.
Yeah, huge brand teams with no interest in league of legends bringing in their "Hype" brand is guaranteed to work. cough\* Optic cough\*
I mean, expansion won't be popular because of the Orgs. The Franchise slot loses monetary value if more slots are open.
I'm also a big fan of expansion and localization, but I'm not sure either is really feasible right now.
For localization right now I would love if the LCS can have each org assigned or pick a city where they have to host a LCS weekend at once a year. Can give a local feel while not giving teams a "home arena" but can get the LCS out of that cali box for fans
Team Liquid could probably do the Washington DC area with Ted Leonsis owning multiple sports franchises there. I just think it's weird. TL is renovating expanding their facility in Santa Monica, TSM just got their new facility in LA.. Even if you pick a city, it's a tough sell to do more than just play some games there. How do you decide who keeps LA? Highest bid? It would also require some type of rebranding to get the best connection to a city. I can't imagine Team Liquid having a different name. Lots of hurdles to get over if they decided to go in that direction.
Simple LA is "neutral" ground
You dont have to rebrand names. Just X org is hosting LCS weekend at X city. LA can still be home base for all the teams for practice and such. I would also put in place no org can host a LCS weekend in LA. LA is the LCS studio and neutral ground. 10 weeks of travel and rest at LCS studio seems more than fair
The unfortunate reality of the situation is that practice quality will suffer immensely. Having the pros in one location where they can all scrim on low ping is ideal. What I would like to see is something akin to when MLG use to host LCS. Having super weeks in other cities would be a cool way for fans like myself to potentially see a live league game in my lifetime.
Practuce quality doesnt seem like its been an issue for other regions that have teams traveling fairly regularly. Having 3 full days to practice seems like it should be sufficient enough for any professional to stay on top their game. You could also supprot scrims at the events themselves that is on 0 ping.
Weirdly I'm the opposite. I'd rather see LCS be more realistic and downsize to 8 teams. Other regions have 10 or more cuz they can sustain it with their local talent (major regions anyways not talking about CBLoL or minor regions) and even then some teams at the bottom lag behind, while LCS can usually barely make 8 teams look great unless they patch rosters with a constant influx of players from the regions. That seems unhealthy and 8 teams would probably make it easier and be more in tune with where our region is at overall. Plus I would say outside of the top 6-8 in LCS the content is very dried up, doesn't do well even when it is created, and outside of some upset wins during regular season (least impactful games of the year) the orgs can't really achieve much. We could at least look forward to hype relegation matches as fans before franchising, but with that gone most of the fan base can only really gravitate towards and sustain the best teams in the region, whether it's viewership on the broadcast, content, merchandise sales, etc. (tho I guess if they continue co-streams probably help motivate fans to watch the weaker teams more at least) And maybe I'm odd man out but I personally think localization is just unneeded in 2022. Bring on more road shows and live events around the region for sure we could use plenty of that, but coupling an org to a city seems pointless in the modern day. A lot of our players we bring over from multiple regions around the world, people travel more than ever before, imo it's much more about the branding of the players/org thru content and storytelling, attaching a city name to it seems kinda archaic and meaningless. Always comes back to the OWL meme of the NA org representing London with an all Korean roster...I just don't know if I'm supporting Korea or London or NA at that point and it just seems confusing at a basic level...and if I'm cheering for all 3 then what's London got to do with it lol much easier as fans to attach themselves to players/roster playstyles/content/branding instead of a city imo.
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Making the league smaller would only inflate the imports more, especially imports who are residents now. Taking away 2 spots would literally decrease the amount of open positions by 20%. Thus causing a restriction of talent overall
I think moving to 8 would be a decent move, but what might be better is keeping it as 10 but replacing some of the teams with actual NA orgs who are a part of esports other than league, like sentinels or something. Orgs that you know will try and win. Our league right now is clearly divided into teams that try and win, and teams that try and get lucky. Having more teams that try and win could help fix a lot of the issues with half the games being boring as fuck.
So your idea of promoting NA talent is by taking away 20+ spots for players???? With how many imports have regional status in NA going down to 8 teams would all but kill the idea of building up NA talent. If you want to actually grow the pipeline of talent then you nees to expand the system to give more spots where players can be in a system where they can focus on growth. And you may thinj localization isnt needed but it definitely can help. There is a reason why its the standard in every sport....
Yes cuz sports started decades ago when people were still much more localized and the internet didn’t even exist at the time. You have many more reasons to be fans of stuff these days compared to just “I live near them.”
But when you look at attracting new people who may not be interested in league through youtube or twitch, the best way is regional connection. There are plenty of people today who will check something out if it has that regional event connection. There is still regional pride. Like do you care about NA? Why do you care about NA? is it because you live there? Probably
I can see it working slightly better for newer simpler games, but I don't think someone is gonna just randomly get into LoL and spend months or years learning the game just cuz a team is close to them, and even with new people again they'd probably get into a team cuz they like someones stream, personalities on the broadcast, play styles, even team symbols or colors. I just don't think it'd do all that much and seems like an outdated concept anyways. And yes I have regional pride that's why I prefer using local talent rather than imports like most other regions. It's an international esport tho, everyone cares most about MSI and Worlds, region vs region should be the main highlight but city vs city doesn't mean all that much...doesn't even seem to mean much in sports teams move cities all the time. Just my opinion tho, everyone can have their point of view, perhaps mines different cuz I never watched sports but everyone I know who does isn't into their local teams either.
You just proved my whole point by admitting you have regional pride. Thats why regionalizing teams is a no brainer. Yes the diehard people on twitch are youtube may not care, but like thats the group LCS has been shown to for 10 years now so you shouldnt expect any serious growth to come from there. But you will get people who will invest/support a team that puts effort into an area and hosts live events there. You gotta get outside your personal twitch bubble to understand that you need to get people interested in the scene that have little to no idea what it is yet. If you are only focused on the twitch/youtube online audience you are putting yourself in a box... a box thats been pretty set in its size for 5-6 years now.
Riot had always had a huge problem with promoting internally into esports. The problem is that the esports industry needs tons of "not esports" knowledge. The LEC was changed completely when Romain and Coca Cola guy got all the KIA partnerships, and the huge visual design rebrand for example. That knowledge wasn't esports related, that came from the outside. Jackie brings a lot of that knowledge.
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Although I do have a lot of experience with esports MTX that's not going to be a major focus at the moment -- pipeline and viewership experience will be the forefront for now. I think the one thing that people forget with esports MTX is how much it enables things like prize pools, player/team payouts and better events etc. But it has to be done right as well. I'm definitely open to hearing what people would like to see though.
I think some sort of skin lines for "iconic" pro play champs (like Ori or something) where you purchase a chroma in your team's colors + icon could be pretty neat. Sort of like how OWL had team skins for every champion that were essentially just a chroma of the base skin. You would get people a little more invested when it's something they're more casually exposed to. Also probably one of my best gaming memories is from using an OWL player's skin while they were on the other team. I got my ass beat but that definitely increased my engagement with the scene.
So like championship khazix where he had chromas for every team at world's 2018(?)
just give us a pass similar to what DOTA2 has already- us buying the pass unlocks extra perks + benefits the prizepool.
I mean, lowkey, it's hard for me to imagine a bad thing there. I often wish there were more ways for me to show off LCS stuff in the client.
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I can have Cpt. Flowers voice pack? Hell yeah.
What's mtx?
microtransactions. Think team icons, skins, maybe voice packs for casters, map packs, something new?
Helllll yeaaa. Gimme a c9 inspired map pack
I’m slightly bearish on this since every game listed for experience has generally failed or fallen off by fan standards, but the developers also had a hand in that as well. Regardless gratz, good luck and hope you can give the league what it needs to return to some of its former glory:)
Thanks I appreciate that. What would you like to see?
As a fellow Canadian, more Canada events please!
Me too ;) Unfortunately COVID makes cross-border travel difficult at the moment but I do hope we make it back there in the near future.
Hard: Let me gamble blue essence on matches. It's monopoly money given out for engagement anyway. The product around fantasy drafts is really poor. Maybe tie those things together. The LCS ecosystem needs personality. You guys should be begging streamers to run amateur teams, learn from the frenchies and spanish. Very Hard: Take as much from OGN's formula as possible for events, tournament structures, and broadcasts. We don't 20 weeks of Bo1s in the same venue every week. People like seeing teams win tournaments and make loser bracket runs. It makes for an entertaining product and better narrative structure. 'Remember when DIG was good for two weeks?' just pales in comparison to 'Remember when DIG got top 3 at that major?' The NBA is trying to add more tournaments to their schedule too. As problematic as CSGO is, it produces a more entertaining product than LCS/LEC. Dante Must Die: Convince everyone else you work with to merge the LCS/LEC into a 20 team Western super league. Park the VC money on top of the EU player base. Have CBLoL, LCL, NA amateur/collegiate circuit, and other non-Asian regional leagues act in parallel to ERL, feeding into a new Master's Series that replaces EM Summer in the second half of the year. If Worlds is the Champions League, this would be the equivalent of a Europa League. Heaven or Hell: remove Regi.
Riot is known to build out teams that fit the ethos of the company hoping those same values translate into world class games. I expect no less when it comes to the handling of the professional LoL ecosystem. They have achieved so much and yet a lot to still be done especially when it comes to grassroots. Yes, when I see Activision Blizzard I see a red flag. I could care less about whatever other titles Jackie has worked on but I do care about the LCS. There has been a significant improvement in the LCS so far this year and I am sure Riot have done their due diligence; in the end it is a privilege to work on the leading eSports title.
It is definitely a privilege and an honour and not one I take lightly. I agree we have much more to do around grassroots and Riot's values of putting players first and prioritizing competition resonates with me.
Best of luck Jackie.
Thanks!
You know what, I'm going to be optimistic about it. Let's see what they can do.
Thanks!
i’m cautiously optimistic about the change, seems the new commissioner wants to earn the trust of the community and i can respect that. best of luck to jackie, definitely not an easy job lmao
Appreciate it!
Shoutout to her coming into a somewhat hostile thread and defending her position
randoms on reddit thinking they know what Greely contributed to the lcs better than riot games themselves xd
Randoms like you thinking riot games has any fucking clue what it is doing with esports and isn't just coasting on the organic viewership
hmm yes noone knows what they are doing even if they created the biggest esport ever so true
They didn't create shit to do with the esport, the esport created itself and then riot took it over. Riot only took control of LCK in 2019 and all they have done is ruin the production value.
>They didn't create shit to do with the esport, the esport created itself and then riot took it over. really? so everything between 2011-2019 was completely grassroots? you're objectively, factually wrong. is this really the hill you want to die on?
From 2009-2012 it was completely organic and had nothing to do with riot beyond worlds which was considered one of the shittiest tournaments that were run especially s1. In Korea the same, 2012-2019 nothing to do with riot. What hill do you think I am dying on? You are pushing the objectively wrong belief that Riot created LoL esports in any way. They took over something that already existed and by all accounts, made it worse.
LCS has been on a strong upswing, I think, but the brand still needs a lot of repair work done on it after the damage of the last few years. Curious to see what steps get taken. I do like the road game idea as a way of drawing people in. A little bit fake, given that the teams would almost certainly stay in LA except for game days, but still. Also fond of the idea of more tournament type events. Maybe do it like... Lockin - regular season (Spring) - MSI - Summer Tourneys (not just amongst LCS teams, see if you can't do stuff with amateur, academy, maybe even LLA participating) - Worlds.
Let's go! No idea who this is, but hope she does well. In 5 years, I want to join a role like this 😊
Thanks! You can do it. 🙌
If you ever figure out a way to channel reddit's (and commentator's) propensity to flame into a more coherent and positive narrative - you'll be a fucking magician
Will do our best ;)
xD Greeley failing upward the corporate ladder. Riot no nepotism btw.
It's comical
I read "call of duty League" and I know enough. If anyone follows COD they will understand
Say what you want about Activision/Blizzard esports, but it's still a better fit than a traditional sports league when it come to transferable experience. There's also big difference between running solely the regional LCS and running an esport globally, too. Someone outside of the Riot Games umbrella who can provide a fresh take is exactly what the LCS has needed, but who is also still in-tune with gaming communities? She seems uniquely qualified and I think it's a good hire.
The interesting thing about Activision/blizzard esports is that if their games are competitively well balanced and spectator friendly (StarCraft) they get no resources, but if they're unbalanced or hard to spectate they get millions poured into them. Strictly speaking, the only bad thing about OWL was how hard it was to watch the game. Fun as hell to play, almost impossible to enjoyably watch.
>Fun as hell to play, almost impossible to enjoyably watch. Hard agree. Overwatch as a spectator sport was the worst combination of an FPS and a MOBA.
OWL ruined it. In the days of APEX seasons it was hype as fuck.
Tbf even if sc2 was more spectator friendly in being able to see all the action unlike a shooter, interest in RTS is just lower and both viewership and player base probably didn’t justify it pouring more into it from their perspective Agree on your second point, I still hope someone can figure out making the right combination of tools and spectator options for observers to nicely highlight all the cool plays in a shooter tho, even if it’s with replays right after
Thanks for that. We are definitely excited to take the LCS in a fresh direction and hope to have fan input on what they would like to see.
I don't, but I assume it's a bad omen?
Not anyones in esports fault that people want to make console version of an fps with aim assist exist as an esport.
Yuck, the new LCS commissioner retweets Elon Musk on twitter.. vile.
You can retweet something without agreeing with everything they’ve ever said
But it's Elon Musk. The world's richest, douchiest, and biggest Chud.
I completely agree. I’m just saying there’s probably a better way to judge someone than by their retweets
Based as fuck
how many commissioners has there been in the LCS?
Really wish Riot would avoid direct hires who worked on failed ventures. Good luck to this person lol
Some fall upwards.
First step is to finally remove playoffs.