League of Legends World Championship Shows The Highs And Hurdles Of eSports

Hundreds of hours of gameplay came down to a scant ninety minutes last night as Korea’s SK Telecom SKM +1.63% T1 took down China’s Royal Club tosecure their first League of Legends World Championship and a million dollar first prize provided by Riot Games.

The Chinese champions were favored to win by all the top pros, but the public was mostly behind Korea’s third seed, SKT T1, and were proven correct with the 3-0 sweep. 13,000 fans packed into LA’s Staples SPLS -0.03% Center, rented out and turned into an eSports Valhalla for the occasion. Starting at 8 PDT, the event was more or less wrapped by midnight, but actual gameplay only consisted of three thirty minute matches which were almost entirely dominated by SKT T1, surprising, given how China’s Royal Club had performed in the rest of the tournament.

After knocking out all the North American and European teams in earlier rounds, the China vs. Korea final feeds into the narrative that Asia is simply better at professional video gaming, which has been generally true in scenes like Starcraft for years now. I would argue that it’s not simply because they’re genetically predisposed to master video games,  but rather it’s their highly regimented system of practice and team coordination that allow them to ultimately come out on top. Not to say they’re not talented, but it’s their approach to the game that gives them the edge.

But if you’ve watched this season like I have, it’s apparent that the skill level of both North American and European teams has risen dramatically as of late. European teams like Gambit and Fnatic gave many of the Asian teams a run for their money, knocking a few out themselves. America’s Cloud 9 had an absolutely stellar season in the North American circuit, but ultimately lost pretty decisively in a short best of five when it was finally time to prove themselves on the world stage.

Arguably that’s what happened to Royal Club as well. It’s hard to root for a blowout, and even the casters were openly cheering for Royal Club in order to hopefully make the series a bit more competitive. As amazing as the event was, it does feel like something of an anti-climax to watch three incredibly quick stomps rather than a nailbiting game five. Obviously this isn’t just a problem with eSports, but something all sports have to contend with, but in eSports, the length of gameplay you’re going to see is variable. Even if a basketball, baseball or football team is losing, they’ll play the whole game out. But with a game like League of Legends, in a one-day series you might have five fifty minute long matches for four hours of gameplay, or you could have three games totaling ninety minutes like we saw last night.

Those are some pretty huge financial variables for companies like Riot to have to contend with. The stream last night was assuredly watched live by a million or more, but if the event spanned eight hours instead of four, counting pre-show, analysis, and so on, that’s double the ads that could have run, double the time sponsors could have been seen, and so on. And of course there’s the cost of physically putting all of this together, and obviously a longer event would feel more “worthwhile” than a shorter one.

The final served to highlight some problems with League of Legends as a competitive game. At extremely high levels of play, the game can “snowball” to the point of absurdity. A singular mistake early on can cost a team a slight advantage that can easily be turned into a massive advantage by their incredibly skilled opponents. It would be like a football game being won or lost by the first turnover, with the other team at a permanent disadvantage from then on. Granted, this isn’t always the case, but it does happen a lot, and is certainly what we saw last night. In many of the matches of the tournament it felt like you knew who was going to win at the fifteen minute mark more often than not. It’s a fundamental structural issue with the game that may need addressing going forward.

Last year, Riot admitted that they were losing money on eSports. They simply invest in it because it raises the profile of their already hugely popular game (32M monthly players, last we heard). But League of Legends is starting to attract higher profile sponsors that could end up making things profitable eventually. For example, Riot recently partnered with Coke Zero to form a new challenger feeder league of amateur teams hoping to go pro.

Whatever the case is with the financials at present, it’s hard to argue that eSports is slowing down in any capacity at this point after watching an event like Worlds last night. 13,000 people crammed into a space normally used to host the NBA’s Lakers is impressive. So were a million watching on livestreams. So was a million dollars on the table as first prize. So were the NBA/NFL level production values that included an intro by the Crystal Method and ESPN -like pre and post-game analysis. So was the fact that this scene is so gripping I stayed up until 3AM to make sure I caught every second of it, and would have gladly stayed up until 7AM if the series went to more games.

eSports hasn’t worked out all of its kinks, but year after year the scene appears to be learning and growing, and Riot’s League of Legends is at the forefront of the movement, with other games like DOTA and Starcraft also putting on impressive shows.

It’s too early to tell what the future holds for eSports. I have a hunch it’s going to be more than just a passing fad, and at some point, we may see sold out stadium events more than only once a year. Here’s to hoping.

Download

Direct link

Download 1
Download 2
Download 3