Riot Threatens To Cancel Entire Esports Season Over LCSPA Strike

May 31, 2023 6:22 AM

Earlier this week League of Legends players voted “overwhelmingly” to strike [twitter link: @NALCSPA] over plans to make rule changes that would cut the North American Challenger’s League—which only launched last year—from 16 teams to seven. The LCS Players Association, the body representing the region’s professional players, say the plans will see an estimated 70 people—players, coaches, etc—lose their jobs. Riot, meanwhile, say the cuts were necessary to ensure the North American leagues remain “sustainable [and] economically viable”. Tensions escalated a day later when news emerged that pro teams had been actively looking “to field scab players” [twitter link: @NALCSPA], a move that the LCSPA rightly say would “put all players’ futures at risk”, as “crossing the line undermines player negotiating power”. The LCSPA met with Riot earlier today, and not long after, Riot published a long statement on their site addressing the walkout. You don’t have to read far to see that the company has decided to play hardball. [via: Kotaku]
posted by Fizz (32 comments total)

Riot Games, not a breach of public order. Although this is such.

Do you need a licence to stream games? Can the community of players arrange sponsors and prize money without the game-maker taking a cut?
posted by k3ninho at 6:27 AM on May 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

Do you need a licence to stream games? Can the community of players arrange sponsors and prize money without the game-maker taking a cut?

This idea is something that could work but is I'm sure complicated and I'm not a lawyer, so wouldn't be able to speak to the more legal stuff that would need to happen for this to work.

But that being said, it shouldn't have to fall on these players and coaches to figure out a way to play competitively and provide a living wage/salary for this form of entertainment & work. Video games, prize money and eSports competitive play shouldn't have an * that indicates exploitation and abuse of power comes with the industry.
posted by Fizz at 6:34 AM on May 31, 2023

I have a strong feeling this strike is doomed. One of the most important aspects of a strike is that whoever the striking workers are, enough people respect the picket line such that scabs who do cross the line are neither sufficient nor sufficiently capable to just replace the striking folks.

Basically, for a strike to succeed there has to be some sense of professional or class solidarity.

Gamer culture is not a paragon of class solidarity.
posted by tclark at 6:38 AM on May 31, 2023 [25 favorites]

What about the fans? Like, is eSports just a thing people do, or is there a spectator base that would be upset if their favorite players were suddenly replaced by nobodies? Or is it a thing where you root for a team, not the people on it?
posted by hippybear at 7:10 AM on May 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

The scab players would need to be good, cohesive with each other, and have practiced.

Uh, good luck to them I guess.
posted by Slackermagee at 7:10 AM on May 31, 2023 [3 favorites]

It's awfully hard to establish class solidarity when there are millions of people playing the game who all want to be the very best like no one ever was. Riot could hold a world championship with no prize money for nothing but bragging rights and people would show up. It's not like hiring construction workers where the scabs still want to get paid - there is no floor.
posted by allegedly at 7:10 AM on May 31, 2023 [9 favorites]

The key framing here is Riot is seriously trying to create a major new sports franchise. Think basketball or American football in terms of scale. That might sound ridiculous to you if you've never watched a Riot broadcast. But they're quite successful globally. The most recent Worlds tournament had 5 million peak concurrent viewers (which may be a severe undercount) and viewership over the whole tournament is tens of millions depending on how you count. Smaller than traditional sports, sure, but not nothing. This isn't some nerds playing vidya in the basement, it's an ambition to be a global sports business.

The teams are big business too. Riot charged each NA LCS team a $10M fee to join the franchise. That's not counting all the investment in players, support staff, and brand-building. Again not huge business compared to, say, basketball but it's more professional than amateur. Player salaries vary widely with reports of averages as high as $300,000. That doesn't count the streaming and side hustles.

Sadly the North American league has not quite been world tier, in terms of player quality, viewership, and everyday gamers who are playing the game. I don't know how that effects The LCSPA's bargaining power. I'm also suspicious about the long-term success of LoL; the game has been remarkably unchanging the last few years.

Riot's also a sleazy company and there's been a lot of ugly stories about how they treat professional players and employees over the years. Tencent, their parent, is no loving family either. It's worth noting how young the players are; minimum age to be in the big leagues has been 17, with players in some countries being groomed as pros a couple years before that age.
posted by Nelson at 7:15 AM on May 31, 2023 [33 favorites]

Nelson's well reasoned, clearly explained comment makes me feel like a very old man.
posted by DigDoug at 7:26 AM on May 31, 2023 [3 favorites]

with players in some countries being groomed as pros a couple years before that age.

We now tune into a very special episode of Black Mirror: League of Legends

*sighs*
posted by Fizz at 7:32 AM on May 31, 2023 [2 favorites]

There's a very good Leverage episode about it, actually.
posted by restless_nomad at 7:49 AM on May 31, 2023 [3 favorites]

I saw a movie about Korean Starcraft teams, and yeah, they were recruiting guys still in high school:

State of Play
posted by RobotHero at 7:49 AM on May 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

This is a relevant article*: Inside 'contract hell': eSports players say predatory contracts run ‘rampant’

“Tsang, 22, recalled contract offers flooding his email inbox. But rather than recalling this as some dream scenario, Tsang refers to the proposals as “contract hell.”

The offers — most of them low paying, according to Tsang — sought to lock players into a contract with one team, which would then flip the player to one of the new Overwatch League franchises for a profit. Additionally, many of these offers came with an expiration date. Tsang and his teammates were given just hours to sign, or the offer would be rescinded. Tsang, a former player on Cloud 9′s Overwatch League team, the London Spitfire, described the tactics used by teams to pressure players into signing as “pretty scummy.” Jackrabbit contract offers and other forms of chicanery have not stopped in the years since 2016.

Such tactics pervade the modern esports industry, according to over a dozen current and former players, as well as agents, interviewed by The Washington Post. Many of those interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of being blackballed by esports organizations. Even as the esports industry pushes into the mainstream and blossoms into a billion dollar enterprise, replete with organized leagues and big-name sponsors, many esports player contracts are negotiated in a manner resembling the Wild West.

Beyond time-based gimmicks, players and their agents have noted that the default contract used by the overwhelming majority of organizations — which typically contains between 30 and 40 pages of terms — allows players to be traded, even to teams based in foreign countries, without their consent. Language in this widely used template contract, a copy of which was obtained by The Post, also states that players may be terminated at any time, including during a season.”

*WashPo paywalled article but clipped the relevant bits.
posted by Fizz at 8:06 AM on May 31, 2023 [8 favorites]

I know zero about any of this - but oh my it's fascinating. Thanks for posting.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 8:09 AM on May 31, 2023

It's worth noting how young the players are; minimum age to be in the big leagues has been 17, with players in some countries being groomed as pros a couple years before that age.

Isn't that the way with all commercial sport? It certainly is the case with hockey in Canada where the grooming starts way before 17.
posted by Mitheral at 8:20 AM on May 31, 2023 [2 favorites]

Isn't that the way with all commercial sport? It certainly is the case with hockey in Canada where the grooming starts way before 17.

You're right.

And just like in youth hockey and other youth sport/competition, this kind of grooming or preparation (whatever you want to call it) can be ripe for exploitation and abuse. It's why we unions and legal protections matter when people become involved in this industry.
posted by Fizz at 8:30 AM on May 31, 2023 [4 favorites]

Isn't that the way with all commercial sport

In the top leagues of soccer/football, a 17 year old could be already close to finishing up their first decade of their professional career. LeBron James was already getting scouted by agents as a 13 year old.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 8:35 AM on May 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

It's awfully hard to establish class solidarity when there are millions of people playing the game who all want to be the very best like no one ever was. Riot could hold a world championship with no prize money for nothing but bragging rights and people would show up. It's not like hiring construction workers where the scabs still want to get paid - there is no floor.

No floor for motivation but there's a very real floor for Riot and these franchises in terms of income. For whoever is coming out to view a US team (and I'm not convinced this is a huge number, its sorta minor leagues here), who is tuning in for that but less professional.
posted by Slackermagee at 8:52 AM on May 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

Wild, live to read about a strike in an industry of which I know little and that makes it clear we’re living in the future!

(NPR had a story yesterday about a reporter learning that video games might be okay for her children to play and I almost punched the dashboard I was so mad.)
posted by Going To Maine at 9:35 AM on May 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

If you want some fan reaction, here's a Reddit search for LCSPA on the main LoL subreddit, with 6.4 million subscribers. As with all corporate-linked subreddits I would expect the company has some hand in moderating the discussion. But the conversation feels fairly free. Folks seem broadly supportive of the players. There's less discussion than I expected. I would have thought all the big players were talking up their side direct to fans via their streams and social media. Maybe their contracts make that difficult.
posted by Nelson at 10:00 AM on May 31, 2023

(NPR had a story yesterday about a reporter learning that video games might be okay for her children to play and I almost punched the dashboard I was so mad.)

This doesn't surprise me at all. Unless you're very much plugged into gaming discourse and gaming journalism (which is in a sad state of affairs just like most other media), it would be easy to think of gaming as this small thing that "only kids play". I wish more people (outside of those of us who are constantly watching Let's Play vods and twitch streams) understood how big this world is and how much money and corporate bullshit infects this realm of play. Also, its a very political space where the same kinds of ideological fights that happen in other spaces are being played out.

One of my favorite and one of the largest streamers on the planet is Hasanabi (Hasan Piker), a left wing (socialist) political streamer who advocates for all the things we need to be advocating. I strongly urge anyone who is interested in this kind of reporting and who wants to learn a bit more about streaming/gaming/political discourse to check out his twitch channel.

And here's his latest vod on the subject of this post.
posted by Fizz at 10:01 AM on May 31, 2023 [4 favorites]

Do you need a licence to stream games? Can the community of players arrange sponsors and prize money without the game-maker taking a cut?

The biggest problem is that eSports just isn't day to day profitable as an industry because outside Korea the viewership sucks. Community prize pools just aren't big enough enough to sustain an actual professional status. The guys who sold ESL got out like bandits scoring a billion and a half from the Saudis and they're probably the only people who ever made actual profit on eSports.

For the rest of the industry it's either a loss leader (LCS) or a prestige project (OWL). It's easy to have those projects when zero percent interest rates have huge amounts of money sloshing around looking for a home. Now the Fed has turned off the money tap for all the dumb shit the tech and entertainment sectors have been doing the last decade and a lot of stuff is getting shaken out. eSports will probably be one of them.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 10:10 AM on May 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

On the age aspect:

[...] on average a professional League gamer will retire by their mid-20s.

Age is of particular importance in eSports, as youth dictates two necessary factors in being a skilful player: fine motor skills and reaction time, both of which begin to decline with age.

What happens when you're too old to play League of Legends professionally? (2014)
posted by meowzilla at 10:34 AM on May 31, 2023

An Esports Team Signed An 8 Year Old, But Nobody Is Sure If It's Legal [Kotaku]

“Yes, esports pros skew young, but Deen is young-young. If H1ghSky1, who was 12 when he had to briefly press pause on his career, couldn’t do it, how can Deen? According to Team 33 founder Gallagher, it’s simple: Deen won’t technically be doing anything that constitutes work.

“Essentially, there’s no labor laws, because he doesn’t have to work. He’s just gaming... He’s waking up on Saturday morning, or he’s coming back from school at 5 PM, and he’s gaming with or without us,” Gallagher, an alternative investment firm CEO who claims his company is worth a billion dollars, told Kotaku over the phone. “We’re not flying him out anywhere. He’s not entering tournaments. He’s playing like he would play on Saturday or Sunday. We’re legally allowed to give money to him because we believe in him and we’re making an investment.””

posted by Fizz at 10:49 AM on May 31, 2023 [3 favorites]

Do these kids have representation? Who is the Jerry McGuire of eSports?
posted by banshee at 1:35 PM on May 31, 2023

Riot could hold a world championship with no prize money for nothing but bragging rights and people would show up. It's not like hiring construction workers where the scabs still want to get paid - there is no floor.

Sure but the sports comparison is also important - the best players are the best players, and people want to watch the best players. If that demand is strong enough, players have some real power, because they can break away and find other backers and take the audience with them. So I think the success of the players in organizing will depend on how much this branch of e-sports can function like sports-sports vs. just being an arm of Riot marketing.
posted by atoxyl at 2:10 PM on May 31, 2023

For the rest of the industry it's either a loss leader (LCS) or a prestige project (OWL).

This comment suggests the latter (RE: my comment) but it’s not something I know about personally.
posted by atoxyl at 2:12 PM on May 31, 2023

I don't follow e-sports at all myself, but I have some friends that do and one of the things that has struck me when they talk about it is that they are, very much, invested in the sort of personal player/team narratives of the whole thing above and beyond "i want to watch the game". They know how someone's season/year/whatever has been going, they know if they've been struggling and maybe why, they know about big triumphs and disappointments and how weird logistical shit affects players-as-people, etc.

How intense that is from one fan to the next probably varies a great deal, and I'm sure there's plenty of e-sports fans who are more on the casual side with only a general gloss on who the major personalities are. But it's definitely not a thing where the players are just fungible worker bees who can be swapped out without any social/fandom consequence. Whether those consequences are enough to truly scuttle scabby bullshit is a question I don't have nearly enough visibility on this stuff to even guess at, but it's not nothing.
posted by cortex at 2:22 PM on May 31, 2023 [4 favorites]

For some context here, NA league viewership peaked in the mid-2010s and has been declining since (because of the popularity of the game and especially of individual pro players). Riot has already mentally checked out by moving NA league's timeslot from the weekend to weekdays. As far as anyone can tell, League of Legends is in the mature phase of its lifecycle, and Riot is happy to continue to print money by selling skins, but the writing has been on the wall for a while for League esports (ugh, that word) being a mainstream thing.

TLDR: LCS is just a marketing expense for Riot, the third party teams are rarely/never profitable, and they ran out of VC money runway, so it's cut, cut, cut.
posted by The arrows are too fast at 1:03 AM on June 1, 2023

Gift link for the WaPo article about predatory esports contracts that Fizz linked above.
posted by mediareport at 4:17 AM on June 1, 2023 [2 favorites]

Well the LCS games were postponed today, as expected. Some streamers stepped into the resulting void and are putting on the Disguised Toast vs Delta Fox showmatch. Not entirely sure who all is involved but some retired LCS old-timers / popular streamers are team "Delta Fox". It's being cast (announced, play-by-plays) by two folks who are still freelancing as LCS casters, so that's a little surprising.
posted by Nelson at 3:25 PM on June 1, 2023

I got busy and stopped paying attention but apparently a week or so after the strike started the parties reached an agreement.
posted by Nelson at 11:16 AM on June 18, 2023 [2 favorites]

That's good, but worth noting there's nothing in that article about stopping high-pressure tactics to get minors to sign contracts without parental or agent oversight with a deadline of just a few hours, or the ridiculously high percentages some agencies claim the right to take, or....a lot of the other despicable practices described in that WaPo article above. Even if some companies are making moves to rein that crap in, there've been no real teeth to it. At least the Player's Association is now flexing its muscle and hopefully is educating players of all ages about how to fight back against the exploitation that's been prevalent for far too long.
posted by mediareport at 1:57 PM on June 18, 2023