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Riot Games Must improve their Western Infrastructure in Order to Compete

Oct 15, 2024

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On Sunday, November 10, 2019, nearly five years ago in Madrid, we witnessed the last instance of a Western organization coming close to achieving the highest level of success in League of Legends eSports.


Since then, despite being dedicated and committed, European or American teams have not come close to replicating G2's run from half a decade ago. If Fly Quest, North America's top seed and the only Western team left, manages to secure a handful of tier 2 turrets against Gen.G this Sunday, it would be considered a successful achievement.


The international tournaments for two major regions are on the verge of reaching an apocalyptic state, which could impact viewership, sponsorship, and competitiveness in the years ahead.


Since the Summer 2020 split, LEC views are down from around 40 million to 28 million. Peak viewership is also down from around 1 million to 600 thousand, negatively affecting prize pools. The viewership of LCS has significantly decreased, dropping from 33 million to 10. The North American competitive landscape is close to undergoing a major change, transitioning into a Northern and Southern Conference that includes teams from South America.


Europe has turned into a region dominated by a single team. This dominance can negatively impact the region's performance in international tournaments as the teams may not be adequately challenged to improve their skills to compete with the likes of Korea and China.


Not only a problem in eSports but also evident in traditional sports like football. For instance, PSG (the football team, not Talon) has consistently failed to meet expectations in European competitions despite their strong performance in domestic leagues.


In order to sustain the eSport industry, it is essential for both the American and European regions to cultivate local talent whilst also nurturing established professional gamers' abilities.


What practical changes can be made by Riot to enhance the regions and elevate them to a point where they are no longer consistently viewed as the underdog? What are the limitations that both regions face?


The Limitations

Simply put, eSports has become an integral part of everyday life in countries such as South Korea. In other words, they are highly embraced by society and serve as a primary means of social interaction among people.


To put things into perspective, there are more PC cafés in South Korea than there are Starbucks in the US. They offer an affordable social space for gamers to interact with friends. In the early days of League, certain cafes encouraged customers to return by offering IP boosts and unlocking all champions for every game mode. In China, over 20% of the population utilizes PC cafés, with 70% of them engaging in computer gaming, although for different reasons (PCs being considered a luxury rather than a commodity).


Korean PC Bang, Source: Business Insider


Unless there is a significant shift in culture in the West, Eastern teams will continue to hold this advantage.


Moreover, professional players typically experience ping rates of 7-11ms in Korean and Chinese solo queues, nearly equivalent to playing on a LAN server. In contrast, North American and European servers have ping rates of approximately 67ms and 20ms, respectively. In a game where precise reaction times are crucial and can be hindered by an internet connection, this distinction is significant.


It is impossible to solve this issue unless Riot Games decides to divide the regions to improve players' ping, which would result in longer queue times in higher elo due to fewer players on each server.



What can be done?


Client Spectator

In order to grow the competitive community, more players need to be exposed to competitive gameplay. One way to achieve this is to include an in-game spectator mode on a delay for professional matches embedded within the Riot Client rather than clicking on a link. In other competitive games like Counter-Strike, this feature is available, enabling players to spectate a specific player and gather additional insights not typically provided in a standard broadcast.


While this notion has been discussed in the past, having an in-game spectator mode has the potential to bring more exposure to the average player.


In addition, it would enable spectators to focus on specific roles. For instance, if a player primarily plays in the top lane, they would have the option to concentrate solely on that role, matchups, and how professional players approach certain situations.


The drawback of this approach would be that live streams would lose revenue and viewership. However, if there were more in-game advertisements scattered across the rift, would this be able to counteract it?