
Riot tells pro League of Legends players they can’t stream competing games - protomyth
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/12/riot-tells-pro-league-of-legends-players-they-cant-stream-competing-games/
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weixiyen
Currently, pro gamers have a lot of downtime between League of Legends games
due to having to queue up for a game after finishing a previous one.

These queue times range anywhere from 10-25 minutes on average, during which
here is literally nothing to do besides playing other games, like Hearthstone.

I don't think Riot thought this one through. Instead what they should do is
figure out a way to fix the queue times at the highest level, and this would
honestly not even be a problem. At this point, they just appear overly
controlling.

~~~
chc
There really isn't a way to fix those queue times, though. When you have a
small player pool (like you do on the far end of the skill curve), you have
two choices: Accept long queue times or accept the likelihood of wildly
unbalanced matches.

~~~
jsnk
Gamers understand that Riot has no way to shorten the queue time dramatically,
and that's ok. That's not the root of the problem. The root of the problem is
Riot's attempt to prohibit players' behavior to the point where people would
consider to be way too invasive and way out of the norm.

With this event going forward, I just hope that the progamers get paid more
for agreeing to this clause. This is pretty ridiculous.

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saraid216
I'm not familiar enough with physical sports to know: do professional sports
organizations generally do this kind of restriction? Worldwide? Is there any
kind of cross-sport prohibition? I could believe it, since I've never actually
seen or heard of players showing off without a contract of some kind... and
yet, that might simply be because I don't hear about it.

~~~
thedufer
This would be an appropriate comparison if they had restricted all competitive
games (although the Hearthstone ban is fairly damning), but given that they
didn't, I think it would be more enlightening to ask if pro sports leagues
prevent their players from participating in other leagues for the same sport.

My knowledge of professional sports is pretty limited to the US, where there
is essentially a monopoly in each sport. Does anyone know about this? I
suspect soccer or cricket, both fairly international sports, might have good
examples?

~~~
slg
The answer is a big "it depends." Most times it is simply not feasible for an
athlete to participate in two different leagues in the same sport due to
either the overlap in their seasons or the geography involved (the highest
paying leagues almost all end up as monopolies in their region in that
particular sport).

One notable example is female basketball players. The two most popular and
highest paying leagues are in Russia and in the USA and have seasons that do
not overlap. It is pretty common for good players to play in both leagues. As
far as I am aware, there is no restriction on this by either league.

Another example would be in football/soccer. Player's who play in the US are
often "loaned" to teams in Europe in order for them to continue playing during
the duration of the off-season. This allows them to stay in shape, face better
competition, and improve their game. The team that receives the player will
generally pay the team that loans the player an agreed upon fee in order to
compensate them for the risk of injury. If the two teams can't agree on a fee,
the player will be prevented from playing for the second team.

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wwwwww
Riot has never heard of Deion Sanders (A professional two sport athlete in the
MLB & NFL)...

It's a shame to limit people's personal pursuits

~~~
chc
I remember there was a huge advertising campaign back in the '90s around the
fact that Bo Jackson was an all-star player in both the NFL and MLB.

~~~
dsugarman
Bo Knows

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kyrra
There was a bit of discussion about this on the subreddits for LoL[1] and
Dota2[2]. I don't think any esports fan or player is happy that Riot is going
this direction.

[1]
[http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/1s38ea/lcs_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/1s38ea/lcs_2014_contract_stipulates_players_cannot/)

[2]
[http://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/1s38uc/dota_2_censore...](http://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/1s38uc/dota_2_censored_by_riots_season_4_lcs_contracts/)

~~~
girvo
And over on /r/Starcraft. It's pretty bad, but frankly I'm not surprised. At a
convention they stopped Dota2 from being played there.. I wish I had the link
for that.

~~~
deltron
That was just recently at PAX IIRC.

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weixiyen
Update from Riot -
[http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/1sa59j/upda...](http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/1sa59j/update_on_the_lcs_streaming_policy/)

Basically, they changed the terms so players can no longer accept sponsorship
from other game companies to stream their games.

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daken
Alright so this only concerns SPONSORISED STREAMS, and it's not that big of a
deal (calming people down before they go crazy on articles that do not provide
full details to a story)

This means they can stream other games during the LCS they just can't be paid
to put company logos. It's just a commercial agreement more than anything

~~~
chc
That isn't right. These players are not allowed to stream the games at all as
long as they are affiliated with Riot. From the original source:

"onGamers has confirmed with the team representatives that LCS players are
disallowed from streaming the games listed below outright"

~~~
VintageCool
I had the impression that LCS players were only disallowed from streaming
those games if their stream advertised League of Legends content.

At the top of the Elo ladder, queue times can be up to half an hour as the
matchmaking service tries to build a fair game. Many of these pro players will
play another game (Super Meat Boy, LIMBO, Dust, Mark of the Ninja,
Hearthstone) on stream while they're in queue. This ban seems to target other
games that could be competitive e-sports, specifically the new Blizzard game
Hearthstone.

~~~
chc
> _I had the impression that LCS players were only disallowed from streaming
> those games if their stream advertised League of Legends content._

They're not allowed to stream those games if they have any affiliation with
Riot.

> _This ban seems to target other games that could be competitive e-sports,
> specifically the new Blizzard game Hearthstone._

It does lean that way, though I'm not sure there's much of a danger of
Warcraft: Orcs & Humans becoming a competitive e-sport.

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girvo
Riot are a blight on the pro gaming scene. Sigh.

~~~
jpk
Not that I agree or disagree, but as a counter-point: Riot has sunk many
dollars into organizing leagues for LoL teams, and has put on numerous high-
profile events in attempt to push professional gaming into the mainstream.

With what do you substantiate your claim.

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crazypyro
They do that because they think it makes sense financially.

They have a history of trying to corner out the market by trying to force
traditionally multi-game events into only hosting LoL and not hosting
competitors games. They aren't supporting professional gaming, they are
supporting their marketing, under the guise of helping out e-sports. This is
my opinion on the matter. Riot is also known for many shady business
practices, especially with regards to competitors, and they are also owned by
Tencent, arguably a company with one of the worst reputations in the world.

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gosukiwi
Didn't Saintvicious say it was an old contract? And they are now allowed to do
it? Confirmed on saint's stream.

