1
-This is MissZammer.
-This is SummerGypsy.
-My name is EzekielChaos.
-SparklyPancakes.
TaylorSwift.
-I play Top.
-And I play Jungle these days.
-I like to support as Teemo.
-I fight for Demacia.
Oh, yeah, we're playing LoL .
I was like, "What's LoL ?"
He's like, "Laugh Out Loud?"
I was like, "No, fool!
That's League of Legends !"
Holy crud, did this suck us in
and get us connected.
-We're raging at each other.
[laughs]
-We're raging. We're laughing.
[man 1] League is something
that is not as much of a game,
but more of a place
where we can be ourselves
and enjoy what we do
and who we do it with.
[man 1] You guys ready?
-[man 2] Yeah.
-[woman 1] Yup.
-[man 3] Queue it.
-[man 1] Let's do it.
-[man 1] Here we go .
-[chimes]
-[man 1] All right we're queuing
up.
-[keys clacking]
GLHF, everybody.
[crowd cheering]
[upbeat music playing]
-[keys clacking]
-[indistinct dialogue]
-I wasn't ready.
-I can do it.
We got to gank real quick.
[man] There's always been
that parent to child stigma
of whatever you don't understand
is obviously not valuable.
A lot of parents or society saw
people as being antisocial.
"Hey, this kid is holed up
in his room playing games
and it's totally
ruining society."
-[crowd cheering]
-[upbeat music playing]
[woman] I don't think gaming
is as niche and isolated
as a lot of people think it is.
There are these really
strong human stories.
He started playing
and I found out he liked me.
We've only known each other
about a year.
Give or take.
Give or take and we're just like
brothers, so... [clicks tongue]
[upbeat music playing]
[crowd cheering]
The game is all done
through the word of mouth.
85 percent of the people who
come is through a friend.
[crowd cheering]
League of Legends has over 100
million players actively playing
every month.
That's over one percent of
people on Earth.
The nerds are coming together.
We will dominate this world.
[man] Competition and player
versus player engagement
is as old as video games
have been around.
-We don't get that competitive.
-Not a single one of us is
competitive.
We swear.
[man] It's a giant guerilla
warfare scenario
and only the smartest, strongest
and best players come out alive.
-[caster 2] Oh, my God, he wins
the game!
-[caster 1] He got it!
[female reporter]
The finals drew in 36 million.
That's more than the
Stanley Cup Finals,
the World Series
and the NBA finals combined.
[theme music playing]
[gamer 1]
I've been playing games my whole
life.
I started playing PC games
when I was about seven years old
and I thought it was
like a magic puzzle.
It just felt like
a whole new world opening up
because I had a huge passion
for games like Dungeons &
Dragons
and role-playing
games in general.
[gamer 2] The most powerful game
experience that I ever had,
even to this day,
was in a text based multi-user
game called Dragon Realms .
You could sort of boot up
the computer, log in,
and be surrounded by hundreds
of thousands of people
from all around the world
simultaneously logged in,
living out adventures in a world
with seemingly limitless
possibilities.
[gamer 1]
My parents were pretty anti
-game.
They were big on
academics and sports.
So we had pretty strict rules
in the house.
[gamer 2]
For me, it was a bit of an
escape.
and when I was really into
games,
I wasn't the best student
it became a huge source of
conflict and clashing.
[CNBC anchor]
Let's take a look at League of
Legends ,
it is one of the most popular
video games out there.
It is raking in
billions in revenue.
Riot Games is the
company behind it
and today the company is front
and center on the cover of Inc.
magazine.
Joining us now
for a CNBC Power Lunch exclusive
are Riot Games co-founders
Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill.
Brandon and Marc, welcome.
Good to have you both here.
I think one of the great
delicious ironies here
and either one of you
can pick up on this
is that neither of your parents
were all that thrilled
at the amount of time you spent
gaming as young guys.
What are you-- What do they say
now? How do you like me now?
Yeah, exactly. You know, uh,
actually my first Nintendo
was something that I won
at my first grade school raffle
because my parents
were so anti-video games
and so, you know,
we'd sort of think about it.
It was fate, couldn't
keep us away.
[Beck]
Marc and I met at a summer
program
right before college.
I was younger than him.
So I was one of the young kids
in the program.
I was like, 16.
I think he was 17 or 18,
he was about to go to USC.
And I'm like, "Oh, you're from L
.A. Oh, cool, well, me too."
And "Oh, you like video games,"
and we instantly sort of hit it
off.
[Beck] Marc had this dichotomy
of like, an Eagle Scout
who was captain of
the football team
and crushing it in school
and like, tabletop D&D nerd.
[Merrill] Brandon was a business
major and the consummate
business guy,
even from a really young age, he
was just really thoughtful about
opportunities.
[Beck] Marc and I were playing
tons and tons of games.
[Merrill] We're playing the heck
out of Counter-Strike and
Starcraft
and World of Warcraft at the
time were sort of our main
games.
But, ultimately, our favorite
game at the time was DOTA .
[man]
DOTA was a custom mod for
Warcraft 3 .
When Blizzard shipped Warcraft 3
they shipped it with a map
editor
and people would
use the map editor
to make different scenarios
that you could play on.
[Merrill] It really pioneered a
new sub-genre of real time
strategy games
by focusing on one particular
unit that was really powerful
and interesting
and then working with a team
of other people.
[voice in game]
It's come to this!
Five players was
really a lot of coordination.
That was really
fun and exciting.
[Mescon] But it
loaded really slow.
And there was a strong lack
of matchmaking,
so you could be playing
with someone who was
ten times better than you were.
[voice in game] First blood!
You had to kind of beat your
head against the wall at every
step
from hearing about the game
to getting the installation done
to downloading the map to
getting into the game for the
first time.
[Merrill] Even though it left a
lot to be desired from a service
standpoint,
DOTA demonstrated
that games as a service
was something that could work.
[keys clacking]
[Beck]
We felt like a lot of game
companies
weren't really focused
on gamers like us.
We don't want to buy a box,
play a game and be done 30 hours
later.
If the online multiplayer arena
of the game was compelling
enough,
we want to spend hundreds of
hours in it, thousands of hours
in it.
We wanted to compete as part
of a community over and over
again.
[Merrill] We then
started to ask,
"What does the future
game company look like?"
And how can we
potentially build that?
We spent nine months
putting together a plan,
trying to talk ourselves
out of it, really.
[Beck] We wanted to build a
company that unapologetically
embraced
the hardcore gamers
that might be considered niche
or a small slice
of the audience.
We had a feeling that this isn't
a particularly small niche
and there is a lot of us
and there is a lot of pain
points
that we could solve as a company
that really cared about that
type of player experience.
[Beck]
So Marc and I pulled the trigger
and we started Riot Games in
2006 in West Los Angeles.
[Mescon] It's like
the gaming company version
of like, The Mighty Ducks.
We were in this tiny office
with this stained floor
and we had one conference room
and the ceiling leaked.
[man]
I guess from the investor
perspective
it would have been described
as "capital efficient," which,
you know,
I think that in the common
vernacular that means "shitty."
We essentially had some really
passionate, really smart, really
inexperienced interns
and a couple of industry vets,
who hadn't had a lot of career
success.
[Beck] We had to learn
everything we didn't know
and do it with a very young team
and we were really nervous
because it was months before we
had a big demo
and key milestone
for the company.
Marc and Brandon
demoed the game to me
on the street in San Francisco.
He put the laptop on a newsstand
and we proceed to play
this really crude tech demo,
like the game play.
And I saw the game and I just
thought, "Oh, God, what have I
gotten myself into."
That map is awful.
It was like the-- It was so
terrible, so cheesy looking.
[Snow] It was clunky.
The interface was really bad.
The art was really bad.
But they'd managed to do more
in three months
than some of these other
companies that were paying
stupid sums of money.
And I was just like, "Wow!
This is actually pretty
compelling."
It was so ambitious.
The amount of software
that they wanted
to write was crazy.
We built matchmaking.
We built your inventory, champ
select.
We were building everything
outside of the game.
[man]
The engine was an absolute mess.
It barely ran.
You know, you can't expect that
much
of a company that's
never shipped a game,
with a President and CEO
that have never shipped a game.
There was a lot of pressure.
We have one shot at this.
that's fun,
The real problem to solve
is you have to make a game
that all these people that love
DOTA and love Warcraft
and love strategy and love
hardcore games, are going to
want to play.
[Jew]
The game was about characters.
and built mood boards of awesome
art
We basically scoured pop culture
and things that captured
powerful archetypes
from history and from folk tales
and from fables.
We took the ones that we thought
were the most compelling
and kind of added
our kind of pop fantasy spin to
them
to bring them to life
and to show a face to them
players have never seen before.
They'll be tattooed and badass
and they're kind of renegades.
And so, we needed to make 40
champions in a year and a half.
And make sure that we covered
a wide cast
so that any player
that came in could say like,
"That one's awesome,
I wanna play that one,"
then have a good time.
That was the goal.
[clicks]
[game voice-over]
Welcome to Summoner's Rift.
League of Legends is a five
-on-five game that's played
across 20 to 45 minutes.
In it, you cooperate with your
team of four other players
to try to storm the base
of your opponent's
and destroy it before they storm
your base and destroy you.
One of the closest sports
analogies for League of Legends
is basketball.
There's a map in League of
Legends called Summoner's Rift,
and that map is the same every
single time much like a
basketball court.
As far as the game
play elements go,
you get to pick what type of
thing you want to be going in.
In basketball you
have point guards,
centers, power forwards,
forwards, shooting guards.
At this point, League of Legends
has 137 different things on the
roster.
So the amount of different
things you can play as is really
big.
You're in this fantastic,
magical world, and you need to
divide and conquer.
What draws players in
and drives that process of
mastery
is the fact that
you are so connected
to that character
that a tiny, tiny mistake
can result in a massive defeat
or a huge victory.
Once you kill the other team's
base, which is called the Nexus,
you win.
-[explosion]
-[game voice-over] Victory!
I remember the first time
we wanted to show
anyone outside the company
League of Legends
and we weren't sure
if it sucked or not.
[birds chirping]
[Mescon]
When you're building a
community,
you really have to start
with the individuals.
And so, I think day one was,
let's start establishing
personal relationships
with the 200 people
that are going to be the first
people who get into this thing.
one on one.
Riot Games is here at PAX really
to interact with the community
You know we have a huge focus
on the community as a company
and so we love talking to the
users, having them,
you know, sit down and play the
game, getting their feedback
live
promote the game and expose a
lot of people
and really trying to also
who have never heard
of the kind of MOBA genre
or "Multiplayer Online Battle
Arena" genre,
which League of Legends
has really helped to pioneer.
It handles a lot like DOTA ,
coming from years of DOTA
experience.
This looks like it's actually
not going to be just a mini
-game, you know.
It's an actual, like,
solid game, you know.
[man] I was not expecting
to enjoy it this much.
I'm generally not very good
at multi-player games
and there's something like a
three-hour wait to get in a game
right now.
[commentator] Sivir, an ally of
Tarakey on the blue team, just
got killed
and now Morgana
is up there all by herself.
She could get sniped herself
if she's not careful.
The Frost Phoenix is up there,
it could slow her down and kill
her.
Yeah, I got my beta key already.
Downloaded it last night.
I played it last night, too.
[chuckles]
Can't get enough, yeah, man.
[clicks]
[Beck] We had gone three years
without making any revenue,
just spending other
people's money.
Then, we had the audacity
to not sell our game
and to make it
available for free.
[Merrill] Free games had a huge
stigma in the late 2000s,
because the only games
that were available
that were free were really old
games from Asia.
[shrieks]
[man] MapleStory was the first
free-to-play game in North
America.
When I first brought
MapleStory out here,
a lot of the business
was going towards console.
So, I kind of went on a path
to being an evangelist
for online gaming
and for free-to-play.
Because, not only was
online gaming very strange,
free-to-play was extremely
strange and the PC,
supposedly as a
platform, was dying.
Traditionally, people buy stuff.
But the one thing that free
-to-play really addresses
is that it's free-to-play.
So a lot of kids would start
playing these games
because there wasn't a hurdle
for them to play.
But, free-to-play
kind of has this reputation
of being a little bit scammy
and tricking you to do these
things or there's going to be
another player
that buys power who's going to
basically overpower you with
their wallet.
Then, out of nowhere
came Riot Games
and they used free-to-play
kind of in the right way.
[Snow] I'll never forget this.
We're in this meeting
and we're talking about Annie,
how she's all built with fire,
and we're talking about Blue
Annie, and she would use frost.
Maybe Frost Annie
would have like a slower attack
rate
but a little bit more damage
rate, and we'd sell that.
You see Steve Feak kind of
sitting there a little down
about it,
"Steve, you haven't said
anything.
and Brandon says,
What do you think?"
Steve looks up and he's like,
"I don't like it,
but I'm having a hard time
saying why."
And Brandon says,
"Does it-- Does it feel bad?"
And Steve's like,
"Yeah, it just feels bad."
power.
[man] So, we decided
early on that we wouldn't sell
We didn't want the person
with the most money to win the
game.
People said, "Oh,
man, we're giving up
assuredly making
$100 million on this game
where we don't know how much
we'll make."
in order to try this experiment
There are ways that people do
spend money, they engage deeper
with our content.
We offer a series of champions
on a free rotation,
so several of them will be free.
Those champions rotate
every couple of weeks.
Some players use the free
champions as part of their
repertoire in a game.
For others, they'll buy the ones
that they like the most.
And they will spend our in-game
digital currency called Riot
Points.
One of the other big items
that we sell in the game are
skins.
Skins are a uniform.
[man]
Because the game is free,
because people get so much value
out of it,
our players are like,
"Yeah, I'll pay for that skin.
It's kind of a silly idea, but
I'm more than happy to pay for
an outfit.
I'll spend my five,
ten dollars, whatever,
because I had a thousand hours
of fun in this game."
[Enock] About a week before we
got to the launch date,
people came into the game
and tried out the store
and the store
immediately fell over.
Literally we get 500 people in,
as we're scaling up to a couple
thousand in a scale test, store
falls over.
and watching the public chat
channel
We're sitting there
and one guy had gotten through
the store and had bought Cho
-Gath.
[character laughs]
And he was like, "No worries,
guys, I got my man Cho.
It's all good." [chuckles]
It was like one guy out of like
5,000 or something,
and I was like, "Oh, this is
bad. This is really bad."
There was no store in the game.
There was no way to make money.
We would be paying
all the infrastructure costs
and having all the
players in the game,
but without a way for them
to unlock any content.
And so that was when we decided,
let's think through this as
players.
If we were a player,
what would we want to happen to
us?
And so as gamers we decided,
let's make everything free.
[Snow] We called it a launch
party like, "Hey, we've
launched!"
When in the background
you had like half the company
trying to build a store.
And after locking ourselves
in a room for, you know,
110 hours a week for about six
weeks, uh, we ended up shipping
the store.
[Snow] We brought the system
down November 18th
and we brought it
back up November 19th.
This right here is Riot Games
history.
screen and it's blank for like
two minutes.
But we're like, staring at the
And then lo and behold
this little blip shows up for
five bucks.
[all cheering]
And so we're like,
"It works, it works. It totally
works!"
And that was the launch
of League of Legends .
-[chanting]
-[woman groans]
[Beck]
League was not an instant
success.
It wasn't like we
launched the game
and then suddenly our numbers
went through the roof.
It was marginally
bigger than the day before,
and the next day was just
marginally bigger than the prior
day.
To tell you the truth,
when I first saw this game,
I thought it was lame.
I thought it was boring.
I looked at the game
and it didn't really appeal to
me.
After the three hour download
and patching,
we got onto League and he was
like, "Dude, just play it,"
and I begrudgingly agreed.
There's kind of this saying
in game dev that
the game developers
are the best at the games
until about a week
after it gets released to the
players.
Once you reach just so many
people, they quickly are the
ones that discover
all the things
that you never knew were there.
[Jatt]
When I first started playing the
game,
a lot of people thought the
company was a dumpster fire.
You log on Tuesday afternoon,
can't play, servers are down.
The store is down again.
I crashed out again.
Oh, the client's full of bugs.
[man]
It was certainly stressful.
People were running around
with their hair on fire a lot of
the time
as we were attempting to sort
of, keep the wheels on the car.
Any time anything went wrong was
like, "Oh, my God, fix this shit
right now!
We can't lose this momentum!"
It was a problem
where the servers were
overloaded,
but no one would log off.
There was this real sense
of blink and you'll miss it.
So it was sort of the players
fighting the game as much as
each other.
[Marshall] Things slowly started
to stabilize in North America.
They were way worse in Europe.
European fans were furious.
[Merrill]
In Europe, we weren't really
growing.
The reason is because we were
publishing League of Legends
through a partner
that had misaligned interests
and weren't trying to operate
the game
in the same way that really care
about the players.
And that culminated
in one particular weekend
where on a Friday
the service went down
at like 11:45, 11:50
local time in France
and we actually can't get anyone
that will restart the servers
until Monday morning.
It looks fine on the screen,
guys, but trust me, it's not.
I'm clicking like a maniac
and it's not working for me.
Attack. Attack that one!
Oh, my goodness, gracious me.
I get on the forums
with the European players
and just start to see
people complaining.
People are just
scrambling and upset,
and from the player perspective,
Riot doesn't care.
The players don't care about the
nuances between partners and
other stuff.
Someone's got to be there.
Like, "Hey guys, I know this is
bad, but I'm here."
And every 15, 20 minutes like,
"Here's an update.
Here's an update.
Here's an update."
And when that doesn't happen,
the imagination runs wild.
People start to make up stuff
and it just goes south really
fast.
[Snow] When you're looking
at that kind of data,
you realize that the fundamental
belief that players are human
beings
that deserve to be
treated with respect,
and our partner
doesn't share it,
that-- That's just-- It's not--
It wasn't going to work.
We were very fortunate in being
able to unwind that deal
and then launch Riot Europe.
[keys clacking]
We had exactly 53 days between
the moment we hand-shaked
and the moment they were going
to stop servicing the game to
find a data center,
set up an entity, hire people,
catch up localization,
build up a website,
setting up the whole thing.
And 53 days later, over a
weekend, we transferred the
service.
While we were doing the
transfer, the volcano went off.
[rumbling]
Tonight, travelers are stranded
in all on six continents.
Volcanic ash has caused the
worst disruption in air travel
since 9/11.
Europe,
[Snow] So the volcano blows in
Iceland, sending soot all across
canceling all the flights,
literally two days before I'm
supposed to transfer the
service.
So I had to plan all these
alternate flight routes to get
hardware in.
Africa and then up around the
Middle East
We were flying stuff through
to come in to Germany from the
ea-- Like, it was insane.
[beeps, whirring]
So, when we took
over the service,
North America was
about 18% bigger than Europe
and within three months
Europe was nine percent
bigger than North America,
and it was growing faster.
After we launched in Europe, we
realized we can do a pretty good
job by ourselves.
This is actually what our
players want. They want a direct
relationship with Riot.
The biggest thing that we did
very early was establishing the
forums
as being a really important
conversation and communication
that we would have with players
and that players
would have with each other,
actively asking questions,
generating content.
[Merrill] Season One was the
introduction of ranked ladders,
competitive play.
was all about playing normal
games.
Prior to that time the game
There was no stat tracking.
When ranked entered the scene,
all of a sudden,
that's where players who really
wanted to test their competitive
mettle
had an opportunity in the game
to go play against each other.
Let it ride, baby!
Let it ride. Boom!
Season One was our first
experiment in Esports.
They were just sort of like one
-off tournaments with a random
set of teams
that were willing and able to
show up and often the whole
tournament
would be played over the course
of a day or two.
And that meant a lot
of back to back to back games,
which was also, in some cases,
tedious to watch.
And so the Season One finals
was going to be our attempt
to wrap that loose season
altogether and crown a winner,
and we wanted to
do it at DreamHack,
because DreamHack was the
biggest LAN party in the world.
[techno music playing]
[Banks]
DreamHack is this really cool
event
where they take
these old aircraft hangers.
There's like 20,000 or 30,000
kids all playing games.
The tables are built
out of like pallets
and they bring their own
equipment and chairs.
It's one of the coolest gaming
events in the world.
[man] Ladies and gentlemen,
welcome back to the Elmia
convention center,
Jnkping, Sweden.
We are here for the DreamHack
Summer 2011 championship game.
The final's about
to go underway,
$100,000 tournament held
by League of Legends and Riot
Games.
[Beck]
Four hundred thousand people
tuned in
to watch the finals of Season
One at DreamHack,
which blew our minds.
[Riv]
There it is. First blood.
And it looks like it is going to
be Jarvan falling down Shueshei.
[woman]
It was so interesting to see
this untapped, like,
just world of potential
where the fans were passionate
and they were fans of the game,
but like, now they're also fans
of people playing the game.
[Phreak] One turret's down,
they're gonna back off.
Linak taking
a lot of damage from Ashe.
one turret dead, second turret
dead.
Three hundred damage, that is
-[Riv] Oh, my!
-[Phreak] Fnatic going to win
the Season One championship!
Congratulations to Fnatic
for winning Season One.
-GG.
-[Riv] GG indeed.
[all cheering]
[Merrill] When Fnatic won,
people were super happy
to see these players that have a
career being birthed.
When did you know
that you had won?
-A moment ago when their Nexus
exploded! -[woman laughs]
[commentator] What are you guys
going do with your hard-earned
cash?
party for all my friends at
home.
I want to like, throw a big
[crowd cheering]
[Beck] It was a clear indicator
that the level of interest
within our community
around Esports was really high.
I don't think
that's ever felt like the norm.
At the same time, we were keenly
aware of what was going on in
Korea.
[music playing]
[man] By the mid-2000s,
digital stadiums were built in
Korea for playing Starcraft .
Full-sized stadiums,
full of people screaming.
Starcraft is a game
where you are not on the field.
You're playing like the coach
of a football game.
You're directing Xs and Os.
But one of the things about
League is that it has an easier
entry ramp.
It's easier to pay attention to
the antics of one unit, and one
unit, and one unit,
instead of a battlefield
with 10,000 units.
It's hard to follow the action
if you're not trained.
When we look at early Esports,
part of the reason
that they took off in Korea
is because Korea
is a small country
that is dense and so it was
wired with high speed Internet.
Far higher speed Internet
than we have in the United
States.
Because the population is dense,
the idea that people
could just go downstairs
to the local Internet cafes.
That was a thing.
PC gamers view Korea
as sort of the Mecca of PC
gaming,
where PC gaming is mainstream
and where everybody gets it.
You know you can have an
airliner that's painted with
Starcraft 2 logo
and that's okay,
and it makes sense.
That's just a phenomenally cool
place to be as a gamer.
[keys clacking]
The competition in Korea
is extremely severe.
I would say the most severe
in the entire world
if you look at just
online games alone.
There are 200 to 400 new games
that are published each year
on top of the 200 to 400 games
that are already actively
being operated in the market.
[Peterscheck] They also play
pretty much only online PC games
and they're almost
all free-to-play.
So, when we go to Korea, the
novelty of League of Legends in
the West,
which is that it's free
to play online PC game,
that's nonexistent in Korea.
Everybody has that.
So, what else you got?
[in Korean]
Cheers ring out from the League
of Legends press conference.
These people are not your
average individuals.
I just want to say hi to all the
League of Legends fans out the
there in Korea.
We're getting ready to provide
a phenomenal quality of service
and bring the game
here to Korea.
[in Korean]
I thought it was just lip
service,
a marketing policy to be
successful in Korea.
But it wasn't that. It was
really sincere.
The Korean players as well,
were able to feel a lot of
sincerity from Riot Games.
[in Korean]
League of Legends, AOS
[Peterscheck] The newest game
on the top ten list in Korea
before we launched was
like three and a half, four
years old.
So very few of these games
ever crack the top ten.
Most go up and then go into
obscurity very, very quickly.
So we finally launched, and on
day six, we break it into top
ten,
and we were looking at ourselves
thinking, "Holy cow, did this
really happen?"
And the next thing we know
after three months,
it's the number
one game in Korea.
[Oh] To the Korean gamers,
it was very different.
It had qualities of competition,
qualities of strategy,
qualities of speed
and so many components
that a lot of gamers really
truly enjoy.
[Peterscheck]
I think there's cultural
universals.
People want social competition.
As the game grows,
it creates this
positive feedback loop
where more and more people
know about it,
which means more and more people
want to know how to play it,
so they can compete.
[Cadwell] There has to be
something about the game
that continues to be rewarding.
For League of Legends , that's
mastery, the pursuit of mastery.
Knowing I'm getting better,
spending effort to pursue
getting better,
feeling rewarded
when I have gotten better.
Those are experiences that are
appealing regardless of what
culture you're in.
["Dance of the Sugar
Plum Fairy" playing]
[Koster] Tetris resonated
across all the cultures in the
world.
So it got that part.
But it wasn't sport-like.
The biggest thing that makes
a sport is spectators.
League of Legends
is what's gotten me into
Esports.
There are people cheering out
there and really rooting for
these pro teams
and League of Legends has really
just come a long way
in a short amount of time.
I wanted to watch the LCS,
uh, the finals so bad
because it was really something
cool to me.
[Merrill] After the
Season 1 finals,
I think everybody at Riot was
buzzing from the reaction from
players
and really started to challenge
ourselves to think about, okay,
what does Esports look like for
Riot and for League of Legends ?
[man] We knew it was
going to be a big undertaking.
We had no road map.
We had a really small focused
team,
but it wasn't a team that had
much prior knowledge in
broadcast.
How do we officially get
started? Are you going to be
kicking us off here?
I believe you have the chat
prompt so if you want to tell
them to start.
Uh, I don't have
chat right here.
[Dustin Beck] When you think of
NFL, you think of Sunday
football.
You think of marquee matchups
on Monday night.
And Esports didn't
really have that.
It was these intermittent
quarterly tournaments
that had no real rhyme
or reason on timing.
It was when's the venue
going to be available.
[man] As a player, I had
watched League of Legends
Esports
since the Season One
competitions at DreamHack.
And at the time my impression
of League of Legends
tournaments,
honestly, is that
they were very unreliable.
-Why are you yelling at me?
-[man] Are you live?
Yes, we're live!
Stop yelling at me.
-Yeah.
-Frickin' A.
[Rozelle]
This is just not worthy of a
fan's time.
We knew at that point we wanted
to create a formal league.
[Dustin] We built out what we
thought the LCS could be.
We knew it needed a consistent
schedule of events,
a weekly regular season with a
playoffs, with a World Final
event.
[man] You're a little fuzzy.
Are you using wireless?
I am using wireless.
Do you want me to plug it in? O
a--
-If you could, that would be
neat. -Yeah.
-Yeah, hold on.
-[keys clacking]
[man] I remember meeting Whalen.
worried about what you guys are
doing here.
I told him like, I'm really
There are all these tournaments
and you're gonna start
to formalize it all into this.
Are people going to tune in
every single week to watch this?
If you're talking about
like scrapping the whole thing
and going,
yeah, this Esports thing,
I don't know so much about it.
We're strongly committed
to Esports at Riot.
So this is-- This is a thing
and it's going to be around.
[Beck] Esports enhances
the experience of being a
player.
You have something to aspire to.
Players enjoy watching the game.
That's really the
perspective that we take
for sort of justifying the
investment.
that makes the most sense
But, we definitely like,
don't have that crystal ball.
We're going to sort
of learn as we go.
When Riot came out
and announced the huge things
that they were going
to do in Esports,
everyone was really,
really skeptical.
We're thinking this was
too big, too much, too fast.
It was going to be a disaster.
It was going to fail.
[Rozelle] We really laid the
foundation for what would
eventually become the LCS,
but first we actually had to get
through the end of Season Two
and ensuring that
we ended strongly
with a good World Championship.
[crowd cheering]
Season Two World Championship
was by far the biggest Esports
event
Riot had ever put on.
It's going to be really amazing.
The big thing here is World
Elite has yet to be seen
in the previous two days
of this tournament.
[Beck] We had been having
this remarkable tournament
and it's this really cool
setting, that was in sort of the
courtyard
between the Staples Center
and the Nokia Center.
Whoo!
League of Legends number one.
-[all yelling] Taipei Assassins!
-Whoo!
[Beck] We're in the middle
of W.E., top team from China,
against CLG, top team from EU.
[man] We're CLG. We're like
a dark horse coming into the
World Finals.
We're doing pretty well for the
year, but no one expected us
to really get
through to the top.
We're going into the group
stages against World Elite.
One of the big Chinese teams
at the time.
[host]
Only one quarterfinal matchup
remains
before two epic semi-final
showdowns to determine who will
play for the right
to call themselves
the Season Two World Champions.
Ladies and gentlemen,
the final day
of the Season Two
World Playoffs begins now.
[Dustin] That was kind of the
peak of Esport popularity at
that point.
Stakes were as high as they've
ever been for League of Legends
Esports,
and we just-- We just
fell on our face.
[crowd cheering]
stages went from being like one
of the best days,
[Beck] The Season Two group
-frankly ever, to one of the
worst. -[crowd cheering]
[Dustin] Everything was going
great. Amazing team fight.
The game was about
to be decided.
And all of a sudden,
the Internet goes out.
[Deman]
...I think he was grabbed.
CaoMei's guardian angels
does get dropped!
-Oh, my God!
-[crowd roaring]
I do not believe
what has happened.
You get this little blurb on
your screen "Attempting to
reconnect."
That's bad.
Just saw attempting to reconnect
and teams lagged out,
players lagged out
and everyone's
kind of up in arms.
Like, "What the heck
just happened there?"
[Deman]
Fifty-nine minutes, 30 seconds
gone.
Ladies and gentlemen,
what the hell?
Normally, like,
if there is a pause or a lag
issue,
we can kind of fix
it at the time,
and our guys are just
like nodding their heads like,
"I don't think
we're going to get this back."
So we cannot unpause it
and recreate where it left off.
And so all the progress
into this game is lost.
time. So they decide to do
another one.
The game was pretty close at the
[Deman] Ladies and gentlemen,
there you can see it on your
screen.
We are into the game.
Let's hope for the last time
in the quarterfinals
because I don't think anyone
here will be able to handle
another remake.
And it happened again and again.
[Deman] It clearly is adding up,
the amount of cheers they've
had--
-Oh, my God.
-[crowd clamoring]
[Jatt] I don't know
what this means.
-Like, are we going to remake
again?
-Of course they are. We might.
-What else are they going to do?
-It could happen.
Imagine you're in
any prosporting game
and you have to just start over
after you're sweating
and you're out there for 30
minutes. That's what happened.
A typical League of Legends game
should go on for about maybe 35
minutes
to 45 minutes, an hour at most.
in the group stages for seven
hours.
We played this one game
No matter how long
League of Legends Esports goes,
if it grows on for ten years
and becomes bigger than the
Super Bowl,
all those things,
everyone who was here will be
like,
"Remember when they had
a seven hour best of three,"
and everyone will know
what they're talking about.
And we're sitting on stage
saying, "Riot, is this game
going to happen?"
Where is the competitive
integrity? Where is all this
other stuff?
These teams were playing.
What are you going to do about
it?
the plug.
[Beck] Eventually, we just
decide, you know, we got to pull
We had to send our audience home
without having finished the
group stages, even though they
purchased tickets.
We were so disappointed
in ourselves.
Like we were-- We had just--
and we just like let everyone
down.
We'd built up this huge event
[crowd clamoring]
[Jatt] It was the biggest
tournament. It was a high
profile failure.
That's something that could
totally alter the course of Riot
Esports.
First step was letting our fans
know and Brandon bit the bullet
on that one.
And he's like, "I'm going to go
out there and talk to everyone."
It kills us to have
to deliver this news
because you guys have been
so unbelievably patient with us,
but let me explain
exactly what's going on.
We've been having a myriad
of Internet connectivity issues.
Given what these players
have been through so far today,
we think the possibility
of another restart on a game
would just be unfair to them.
We recognize the sacrifice
that you guys have made
being patient with us today.
I want to talk about what we're
going to do for you guys, the
live audience.
We're going to be refunding
your tickets.
I'm sure you don't care about
that. We're going to be
refunding your tickets.
We're going to be giving you
guys $25 in Riot Points.
[crowd cheering]
One more thing.
We also have
a merchandise store full of
stuff
and we want to give that
to you guys, too, for free.
[crowd cheering]
[Vu]
At that point we open up the
merch store.
We said everybody can get,
you know, merch for free.
We ordered pizza for all the
people who were staying there.
I want to just one more time,
we're so sorry about this.
Literally, we've been
scrambling like crazy.
We've been having so much fun.
-Thank you.
-[crowd cheering]
And they start to chant, Riot.
[all chanting]
Riot! Riot! Riot!
[Beck] They were actually,
remarkably understanding at the
end.
That felt amazing.
[Dustin] Our ops team built
an offline server.
They ripped a server out
of our data center
and made it so that the Internet
can no longer mess with our
tournaments.
And then that kind of fueled us
into Galen Center,
which was a couple days later
for the live event for the
finals.
Rivington the Third
here coming to you
live from USC's Galen Center
in Los Angeles.
Guys, let's take a moment to go
behind the scenes
and just see what's going
into the production of the world
finals.
Right now, the grand final stage
in the process of being built
in preparation
for the League of Legends Season
Two World Finals.
[crowd applauding]
[commentator]
TPA was in the driver's seat.
Toyz was on Oriana yet again
and his shock wave into
Stanley's taunt gave them
complete control,
locking up two members of Azubu
leading to a Baron.
Not playing
like the underdog any longer,
the Taipei Assassins
push their way to the Nexus
defeating Azubu Frost to become
the Season Two World Champions.
Against all odds they take home
one million dollars,
the Summoner's Cup and the righ
to be called champions of the
world.
[crowd cheering]
[all chanting]
TPA! TPA! TPA!
[Beck] Our own naivet was
actually an advantage in those
early years.
We never really felt
like it was going to be real,
like, more than sort
of like a dream,
but players were just showing up
en masse and filling all the
seats,
and it felt justified.
It didn't feel like we were
being extravagant or crazy.
It felt like, we can do this.
And then the question became,
"How the heck do we pull it off?
Like, how do we broadcast this?"
I was the guy
that had the broadcast
experience
and I had worked at NBC
and I had worked on sports
before Esports.
There were a lot of aspects
of broadcast sports
that we were able to bring
into this new frontier
where there were
these young people
who are so passionate
about playing this game.
It's like opening up
a new world for them
that added
some of that drama of live TV.
We're trying to find the right
blend of sport, game, and kind
of show.
[crowd]
Demacia!
[Rozelle] We have to stay true
to League of Legends .
There are some sort of
ceremonial game show almost
aspect to it.
We're going to ask
some of our fans
if they could marry a champion,
who would it be?
-I'd marry Leona.
-I love the Teemo.
I would marry Teemo
because of the hat.
[Rozelle] In Season Three,
we had to grow our talent pool,
our on-air personality pool
before we could even host an
analyst desk.
And that's something we wanted
to do from the get go.
Because we're big football fans
and we know that it's not just
about watching the game.
It's about watching
the analysis.
He's in the worst shape of all.
He's down to half health
and he's going to get dropped by
Cybolic, Vladimir, right here.
[Gafford] With professional
Esports players,
when they started even playing
League of Legends ,
Esports didn't exist.
For them, they've just suddenly
gotten dragged and dropped
into this world of
stardom and fandom.
[gamer]
When I first decided to pursue
this,
my dad definitely thought
it was a bad idea.
[Snoopeh]
I was playing from Scotland.
There's this stigma that's
attached with gaming in general,
which is when your mom's
basically on your case all the
time saying,
"Get off the computer,
go and do something productive."
with my parents in regards to,
you know,
There was an educating process
this is a-- This
can be a big deal.
Let's go baby, double kill!
Get that top tower!
We overestimated the pro player
ability to like actually engage
with the crowd
because, again, these are 17,
18, 19-year-old kids
who aren't used to being stars.
[LemonNation] I had to start
doing interviews and dealing
with fans.
I definitely was
not good at that,
I've really always been scared
of like public speaking
and being on stage
and all of that kind of thing.
[Phreak] Welcome
back to the show.
Ballz from the victorious
Quantic Gaming.
Phreak here with LemonNation and
You guys didn't make
it through groups.
How do you feel
when you're like, a favorite
and you like--
What does that do to you?
Uh... it was very depressing.
We were joking about suicide.
[both chuckle]
I've always been too awkward
I guess, you know?
[chuckles]
Sometimes they don't understand
the importance of, you know,
giving a good interview
and doing all these
promotional activities.
They don't realize
that what they're signing up for
is not just playing this game
at a professional level,
but it's being this kind
of celebrity player.
You have this huge amount of
influence and eyes on you all
the time.
It's keeping sponsors happy
and keeping your fans engaged
and a lot of it is growing up,
you know, very quickly.
job. Like, you play video games
for a living?
It sounds like a really easy
That sounds great.
My kid would love to do that.
It's not that easy.
It puts an immense amount
of pressure on you as a player.
There's no respite,
there's no hiding.
You're constantly online.
And if I'm not online, I'm
missing out.
[Allen] If I practice football
for eight hours in a day,
I am completely exhausted.
I have no more energy left.
I go home and I rest
and I come back the next day.
Esports doesn't have
that physical limitation.
[Snoopeh] We could be playing
anywhere between ten to 14 hours
a day,
and that's just playing.
That's not necessarily the
thinking.
I go to bed and I'm thinking
about the game.
[Ocelote] If you can play
for 12 or 13 hours, you should.
But, that takes a toll on you.
It's like a hammer on your head.
Boom, boom, boom. Everyday.
Boom, boom, boom.
[Riv] It looks like Dyrus is
down for the count already.
[Kobe]
That is classic Dyrus right
there.
[man] He's going to have to be
careful, keeping an eye on...
When I was a player, I knew the
risks, but I felt like I was a
gladiator,
you know, in an arena
and I had to entertain the
people.
[Riv] They could
look to finish it.
[Allen] Good Esports games
are all about moments.
League of Legends
has these peaks and valleys.
When the Jungler is coming up
through the river,
the suspense starts to build
as he goes in for a gank.
And the crowd in anticipation is
like, "Oh, what's going to
happen?"
No!
The xPeke backdoor play is
probably one, if not the most,
famous play of all time.
It's time for the last League of
Legends game of the day
and it's a big one,
ladies and gentlemen.
-Please welcome Fnatic Raidcall!
-[crowd cheering]
[Horn]
xPeke is playing for Fnatic.
He's going up against Ocelote
and SK Gaming.
Do you have something
to say to your rivals?
-Have fun.
-Okay. Thank you very much,
guys.
[Horn] xPeke uses his teleport
to sneak into the opponent's
base.
[announcer] ...he instantly
teleports straight...
[Horn] He only needs to get
one more shot on him
and he'll be dead and
SK would have won.
And he's able to keep rift
walking around the Nexus for
several seconds
while he's evading
the other defense coming in.
[commentator] Is anyone going
to be able to deal with this
one?
Catches him with another axe.
He's very low on health.
They're pushing on the Nexus.
And he's able to
take down the Nexus.
-I do not believe it!
-Oh, my God!
They slaughtered them!
[crowd cheering]
xPeke and Fnatic
were just in utter disbelief.
Ocelote and SK,
they were very, very upset.
This is the ultimate drama
with so much on the line.
This really does feel
a lot like sports.
We are just destroyed
right now as a team.
[clears throat]
[voice breaking]
And we failed. We failed.
[Ocelote] I'm not going to lie.
Even today,
I'm a bit salty about that one.
[chuckles] Um...
it was a good play,
especially in that context,
great tournament, important
game.
[crowd cheering]
As bad as that moment was,
when it comes into competition,
you always need competitors
that you want to destroy.
[Snoopeh] As a professional
gamer, there's no balance.
You just can't afford
to have a social life.
But, then you have to realize
why we all do it.
Like, we love the competition.
We love saying "we're the best."
We love kicking someone else's
ass.
That's what we all strive for.
We strive to prove ourselves
on a world stage.
[metal clanking]
[cheering]
[Beck] Marc and I grew up in LA.
Staples is the home of the
Lakers.
So, being here today is just,
I don't know how to describe it.
It's just really sentimental.
Welcome to the Season Three
World Championship Final!
Coming to you live
from the Staples Center
here in Los Angeles, California.
[crowd cheering]
And we've got the double boxes
and double redundancies?
We have two servers.
We have Internet back-up.
We have back-up power.
[crowd cheering]
This is the spot
where we will bring you guys
all the analysis, the
highlights, and the predictions
for tonight's final,
starting with our extended
pre-game coverage.
Yeah. Good luck.
Crush it. See you, guys.
[Horn]
By bringing up the players on a
lift
and using technology to sort of
elevate this new type of sport,
for us that felt
like another step forward.
SK Telecom, they will be
the Season three World
Champions!
[Rozelle]
League is such an international
game
and the international leagues
are so popular.
We knew we wanted
to take it on the road.
Korea was the obvious choice.
[in Korean]
The Seoul World Cup
stadium is, to Koreans,
a very historic place.
The fact that it's possible to
do Esports in a place like this
with 40,000 paid spectators
gathering,
that becomes huge news.
Forty thousand people? What the
hell? 40,000 people?
[Phreak] The opening ceremony
will begin shortly with
traditional Korean music
followed by a live performance
from Imagine Dragons,
playing their hit
song "Warriors."
We are the warriors
[in Korean]
Spending big money on events
like this isn't very common.
Especially in a place like
Korea,
parents with young children
consider games to be harmful.
If you enjoy games too much,
you can't study well and go to
a good college.
You can't get a good job.
Until these perceptions change,
it's difficult to say when it
will be acknowledged as a sport.
[crowd cheering]
Hello, Berlin!
[speaking German]
Ladies and gentlemen,
are you guys ready
for the 2015 League of Legends
World Championship?
[crowd cheering]
[announcer]
At Mid Lane, Faker!
Then you have players like
Faker.
[Gafford]
Who, I guess
if there is a Michael Jordan
of League of Legends or Esports,
this is the guy.
I think almost universally
considered the best player,
Faker has remained dominant
for years now.
He's just that good.
I have so much to tell you, but
my English is not good.
So, thank you and... thank for
cheering and always loving me.
[crowd cheering]
It feels like we're returning
to our roots,
but with way better
production values
and capabilities to actually
deliver a show like this.
[Horn]
We used projection on the floor
to demonstrate how the field
position would work on the Rift.
[Dustin]
You could feel as the stakes
rose,
the intensity of the fans
and of the players
and the entire
vibe of the event.
[Quickshot] SK Telecom
have overcome every challenge.
They are the undisputed
best team in the world!
The SKT reign continues.
They win their third
World Championship!
-[crowd cheering]
-[Kobe] Truly a legend.
[crowd cheering]
Faker! Faker! Faker!
[Riv]
Faker became such a big player,
because he could do all these
mechanically advanced moves,
always hitting everything
at the right second.
That's where idols come in.
That's where you start
wanting to be like somebody.
Today's games
were absolutely awesome!
I lost my voice
because I was screaming too
loud.
It was the best experience
I've ever had for League .
[Gafford] Because they have
spent virtually zero dollars
on traditional marketing,
League of Legends has kind of
flown underneath the radar by
the mainstream.
Suddenly, when all these stories
started popping up about Esports
and these tournaments and,
"Wow, the Staples Center
was sold out for
this massive event,"
you naturally had a lot of
derision from traditional media.
[female reporter] It's a pastime
some think is symbolic of
slackers,
-of teenagers killing time.
-[crowd cheering]
But video gaming is now
a professional sport.
[NBC4 reporter] You could call
it the Super Bowl of video
gaming.
It's the biggest competitive
event we've never heard of.
-[NBC4 reporter] League of
Legends. -[female reporter]
League of Legends.
-[reporter 1] League of Legends.
-[reporter 2] League of Legends.
[radio host]
What is League of Legends ?
[man] League of Legends
is the most played, like, game
ever.
-The most--?
-The most played, downloaded
game.
Oh, because it's--
it's an Internet game?
I had zero knowledge
of the fact that this exists.
You didn't know
there were cyber athletes?
My hand to God, I didn't know.
But my issue is it's still not a
sport. It's a game.
Have you guys seen Esports
and the Eleague?
I don't know if that's sports.
Do you have any statistics
on how many of those people
also go to Star Trek
conventions?
[ MMA Hour host] I
find it very bizarre.
this is the sign of the
apocalypse
I feel like it's really--
that people are actually
into this sort of thing.
[man] I don't feel that way.
I'm kind of excited about this.
I can understand people
watching a golf game.
-[announcer] No.
-[crowd cheers]
[man]
I can't understand people
watching somebody
play a computer game.
Well, I have to say my wife
can't understand people
watching a golf game
because she's not a golfer.
So, if you're not a gamer
that's not going to appeal to
you.
For a lot of the older folks,
they're like, amazed by it.
watch other people playing a
game?
They're like, how could people
The flip side is we watch other
people playing a game all the
time.
-Games like basketball,
football, etc. -Yeah.
-[baseball commentator] Throw
home! -[basketball commentator]
Won't go!
I like sitting down and watching
League of Legends games.
Like, I don't normally watch
sports either. [chuckles]
Which is funny
because I played a lot of
sports.
[football commentator]
Chris Kluwe is perfect.
Chris' right footed punt.
Very high.
[Kluwe] You have five guys
working together on a team
and if they don't work together
then the other team's going to
beat them, and I mean, that's
what a team sport is.
[Gafford]
You have traditional sports
athletes
like Rick Fox enter the space
with his own team.
[Fox] They are digital athletes.
athletes. No look, can you think
about--
They're professional digital
athlete.
look, I think about what it took
for me to become a professional
Took a lot of concentration,
a lot of dedication, practice,
preparation, stamina.
They're sponsored.
They have careers.
They make hundreds
of thousands of dollars.
player is close to $300,000 a
year.
[Allen] The average salary for a
[Gafford] There is
rumors like Faker
turned down multimillion dollar
salaries in China.
[reporter] Players are now
even eligible for U.S. P1 visas
normally reserved
for touring athletes.
What is a P1A visa?
A P1A visa is a visa
that's given for athletes,
which means that you are
an exceptional athlete
from another country
coming into the United States
and you have to prove that
your athletic capabilities are
good enough
to guarantee you living
inside the United States.
equivalent of the Super Bowl in
my world?
The Worlds? Is this the
Yeah, I would say so.
Except the only difference would
be if the Super Bowl
is just U.S.
This is like, there's 13
countries that play this game,
and they all come together
for the World Championship.
The best Korean team comes
to the States to play
the best North American team.
The best team in
China come to play.
It's the best team.
Trained together for a whole
year.
Right. That's the difference.
So, you're getting the games
at the highest level.
[crowd cheering]
Oh, my God!
Quadrakill from Fnatic!
Quadrakill from Fnatic.
The feeling in there is exactly
the same as being on an field.
You have fans cheering.
You have, you know, big plays
developing.
You have moments of glory
and moments of defeat.
[football commentator] Eli
throwing into traffic on the
sideline.
[Horn] It'll be really
interesting to see if the
sustainability is there
and whether we can take League
and build it
into what can be
generationally relevant.
The way that we identify
with teams be it
if we're a Red Sox fan and we're
long suffering until the 2000s.
[baseball commentator]
The Boston Red Sox are World
Champions!
[Horn] We want to see that type
of generational rich fabric
of fandom
that goes beyond year to year.
That's the goal to have Esports
become sports that last.
The growth around League of
Legends and the growth around
Esports
has been tightly coupled
with accessibility of the
content.
Live streaming Twitch and
YouTube and Facebook,
all these places you can watch
this content.
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen,
to Greatest League Talk Show .
I am your host, Scarra.
Streaming has become
such a generational thing.
Some people don't
want to watch sports
or they don't want to watch,
like, TV, but they want to watch
gaming.
Use a slow roll. Wait for peopl
to slowly smash your face in.
They are gamers and in their
free time they want to watch
what they love.
All the top streamers are
usually old professional
players.
They're kind of going to have
to start fights off of Scarra.
If he can land really, really
good ults, he'll just make
things happen.
[Scarra] I ended up being like,
one of the first ever
educational streamers.
I would talk about
what I'm doing.
Now, that sounds crazy right?
Super easy. But is it?
Ideally, you don't want to get
into a range to Q over...
Think about you narrating your
life, every aspect of your life
every day.
That's what we're doing.
100 and f-- Oh, my God!
I have a subscriber base
where they pay a certain amount
every month to support me.
donations, and they can support
me just by watching
They can support me through
because I make money
through ad revenue as well.
I am currently making
six figures right now.
I will eventually
be a millionaire.
-Oh, my God, what a game.
-[game voice-over] Victory!
Infernal! Sorry.
[girl] I was exposed to Twitch
via my online friends
and I started watching these
streamers and I got hooked on it
and I'd watch them and I'd be
like, "Wow, I love what they do!
I wish I could do that someday."
Aw, give me the penta, dude!
As a streamer, I'm
here to entertain,
smile, and I want to enjoy what
I do.
I want to make people laugh,
Yes, yes! All three CS.
I did a lot of stuff like
student council in high school,
was a part of clubs, dance team,
soccer team, stuff like that.
I really love making friends
and I remember hitting triple
digits, "100 people watching."
I thought that was like,
the biggest deal ever.
Nowadays I average like 5,000
to 10,000 people watching me.
People come up to you
and they say like,
"I watched your stream and you
really helped me through a tough
time where
I lost a parent or
I lost a friend"
Thanks, Chenyascream!
Welcome to the Poki squad,
appreciate 'ya.
You really help people stay
happy and feel company just by
streaming.
So, I'm going to play with a
bunch of my viewers right now.
We're all just
loading into a game.
[game sounds]
[Ocelote] I love
human interaction.
And there's just no better way
to interact digitally
with anyone
than with live streaming,
period.
[Marshall] Ocelote was a
streamer back in the early days
of League of Legends .
There's comic timing to
everything. Even anger.
And if you're charismatic and
funny about being angry and
furious,
-that can go a long way.
-[screams]
It was kind of one of the first
streams that banked on being
entertainingly toxic.
Ocelote, Ocelote, Ocelote, yeah
When you're immature,
when you haven't lived through a
lot of ups and downs in life,
then you get thrown a bad
teammate, in a bad moment,
in front of a few thousand
people watching you,
and then that amount of
pressure, peer pressure.
It's just everything
comes too fast,
and you just feel very
frustrated about the situation.
And you say things that
you don't even feel yourself,
you know.
[Allen] In the case of Ocelote,
he would say terrible things
to insult people
whether it's your opponent
and you're just trash talking
them
or it's your own
teammate on your team
that has not performed up
to your standards.
Riot had to get
involved and say,
"If you're going to be
a professional athlete
representing
not only League of Legends,
but Riot Games, playing in this
League , you're going to need
to clean it up."
[Ocelote] Of course there was
no ill intent. And I'm a kid.
I remember it was about the time
that my father, actually,
was going through chemotherapy.
But reacting that badly,
especially in front of people,
is the worst thing you can do.
You know, because these kids
look up to you.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
Showing them that kind of bad
side of competition
is the worst thing you can do.
I remember the community
and Riot being extremely fair.
which helped me also be self
-reflective.
Being judgmental,
But at the same time,
being empathetic,
and giving me a second chance,
which they did.
So, I'm incredibly
grateful for that.
Thank you very much to all of
you. I love you all. Bye.
While there's one
case of Ocelote,
there are a hundred
cases of players
who have not reformed,
who have not cut out the
toxicity.
[Koster] The Internet
has this amazing power to create
crowds
and crowds create anonymity.
[keys clacking]
[Kim]
Because it's free-to-play,
you can get people coming
into the game from anywhere
and you can have people having
almost zero accountability
for their actions there.
[Marshall] League of Legends
has a really bad reputation
for being toxic because you're
in a high pressure situation.
There are a lot of factors
outside of your control.
[laughing]
I can see why people
get frustrated
and I can see
why in today's online culture
that frustration turns
into something pretty ugly.
[man] No fucking joke.
I'm not kidding. Kill yourself.
[woman] It's very similar to
what you see in road rage, for
example.
It leads to that "flash in the
pan" rage where we tend to act
out.
The part that I find very
painful, just as a gamer,
is that my crime
is that I show up as a woman.
I don't play on voice chat
because you're going to figure
out pretty quickly
that I'm not of the
male persuasion,
and so that usually leads to,
you know, variety of your
classic,
"get back to the
kitchen" comments
to nasty stuff that I'm totally
not going to repeat here.
[Marshall] I don't think it's a
League of Legends specific
problem.
I think it's a gaming problem.
For a lot of us, it's
become white noise.
If we got legitimately upset,
we would never play.
You almost have to learn a bit
about human psychology
and realize that this person
must be in such a terrible place
to be doing that kind of thing.
I almost feel bad for
them in that sense.
Although you can
get a lot of hate,
I try to focus more
on how to fix the situation
as opposed to being mad at it.
[groans]
[Koster] Early League
started out small enough
that many of these problems
didn't manifest.
-[shrieks]
-[Koster] Then it grew.
At some point, League said
we need to take this seriously.
We need to engage
in the process of governance.
[Phreak]
Welcome to the Tribunal.
The Tribunal allows you to shap
player behavior for the better,
acting directly on reports
from fellow players.
We built a penalty
system for that.
And we even experimented
with trying to pull the
community in
and have them be the arbiters
of what deserved a penalty or
what didn't.
[Phreak] After reviewing the
chat log, I decide that I want
to punish him.
But, if we jump in there and
we're like, "You can't do that"
and "That's terrible"
and all of these different
things.
Then what happens is we just
collectively as people dig our
heels in.
Like, "Whoa, this is change.
Whoa, what's happening?"
That's what lead us to say,
"Let's figure out what this gap
is."
And it turned out
that it was encouragement.
It was telling folks
when they're doing a great job,
that they're doing a great job.
Instead of it always being
about the punishments,
let's celebrate with players.
And that has worked
so much better
than just strictly focusing
on those penalties.
But we're never going to reach
perfect. There is no perfect.
There is no end state.
There's just this ongoing
understanding of players.
[gamer] Even though people might
say that the community is toxic,
I feel like we can
make it a better place
by being support talkers
rather than trash talkers.
Toxicity is negative.
Let's not keep that up.
We're all about good times.
[gamer 2] I'm here to say
that there is a whole side
that never gets talked
about full of awesome people
who are being
really good to each other.
So, keep playing League .
[clicks tongue]
League of Legends
is part of a very big movement.
It's the players and fans
that are all coming together
to craft this
experience together.
-[man] League of--
-[all] Legends!
-[man] League of--
-[all] Legends!
-[man] League of--
-[all] Legends!
[Gafford] It's not just a bunch
of people independently
consuming something.
It is a ton of people
all over the world creating
something.
For them, it's about
the characters themselves.
It's this character
driven situation
where you kind of assume
the fantasy of this game.
[Koster] The huge cast of
characters that has developed
is one of the reasons
why League can have that
popularity.
It gives that access.
We're generally looking
for something that we identify
with,
and that means that anybody
can come to that and find a way
in.
[woman] I thought the art
of the characters was so cool.
This looks really fun and
interesting and I really like
it.
[gamer 3] Heimerdinger does have
that best swag walk.
-Yeah, he has that swag.
-Heimerdinger swag!
[Heimerdinger]
Order, entropy, a never-ending
cycle.
Oh, my God, I love Graves.
They made that Graves skin
with like, no shirt and I was
like, mm!
Feeling lucky? Try me.
I connect with it so much
that I am Draven.
[laughs]
My favorite character by far is
Teemo. He is an underdog.
He is a little guy.
He's not strong. He's very fast.
He can't really fight you
straight up one on one.
I like him because he is super
relatable to basically anyone.
[Teemo] Armed and ready!
It doesn't matter if you're from
China or Korea or USA,
you see this guy and you're
like, "I know what that
character is all about."
The characters have such vibrant
backgrounds and personality to
them.
And that's the reason why, for
example, you see so many people
cosplaying.
It's not just, like,
a generic character.
It's they're rich
and full of life.
I'm a casual player.
But I'm playing Wukong,
obviously.
He's a fun character to play.
[Merrill] You do not want to
mess with that dude.
Seven foot, virtually unkillable
barbarian warrior is coming at
you
with a sword
that can cleave you in two.
The designers decided
to name him after a character
that I had played in EverQuest ,
which was a barbarian warrior.
So they thought Tryndamere
was a really cool name
and just fit the persona.
A lot of players, when I'm
playing, get disappointed
if I'm not playing Tryndamere.
They're like, "Please play
Tryndamere."
What's the secret to
League of Legends?
It's this right here.
It's the community.
-Oh.
-Look around. Do a 360.
That's the secret. That's
literally it. [chuckles]
[man] It's hard for me because
my parents don't really
understand
like, all this stuff, you know?
I've played with these guys
for like, a year now, if not
longer.
And it's just like,
I talk to these guys every
single day.
For me to actually come
and finally meet them, it's so
cool!
And when we're playing online,
it's nice to come on and have
family or a community that
understands that.
In games, there's no borders
that typically exist.
Like when I meet someone online,
I am meeting them at face value.
I know nothing about them,
I can't see them.
I don't know what race they are.
I don't know what
their socioeconomic background
is.
I don't know if they're
important or not. Like, it
doesn't matter.
[announcer]
Where are you guys from?
North Dakota.
Austin, Texas.
Anchorage, Alaska.
-Ugh.
-Pittsburgh.
-[both] Chicago.
-Vancouver.
[whoops]
League of Legends becomes
this universal language in of
itself.
Like, I can be in Shanghai
and see somebody with a Teemo
hat and instantaneously we have
this bond.
And can talk about like, "Oh,
Teemo!" and have smiles and
laughs.
It was just a hugely cool thing
to see the passion
that players would have
for League of Legends ,
you know, in all these different
parts of the world.
[Beck]
Publishers like to think of
markets
as just completely
different internationally.
But I think gamers around the
world have an awful lot in
common
that people don't necessarily
recognize or appreciate.
[overlapping chatter]
[Gafford]
As huge and crazy as it is,
they've only managed to make
this one game.
And while they've certainly
admitted that there are more
games in the pipeline,
how much pressure must there be
on you if you're working on one
of those projects
to follow up something
like a League of Legends ?
You know, is League of Legends
the best game Riot will ever
make?
Is it the biggest game
they will ever make?
I don't know,
but there's a chance it could
be.
[Marshall] Ever since League of
Legends really kicked off
and became just sort
of a phenomenon,
everyone's sort of waiting to
see when it will die.
Every game dies.
Starcraft was the Esport
for a long time and it faded
away.
[LemonNation]
I don't think a game can last
forever.
I think eventually
another game will overlap it
as, you know, like the biggest
Esport. I think that's just the
nature of Esports.
[Allen]
There are more Esports titles
out there.
There are more games
taking up mind share.
It's a little bit of an arms
race of who's going to be doing
it best.
Who's going to invest more
people and more resources
into Esports and competition?
We're in a make or break time
for Esports.
Like, this thing needs
to continue to grow
at the rate that it's projected
to grow. People talk about it by
2020,
it's going to be a $1.5 billion
business every year.
All these investors have come in
buying the hype,
buying the speculation,
where this thing is going.
If it doesn't go that way,
this whole ecosystem
is at risk of collapsing.
[in Chinese]
This is Beijing, China. Welcome
to the 2017 World Championship!
[Horn] We wanted to go to China
and set up a show in the Bird's
Nest.
The home of the Olympics.
That presents a lot of risks
and it's scary.
This is the exact track
in which Usain Bolt
broke his own 100-meter record.
[Horn] Most sports have
100 years of history.
We have under ten.
We know that we need
to develop deeper bonds
with potential partners and
sponsors and we are incredibly
motivated.
So much of it has been about
Faker, as it always is.
But this year,
when they've needed him most,
he has played better
than ever before.
We wanted to create memories
with these big events
and we know that those memories
are what carry on.
When people look back, they
think of these kind of flashbulb
moments.
Those are the things
that you can't really value,
because it was a moment that all
of us will remember forever.
[roars]
[Phreak] The upset is complete
as the kills come through.
The SKT dynasty is over.
All hail the new kings!
Samsung Galaxy,
-your 2017 World Champions!
-[crowd cheering]
[Deficio] Every single player
talks about revenge
against SKT and they got it.
Faker is destroyed.
[Koster] Once a phenomenon
like League of Legends happens,
you can't undo the
effect it's had.
It may evolve, it may change,
but it doesn't just disappear.
The impact I think
has barely begun to be felt.
It might even be a generation
before we truly see it.
Our parents always kind of
thought that we would stop
playing these games.
And I think we're just starting
to hit the point
where people feel like games
are here to stay.
[Pokimane] Almost everybody
can be considered a gamer.
Whether it be Candy Crush
on your phone
or whether you scrim League
eight hours every day.
You know, everybody can enjoy
some type of game.
[Scarra]
League of Legends is a
lifestyle.
I think the only thing my
parents want is me to find a
girlfriend.
And that's it. [laughs]
My parents are just like,
"You got to pursue a love life."
And I'm just like, "I'm busy
playing League, how do I do
that?"
I came out on League of Legends
with my boyfriend.
I play League of Legends
because my friends forced me to.
We ended up building a really
strong relationship through
League of Legends ,
strong enough that he decided
to make me his best man at his
wedding.
[Beck] League of Legends isn't
done, it hasn't reached its full
potential.
We're not perfect
and we don't get it all right,
but, man, I just think
it's such a privilege
to help make the types of games
that I most love to experience.
[Merrill] We realize
that it's not about us.
It's about our audience
that we're trying to serve.
You're no longer who you were.
You are now part of something
greater.
[Beck] Everything that we do
is made possible by the
community,
their level of engagement,
their level of support.
The community is the game.
Nice job, guys.
[chuckles]
GG! [chuckles]
[theme music playing]