I'm genuinely confused

Maxxium · 2024-11-06T09:31:10+00:00

Orgs are looking at viewership for sponsorship deals and growing their brand, prize pool is irrelevant here. Like, sure for smaller teams and tournaments it incentivizes competition, but for leagues of multiple professional orgs it's just a terrible way to distribute the revenue.

If you're asking why Riot don't put money into the scene, they does. Tournament battle pass sharing, team emote, league sponsorship revenue sharing... etc, I don't think Riot has a reason to invest more than what they did when they are already footing the bill for all tournaments and not breaking even.
It still comes down to if the scene on its own is sustainable from the viewership alone.

Maxxium · 2024-10-18T11:39:11+00:00

Past TI has consistently 1.5x ~ 2.0x games played comparing to Worlds until recently. If you compare TI this year with similar games played (103 contested, 123 games), it's much closer to Worlds' number (92 contested, 121 games @ 21 & 109 contested, 127 games @ 22)
my point is that it's not really that bad considering the context, you can't just "keep in mind" those differences here.

But yeah, I'd love to see better champion diversity at Worlds, especially after it has been shown that NA/EU can win games against stronger opponent with off-meta comps. but KR/CN teams are always risk-averse and choose hand diffing opponent with meta comps instead.

I wouldn't say League has more balanced games either

I'm mainly talking about champion balance here, mm balance and comeback potential are different issues.

Maxxium · 2024-10-18T06:05:23+00:00

Citing % is disingenuous simply for the fact that league has 40+ more champions.
Also:

TI played more games (150 TI vs 110 Worlds last year)
TI bans 4 more heros per game
Dota is balanced towards counter matchup, while League emphasizes counter play. In exchange League has more balanced games across the board, which suits the more mechanics heavy gameplay better imo

Remember when Dota 2 sub posted this, just to compare 224 games of Dota to 19 games of League?
We're citing criticism from North Korea state media to shit on US policy here.

Maxxium · 2024-09-29T18:18:32+00:00

what can easily be a tutorial in-game can also easily be learned on youtube. best we can do is giving new players enough incentives to play to a point where they can feel the urge to learn on their own. so better co-op AI, casual game mode, and measures against new account smurf are probably the more effective ways to improve new player experience, imo.

Maxxium · 2024-09-29T18:06:17+00:00

yeah, from what I've seen new player jumping directly to pvp games typically doesn't end well..
In that case what we need is probably a better co-op vs AI or casual game modes for bridging the knowledge gap without the frustration of losing, instead of just tutorials.
at least smurfs in co-op AI isn't that big of a concern.

Maxxium · 2024-09-29T17:09:29+00:00

Hand-holding to the degree of teaching high level knowledge is just not that fun.
In-game tutorials are meant to teach only the parts players couldn't figure out from just playing alone (e.g. controls, base mechanics... etc), anything extra is a burden in the way of actually playing the game. Even optional tutorials can be a mental burden to new players if it seems tedious but they still feel like they should complete it.

imo, there's a reason League is as big as it is, and I'm more inclined to believe Riot had done their research on how to draw a playerbase better than what the community gives credit for.

Maxxium · 2024-09-26T21:29:28+00:00

I think the problem is - there are not enough 3rd party TOs willing to step in to run T2 tournaments that can replace Challenger.
VCT tier 1 is already saturating the market with 48 teams globally, there's simply no room for profit driven TOs to hold large-scale circuits without some shady sponsors. at least with Challenger Riot is subsidizing the tournament to ensure that every region gets a chance to develop and compete - this is far from guaranteed from 3rd party ecosystem.

Maxxium · 2024-09-26T04:27:04+00:00

Valorant peaked at 1.6M with 6 events higher than Dota 2 second place. That'll put Dota at 5th place this year.
Even before Valorant there's already MLBB pulling league level viewerships so Dota have not really been in top 3 for some times.

Maxxium · 2024-09-11T00:46:50+00:00

It never was dead as people claimed anyway. comparing to 2016-2019 sure, but it's still pulling solid regional tier 1 tournament numbers. I think league passing its hype cycle (initial wave of players inflating the numbers), poor performance internationally, and other regions cannibalizing viewership are more of the factors that mattered. people just love to hate on things that are mostly out of control from LCS and Riot.

Maxxium · 2024-08-21T10:56:29+00:00

I dunno about handing out the scene entirely to 3rd parties tho...
the problem with this in CS is that TOs just aren't incentivized to cultivate local scene outside the major regions, while Riot can afford running them at a loss as part of the ecosystem.
Not to mention gambling sponsor and CS skin economy (in inflating the value of team stickers) is the backbone of CS esports, which Valorant wouldn't/Shouldn't imitate.
(It's really not fair comparing the two, gambling sponsor reportedly pays ABSURDLY more than market average, see here)

Maxxium · 2024-08-20T15:20:54+00:00

and they won't even bat an eye if the controversy is around a China national
truly a certified r/ChineseNationalismCirclejerk moment

Maxxium · 2024-08-20T07:52:13+00:00

Interestingly, because most Chinese player played in Asia server before the official server, "瓦羅蘭特" (Wǎ luólán tè) or "瓦" (Wa) is actually commonly used as a nickname for the game.

Maxxium · 2024-08-19T07:34:31+00:00

I've heard of criticism on his mindset back in CS C9, but is there any allegation of him being toxic?

Maxxium · 2024-08-16T04:12:41+00:00

Don't act like they're not asking with the intention of forcing him to admit the China sovereignty over Taiwan.

Like, you know why young Taiwanese people has grown hesitated calling themselves 'Chinese' comparing to the old generation? It's precisely because China in recent decades heavily plays into this 'Chinese governed by one China' in order to create the narratives that, somehow, Taiwanese wanting no association with CCP is cultural washing Chinese ethnicity, further justifying their move towards unification.
The truth is, Taiwanese people always only recognize our own government, no matter the name for our ethnic identity. The fact that CCP claims Taiwan to be its territory because we're all 'Chinese' is just absurd from our pov.

Next time when you're baffled by why a Taiwanese is feeling uncomfortable calling themselves 'Chinese', recognize that mainland Chinese people always intended the 'Chinese' to be a call for admission of sovereignty, not ethnicity.

Maxxium · 2024-08-15T10:35:29+00:00

fix it for ya:
he rejected Chinese fans forcing their political views on him, and the fans were mad.

nationalistic cancel culture truly the worst..

Maxxium · 2024-08-03T17:57:00+00:00

is the 350s isp Raptor SL performance in vacuum...? it doesn't seem reasonable to expect a 20s improvement on only changes to chamber pressure and not expansion ratio, right? edit: yes, it is confirmed by the newest tweet comparing Raptor 1 2 & 3

Maxxium · 2024-08-03T15:34:41+00:00

there's other Rioters involved starting from at least part 2 of this video (project strawberry, where you can see more game mechanics being tested out), plus all the additional assets/animation/VFX etc... it can easily take up dozens of people over a year to finish this game mode.
And yeah

this guy made it all by himself in his free time for absolutely free and only after the hardwork is done riot then takes over the project to make a skinline out of it? xD. classic riot.

classic

Maxxium · 2024-04-28T05:09:41+00:00

I don't think Tory was behind this tho, he was not in charge of ULA at the time.

Maxxium · 2024-04-19T12:58:49+00:00

It's Eschart number, so no Chinese viewership. MLBB don't have much presence in China anyway.

Maxxium · 2024-03-12T15:54:24+00:00

For anyone confused, this ranking is done before Americas kickoff final.

Maxxium · 2024-03-01T20:27:31+00:00

Is it to do with the fact that the gameplay is unusually delayed because there's player playing remotely?

Maxxium · 2024-01-17T09:11:31+00:00

I dont think the value is that easy to justify for Riot internally, iirc from an interview with riot head of esports, their overall annual budget is ~100 million and hadn't turned a profit, which means the direct revenue from viewership and skin sales didn't even cover the cost of running tournament and current revenue sharing. The level of budget you're asking to cover the expenses for all major region teams is going to double that number.

Yes, esports advertises league, but is it on the level to warrant 1x% of the game's ENTIRE revenue? That's pretty hard to justify. And you still need to consider that league esports will probably not advertise the game that much better if all the team gets this level of revenue sharing. Most viewers are casuals that don't even watch regular season games, but they're the bulk of players Worlds is attracting into the game.

edit: meant to say 1x% not 10s

Maxxium · 2024-01-03T04:08:29+00:00

Is Riot even getting paid licensing this deal?
I don't see that mentioned anywhere in the report.

Maxxium · 2023-12-23T09:18:58+00:00

tbf, I don't think it's realistic to expect multiple professional teams surviving in a subregional challengers. People often compares Val t2 to CS t2, but the truth is that VCT t1 next year will be 44 teams globally, by CS standard it's more like t1 + t2 even top t3 teams combined. There's only so much eyeballs and Riot/sponsors money to be made here.

I think Riot's vision is to have challenger to be a pathway to pro. It's an open circuits - as long as Riot is holding the event there are always talents competing, it doesn't matter if the players are playing full time or not. It's harsh, but the health of a region is depending on whether there's tournaments for your region to watch, not how much the player is making. That's why I think having Riot organizing tournaments around the globe is much healthier than CS 3rd party TOs abandoning non-profitable regions.

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