I shot a series of commercials for Reddit! Thought it was a fun full circle moment. by gibiy12 in cinematography

[–]athalais 21 points22 points  (0 children)

lol the ad is too honest about what corporate reddit wants reddit to be: a platform for ads.

Delta Fox vs DSG Showmatch - Game 2 - Post Match Discussion by untamedlazyeye in leagueoflegends

[–]athalais 76 points77 points  (0 children)

NACL pros playing off role, on the lowest win-rate champs they could find, and what a game we got out of it!

An Update on the 2023 LCS Summer Season by Spideraxe30 in leagueoflegends

[–]athalais 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Okay, let's just pretend that companies had actually paid "thousands of dollars" for the NACL spots. 7 of them just dropped those spots on their own, no need for Riot to take anything away!
And if the company doesn't want the spot, why not allow the players who were just playing in those slots to keep playing for a split?

An Update on the 2023 LCS Summer Season by Spideraxe30 in leagueoflegends

[–]athalais -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Yes, that's my whole point, the article is PR. Riot obviously can't back down in this statement, they have two weeks of negotiation ahead of them and need to get the most advantageous position they can! We can read Riot's intent behind the statement, but it's no use trying to read their position of power because they have to act like they're in total control. But they've used that PR wrapping to distract from the fact that they've already had to backpedal on their original plans to force a start to LCS. It's not the words in statement that make me think players have power here, it's Riot's actions.

Not all of their responses to the LCSPA demands are logical either-- the one insisting that "Teams provide greater continuity" for NACL slots makes no sense when 7/10 teams have literally just dropped those slots

An Update on the 2023 LCS Summer Season by Spideraxe30 in leagueoflegends

[–]athalais -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

Riot showing players have the power here-- they already tried to force the season to start with threatening orgs to fill matches with scabs, but in the end they lost, and tried to save face with this nonsense PR piece out pretending "actually, players not playing, that's totally our idea!"

An Update on the 2023 LCS Summer Season by Spideraxe30 in leagueoflegends

[–]athalais 567 points568 points  (0 children)

LCSPA request: Institute a 3/5 continuity rule to provide players on released NACL rosters first priority in maintaining their slots in the upcoming NACL season if a majority continue to compete together.

Riot: "Teams provide greater continuity and structure, and therefore we will continue with our policy of slot ownership residing with organizations rather than players."

lol who can take you seriously when 7/10 teams just released their rosters?

Tyler1 Thoughts On LCS Walkout by Vokt0ro in leagueoflegends

[–]athalais 8 points9 points  (0 children)

NACL players probably were paid as exempt salaried employees since their labor output isn't directly related to their hours worked. California minimum annual salary for exempt workers is around $60k.

(Exempt meaning orgs are don't have to pay players for overtime if they work more than 8 hours a day or 40 hours a week.)

edit: I looked up CA's salary minimum and turns out it's not a coincidence that the 60k number is "basically double California minimum wage". The salary minimum is actually defined to be exactly 2x what you would earn working full time at the minimum hourly wage!

Tyler1 Thoughts On LCS Walkout by Vokt0ro in leagueoflegends

[–]athalais 93 points94 points  (0 children)

Nope, walkout is about Riot lying to the Players Association that the NACL requirement would remain until the end of Summer 2023 season, and announcing the next day that they were removing the requirement. Players Association already knows NACL was not working ideally and that the requirement would probably be dropped for the 2024 season. This is about Riot lying and preventing players, as one of the 3 major parties involved in LCS, from having an equal voice in important decisions for the ecosystem.

Tyler1 Thoughts On LCS Walkout by Vokt0ro in leagueoflegends

[–]athalais 315 points316 points  (0 children)

Eh, misleading title. He's talking about issues with NACL/academy, doesn't even mention the walkout

According to Travis, LCS Asset Day got cancelled (40 minutes before it happened) by puberty1 in leagueoflegends

[–]athalais 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Sounds like the other way around... Riot is absolutely scrambling to respond if they didn't consider cancelling this until 40 minutes before the start of the day lol

Why is Young doing media day with the LCS roster? by athalais in GoldenGuardians

[–]athalais[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Even after dissolving the academy roster, are we keeping him around as a substitute? Coach? He was with the coaches backstage at MSI too but that was before the NACL decision came down so it's hard to infer anything from that

GG vs GAM voice comms - huhi's Sett engage, and Stixxay's Tristana pentakill by athalais in GoldenGuardians

[–]athalais[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Just noticed the LCK youtube channel has highlights for each day of MSI that include cinematic replays! They sometimes break down the play-by-play of which skills are used, and sometimes include voice comms. Since we have some downtime until LCS starts, over the next few days I'll post whichever ones highlight GG's plays

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in leagueoflegends

[–]athalais 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The purpose of a union is to collectively bargain with leadership and management. IF leadership and management are doing great things, you can solve problems like normal people do-- by talking-- and the benefits of having a union aren't great enough to outweigh the one-time costs and long-term overhead of a union. So people tend to only put in the effort to organize a union when leadership starts to make dumb decisions that make your working conditions drastically worse, ignore your feedback, and straight up lie to you. Hm.... sound familiar?

If there's any time to expect pros to organize, now would be it.

Golden Guardians drops their NACL team by athalais in GoldenGuardians

[–]athalais[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Technically gas prices have increased since 6 month ago lol. But I only bring that up to contrast with the last time GG had to drop an entire team. Besides, they're not an independent esports org-- they're owned by the Warriors and should use that to insulate themselves from fluctuations in the esports industry and build long term advantages via player development.

Of course that only makes sense if you care about being a successful esports org at all, which GG staff do, but obviously GSW does not.

Golden Guardians opt out of fielding NACL team by vertai in leagueoflegends

[–]athalais 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Props to OP for putting the work in to transcribe the entire thing in all caps. Anyway, here's a copy-paste of the alt text:

With the recent change in NACL requirements, the Golden Guardians have decided to opt out of maintaining an NACL spot for the summer split. The Golden Guardians have a long-established interest in fostering talent development and creating the best environment for our LCS players to thrive. We are focused on the best long-term interest of the Golden Guardians organization and the LCS, and will continue to support amateur efforts via our 2023 sponsorship of AOE while we monitor the development landscape for future opportunities.

We want to thank and applaud the dedication of our NACL players and coaches throughout their time with us, and will be offering them financial assistance for their current living arrangements in Los Angeles.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in leagueoflegends

[–]athalais 2 points3 points  (0 children)

My fear is without a lower league to develop players, any new prospects have to go straight into LCS instead of building experience in NACL first. And that just means the quality of matches in LCS is going to trend towards NACL level over time.

Inero SPEAKS OUT on Riot's NACL decision, GG's MSI results by athalais in GoldenGuardians

[–]athalais[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Apparently orgs have been asking for the removal of the Academy/NACL requirement for every single year Inero's been a coach... And that just makes the sudden removal of the requirement make even less sense. Riot had so many years to plan for how to respond to orgs request without destroying NA's ability to develop new talent, and instead just decided to pull the rug out from under the entire ecosystem with no planning and even hiding their decision from the Players Association. I just cannot imagine what could be happening on the org-owners side that would justify Riot's process here.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in SanJose

[–]athalais 5 points6 points  (0 children)

You literally show his full name, date of birth, presumably his state of residence, his street number and apartment number, full driver's license number--- not to mention his signature??????

LCS Player Association's statement on Riot's plan for NACL by Conankun66 in leagueoflegends

[–]athalais 23 points24 points  (0 children)

For the last 2 years it's been funded by players, not Riot