I don't really want to wait a year to watch Alliance play against C9, like at Dreamhack, or EG vs DK at Starladder. It's more fun for me to see my favorite teams across the world butt heads every few months.
No doubt the financial stability offered by the LCS is much more attractive to career players, but as a spectator it doesn't really mean much.
I only watch the NA scene even though I'm EUW because I like the personalities. I've stopped watching since spring and with all the roster changes (looking at you TSM) after a couple of matches I lost interest. It's not anyone's fault though.
I am not Sky. But I feel there is need to expand the professional scene of league. Maybe add a Dominion tournament scene I think Opiate would like that.
I don't really want to wait a year to watch Alliance play against C9, like at Dreamhack, or EG vs DK at Starladder. It's more fun for me to see my favorite teams across the world butt heads every few months.
No doubt the financial stability offered by the LCS is much more attractive to career players, but as a spectator it doesn't really mean much.
I am not Sky. But I feel there is need to expand the professional scene of league. Maybe add a Dominion tournament scene I think Opiate would like that.
I don't think Dominion would recieve much love. I don't have any statistics but my group of friends never wants to play it or twisted treeline. When we want a change we go for ARAM or a new game mode. I think 2v2 really struck a cord and that magma map looked nice. They could expand on that once more.
But the best way to do that is encourage more people to play ranked. And taking into acount bronze players are 50%(?) of the ranked playerbase they should add Team Builder to it.
I can not count the times a match was ruinned due to conflict of interests in champ select. In bronze 70% of matches always spark something like that. And in most matches someone plays a role he's really bad simply because he was last pick or second to last.
Ranked team builder wouldn't allow you to pick a champion of course, just your role. No more disputes over mid and jungle or frustrated impromptu supports. It would really make Bronze less toxic. which is the first ranked experience for all players, which in turn would add interest to the competitive scene.
last point makes a lot of sense. i think 10 millino was a bit too much and gave the teams a way to just not care so much. doesnt help a lot of ppl thought they should give the proze to all teams
Clickbait article and riot is in fear of the major success of dota 2. But also saying 'begging' of the community is a pathetic excuse. The Compendium for 7 euro's is the best money i have spend and those stretch goals? I mean for 7 euro's you get but loads of content. And you don't have to get it because a lot will be available to everyone expect a few things. And i support the community because they make awesome sets for the hero's.
If Riot were to stop their competitive scene I'm sure they wouldn't hold the teams under a gun and stop any other attempts. It would just be bad PR and the whole community would be mad at them and cause a
riot
Right now Riot has a strong arm and standards over teams for a reason.
But that is a very hypothetical case anyway, Riot would just be shooting at their own foot if they stopped the competitive scene. If they want to expand to other fields long term (I don't know... LoL Resorts and theme parks?) , by that time the company would be bigger and have more resources, they wouldn't need to shut down the e-sports branch.
It's like asking how would players buy skins if Riot decided to stop making them? But why would they?
Dota2 aesthetics are community driven, Valve could stop supporting a large portion of their revenue model (again why?) and silly fish helmets would still be released by Vermilion Wlad and other members.
But to me these are just zombie-apocalypse-level-of-probability questions.
I am not Sky. But I feel there is need to expand the professional scene of league. Maybe add a Dominion tournament scene I think Opiate would like that.
lol it absolutely isn't. dota2 is nowhere near league's... league in terms of viewership and playerbase. it's not even growing at a rate to overtake it anytime soon.
I like the point about having big, important tournaments on a weekly/biweekly basis. I would prefer it be something like golf. Have a few major tournaments across the year with a lot of big (but not as prestigious) tournaments spread in between that not all of the teams have to compete in.
The problem is geography and latency. They can't bring all of the players together all the time and the latency in online tournaments between east and west cheapens the entire experience.
lol it absolutely isn't. dota2 is nowhere near league's... league in terms of viewership and playerbase. it's not even growing at a rate to overtake it anytime soon.
that's cool. we can compare end of year annual events when riot holds theirs in a few months, although that might not be applicable due to it being held in korea this year (broadcasting at like 12am-3am in the western region)
now tell me how many daily watch league vs dota 2. or how many concurrent players each game has.
yeah, riot has nothing to fear from valve.
i don't understand the reason dota 2 fans have for always trying to paint the picture as "evil riot" being afraid of valve, or how bad league is vs dota2 in every thread that mentinos riot
that's cool. we can compare end of year annual events when riot holds theirs in a few months, although that might not be applicable due to it being held in korea this year (broadcasting at like 12am-3am in the western region)
now tell me how many daily watch league vs dota 2. or how many concurrent players each game has.
That last sentence doesn't make any sense. Also more 9 million unique players last month and that keeps going up and and up. Also you can see on steam that nearly at peak 750 to 800k and that still goes up more then 500k or more are playing concurrent daily. And again that PR talk from Riot because they are scared on how big Dota 2 is going and nothing is stopping that train.
Why does a 10M prize pool matter in the first place? Because we all subconsciously (or in some cases consciously) place value on the size of that pool to justify our interest. If this were just great teams fighting one another over 1000 dollars, it would get viewers but not nearly as many as The International gets with a 10M+ prize pool.
Similarly, a 9M prize pool next year would create the subconscious (or in some cases conscious) impression that this new year is less important than last year. And that's a really bad impression for a sport to give.
There's also the fact that a big purse guarantees the best talent showing up in top condition to play seriously. A $1000 purse would get fewer viewers, because likely the quality of competition would be lower. Think World Series of Poker vs televised local tournaments.
That last sentence doesn't make any sense. Also more 9 million unique players last month and that keeps going up and and up. Also you can see on steam that nearly at peak 750 to 800k and that still goes up more then 500k or more are playing concurrent daily. And again that PR talk from Riot because they are scared on how big Dota 2 is going and nothing is stopping that train.
guess what? lol's playerbase and viewership keeps going up and up, too. there's no way dota2 will ever match it in terms of viewership and playerbase. ever. ever. ever. ever. ever.
dota2's a great game. league is a great game. they can co-exist together in peace and harmony without people trying to paint some absolutely ridiculous scenario where one company fears the other.
riot was asked a question and they responded. they didn't see dota2's numbers and say "OH CRAP RELEASE PR DAMAGE CONTROL NOWWW"
That last sentence doesn't make any sense. Also more 9 million unique players last month and that keeps going up and and up. Also you can see on steam that nearly at peak 750 to 800k and that still goes up more then 500k or more are playing concurrent daily. And again that PR talk from Riot because they are scared on how big Dota 2 is going and nothing is stopping that train.
To be successful is one thing, to catch up to your biggest competitor is another entirely
Lol grows just as Dota2 grows, one doesn't stop to wait for the other. Think of it this way, even if Dota2 % playerbase growth in 1 year was double of LoL's it would still take years and years to catch up. 10% of 800k is still much less than 5% of X million
But us as players shouldn't worry about it. It doesn't affect us in any way shape or form (other than juvenile bragging rights?) Both games are a huge success and have many years of growth ahead of them.
unique log ins a day? to what the client? that play a game? its not in their best interest to clarify any of that
plus we get to have the fun conversation about how more people in the world play dota every day anyhow with pirate servers if we want to talk about pure numbers
guess what? lol's playerbase and viewership keeps going up and up, too. there's no way dota2 will ever match it in terms of viewership and playerbase. ever. ever. ever. ever. ever.
is broodwar still played competitively in korea? i used to be huge into that scene but stopped paying attention after starcraft2 came out and i hated it.
why on earth would you ever be so cocky to say that
because by the time either game falters there'll probably be a new one to replace it. i doubt one of the current games failing in the near future will mean a mass migration to the other, and with the current rate things are going it just won't happen.
Lol grows just as Dota2 grows, one doesn't stop to wait for the other. Think of it this way, even if Dota2 % playerbase growth in 1 year was double of LoL's it would still take years and years to catch up. 10% of 800k is still much less than 5% of X million
But us as players shouldn't worry about it. It doesn't affect us in any way shape or form (other than juvenile bragging rights?) Both games are a huge success and have many years of growth ahead of them.
is broodwar still played competitively in korea? i used to be huge into that scene but stopped paying attention after starcraft2 came out and i hated it.
because by the time either game falters there'll probably be a new one to replace it. i doubt one of the current games failing in the near future will mean a mass migration to the other, and with the current rate things are going it just won't happen.
its a silly thing to say it will never ever ever whatever happen
brood war was a fucking sport in korea
it was shown to the president when he got there
its gone now
this shit is flimsy and everchanging
guess what? lol's playerbase and viewership keeps going up and up, too. there's no way dota2 will ever match it in terms of viewership and playerbase. ever. ever. ever. ever. ever.
i don't understand the reason dota 2 fans have for always trying to paint the picture as "evil riot" being afraid of valve, or how bad league is vs dota2 in every thread that mentinos riot
Yea but my point was through the valve cut of the compendiums, it wouldn't be a stretch to say they got paid back and profited pretty hard. That when all is said and done they were paid vastly more than the pool they promised to pay, before they had to pay it. They took on the responsibility of paying if this failed, but then were able to successfully offload it to the playerbase (and created stretch goals based on the prize pool cut to keep people going).
Smart business plan though. Valve is always good at that.
i don't understand the reason dota 2 fans have for always trying to paint the picture as "evil riot" being afraid of valve, or how bad league is vs dota2 in every thread that mentinos riot
Why does a 10M prize pool matter in the first place? Because we all subconsciously (or in some cases consciously) place value on the size of that pool to justify our interest. If this were just great teams fighting one another over 1000 dollars, it would get viewers but not nearly as many as The International gets with a 10M+ prize pool.
Similarly, a 9M prize pool next year would create the subconscious (or in some cases conscious) impression that this new year is less important than last year. And that's a really bad impression for a sport to give.
People watch doters because it's highly entertaining, not because of some prize pool.
If there was 0 dollars on the line people would still be as excited for the games between the best teams.
Look how shitty the finals were and how dissapointed people were in them, giant prize pool or not.
People line up to watch singsing and other streamers play pubgames every day, no stakes, prizepools or sad aspirations to be a 'sport' there.
I believe dota is going to have a smaller pool next year (unless they come up with something new and really clever for the compendium) and the world will keep turning.
Much of it this time was people contributing for the novelty of how high the prize pool could go.
Dota doesn't rely on fairweather fans and media noise with a yearly world cup to be its own successfull widely loved thing.
It's going to keep growing for the forseeable future because it's a great game and people are going to keep telling their friends about it who will try it and tell their friends, until the audience for it is fully tapped.
I doubt valve care if dota grows at an accelerated rate YoY or not, they have no shareholders to worry about, there is no speculation to overvalue and subsequently implode their nonexistant stock.
Starcraft lived in the early days of the internet. It's not as volatile now (the internet, that is), connection speeds will go up, but we pretty much got it figured out, things stabilize over time, not the other way around. It depended a lot on on the TV side of things, which was/is an old and dying technology. It was only a S.Koran phenomenon, the international scene paled in comparison. And it got phased out by a new genre, MOBAs
or ARTS which I assume is the term you prefer
. RTS games simply can't be sold to the masses, not only do you have to learn the ins and outs of each unit and its counters, you also need to play well and multitask (on a micro AND macro level) a lot. Without a large casual playerbase the e-sports scene didn't last.
LoL was the MOBA game that popularized the genre and this F2P model on a global scale, and did it big. Just like WoW didn't get surprassed by similar MMOs over the years, LoL will most probably remain at the top until it implodes, just like WoW will too.
"The only CoD killer is CoD" - Said the wise 13yo
LoL and Dota2 are big internationally, and both will lose a lot of traction if a new genre pops in from nowhere, not just LoL.
I don't see why you aren't just as cynical with Dota2 as you are with LoL when it comes to big unpredictable changes in the gaming industry.
LoL by its very nature attracts more people, more easily. It has a lower learning curve (levels and blocked content like a limited champ pool help believe it or not), less mechanics to learn, runs well on more systems, has a "friendlier" art style which attracts the casual crowd (one of my classmates liked the female characters and only played for that reason, now she's addicted to it and plays ranked every day), and is more forgiving for begginers (you can teleport to base for free, you dont waste 1/3 of your manapool if you fail a skill nor do you have long cooldowns, etc)
The competitive scene absolutely depends on casuals, and LoL is a good vessel for it. I don't see it collapsing any time soon. On the other hand I don't have unrealistic expectations and think it'll last 30 years, of course it wont.
Dota2 is more niche, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's big enough to be in e-sports and just like LoL it won't get smaller anytime soon. And I'm happy I have an alternative to LoL, even though I find LoL more fun to play and Dota2 more fun to watch.
Regardless of the statistics which do show that Valve has managed to grow the pot year after year, the reasoning that you wouldn't want to have a year where the pot suddenly didn't grow is very valid and could potentially be a PR nightmare.
Judging how Valve has handled PR over the past few years, it doesn't sound like it would be equipped to deal with that fallout, either.
Regardless of the statistics which do show that Valve has managed to grow the pot year after year, the reasoning that you wouldn't want to have a year where the pot suddenly didn't grow is very valid and could potentially be a PR nightmare.
Judging how Valve has handled PR over the past few years, it doesn't sound like it would be equipped to deal with that fallout, either.
What would the fallout be exactly? We can clearly see the growth with the monthly unique stats so unless the player numbers were also stagnating there wouldn't really be anything particularly compelling about the dropoff except Riot might call them out for not begging so good.
-So much less content being produced nowadays. While I understand the need to stop growing the champ selection after a while, we still don't have replays and the spectator mode pales in comparison to dota's. Beyond that, skins keep rising in price, hell, they won't even let me buy event icons for IP any more.
-I dislike Riot's balance team. The meta has been static since... what, season 1? Good god. Beyond that, they don't let tons of champs get strong in their own niche, which is what really leads to variety. As somebody who enjoys unorthodox characters, this is rather offputting.
-This leads in to e-sports. When the LCS was new I'd watch near every match. Now I couldn't sit through a full game if I wanted to. Everything is just so samey. If somebody uses a slightly unusual pick it's like the end of the world. As I mentioned earlier, I like odd character choices. If 9/10 games will use the same pool of 25 champs then why bother watching?
-The general attitude Riot has given towards their playerbase has grown worse over time. I just... don't really feel valued as a player any more. It's hard to describe, but little things make all the difference in the world. The upcoming sugar rush would be a great example of a cool little event, what with the double IP, but then they go and say people need to pay cash for icons, despite the fact that they've always been available for IP from events.
I could go on and on, mobility creep, runes are a horrible mechanic that only serve to gimp the playerbase, no voice chat, the murder of lore... but you get the idea.
*Edit*
Though the better question would be "What did they do to keep me as a customer?"
Riot is actively trying to make calendars across regions match up better so we can have more than 1 or 2 crossover events each season. Which would be awesome. As it stands what we have in LoL is essentially European football with star players transferring to and from regions every once in a while.
I guess the one problem I have with following Dota2's competitive scene is that there's no definitive place for me to watch the best of the best like LoL has with OGN. Sure some tournaments will feature a deeper roster of teams than others, but with the ebb and flow of form every team goes through you're rarely going to get to a place where you'd say, "This is it."
Every OGN weekend feels like an event and last weekend's Grand Finals between White and Arrows was unbelievable.
From Riot's standpoint, decreasing the cash payout of their premiere tournament would definitely be a PR nightmare... but not so for Valve, who wouldn't really give a fuck.
The players? They'll watch anything with Navi and Alliance in it, and there's other tournaments to go to. They don't need to prop up the scene singlehandedly like Riot does.
Sponsors? Valve couldn't care less. The profitability of DOTA2 comes entirely from the hat system, which is pretty much automated these days thanks to the Workshop. They're not looking to partner with Coke or Kingston or whatever, that's all on the teams/players.
Not that the concern is without merit, but I think it really misses the point and could only be the conclusion of someone on the outside looking in.
Starcraft lived in the early days of the internet. It's not as volatile now (the internet, that is), connection speeds will go up, but we pretty much got it figured out, things stabilize over time, not the other way around. It depended a lot on on the TV side of things, which was/is an old and dying technology. It was only a S.Koran phenomenon, the international scene paled in comparison. And it got phased out by a new genre, MOBAs
or ARTS which I assume is the term you prefer
. RTS games simply can't be sold to the masses, not only do you have to learn the ins and outs of each unit and its counters, you also need to play well and multitask (on a micro AND macro level) a lot. Without a large casual playerbase the e-sports scene didn't last.
LoL was the MOBA game that popularized the genre and this F2P model on a global scale, and did it big. Just like WoW didn't get surprassed by similar MMOs over the years, LoL will most probably remain at the top until it implodes, just like WoW will too.
"The only CoD killer is CoD" - Said the wise 13yo
LoL and Dota2 are big internationally, and both will lose a lot of traction if a new genre pops in from nowhere, not just LoL.
I don't see why you aren't just as cynical with Dota2 as you are with LoL when it comes to big unpredictable changes in the gaming industry.
LoL by its very nature attracts more people, more easily. It has a lower learning curve (levels and blocked content like a limited champ pool help believe it or not), less mechanics to learn, runs well on more systems, has a "friendlier" art style which attracts the casual crowd (one of my classmates liked the female characters and only played for that reason, now she's addicted to it and plays ranked every day), and is more forgiving for begginers (you can teleport to base for free, you dont waste 1/3 of your manapool if you fail a skill nor do you have long cooldowns, etc)
The competitive scene absolutely depends on casuals, and LoL is a good vessel for it. I don't see it collapsing any time soon. On the other hand I don't have unrealistic expectations and think it'll last 30 years, of course it wont.
Dota2 is more niche, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's big enough to be in e-sports and just like LoL it won't get smaller anytime soon. And I'm happy I have an alternative to LoL, even though I find LoL more fun to play and Dota2 more fun to watch.
im less cynical about dota because it has lived more than twice as long and as already explained doesnt need a company to prop it up as its already supported 11 months out of the year from other events and companies
It's unknown, which is why I think saying that Riot is propping it up is a massive stretch. OGN, the Korean League...league...isn't run by Riot and is thriving.
You can't say "well Riot has to hold it up or it will fall" when it's been proven not to be true in one market.
This is coming from someone who finds pro LoL super freaking boring.
It's unknown, which is why I think saying that Riot is propping it up is a massive stretch. OGN, the Korean League...league...isn't run by Riot and is thriving.
You can't say "well Riot has to hold it up or it will fall" when it's been proven not to be true in one market.
This is coming from someone who finds pro LoL super freaking boring.
I'm trying to remember but I never really followed pro LoL even when I played.
I don't think it would be dead today if Riot didn't step in. It's not a HoN/S2 situation here. Rather, the LCS has become so dominating that it's nearly the alpha and omega of the scene (outside of Korea) right now. Which means any perceived weakness is going to be much more magnified than if The International 5 had a smaller, more reasonable prize pool.
EDIT: Here you go. If you look at HotshotGG's tournament history, you'll see a lot of third-party tournaments like MLG, IEM, ESL. His team, CLG, went to a lot of tournaments from 2010-2012, and then the LCS happened and the non-LCS appearances went way down.
We talkin' pro scene, right? MLG or some other company would host tournaments, like Dota. It would slightly diminish initially. Are we saying that there are still Worlds, like TI?
I think it would be nearly as big as it is right now. In fact, maybe even bigger. The LCS is fun and all, but the week-in-week-out nature of it leads to games not really mattering. I would tune into monthly tournaments, whereas now my friends and I don't even bother with the LCS because who cares if someone wins or loses. Maybe. Game is still boring to watch.
I think the game would improve, too. So many resources are being pumped into the LCS. Refocusing on the actual game would be great.
I agree that Riot shouldn't worry about how big TI4's prize pool was, but only because they have bigger issues at hand: a buggy client and game balance seems to be major issues.
We talkin' pro scene, right? MLG or some other company would host tournaments, like Dota. It would slightly diminish initially. Are we saying that there are still Worlds, like TI?
I think it would be nearly as big as it is right now. In fact, maybe even bigger. The LCS is fun and all, but the week-in-week-out nature of it leads to games not really mattering. I would tune into monthly tournaments, whereas now my friends and I don't even bother with the LCS because who cares if someone wins or loses. Maybe. Game is still boring to watch.
I think the game would improve, too. So many resources are being pumped into the LCS. Refocusing on the actual game would be great.
You don't think if Valve stops putting on the international teams would become unstable? I think the whole scene would become less popular because of that.
