The Upper Bracket: Rally Behind Your Content Producers!
The Upper Bracket is MonteCristo‘s editorial column on the League of Legends eSports scene. Make sure to follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook to get the latest League of Legends eSports updates!
As Riot’s Season Two races to its conclusion, League of Legends nears the delivery of the largest single prize pool awarded in eSports history. The fame of teams and players has reached vertiginous heights as millions watch the streams of major events, and LoL stands alone as the champion of competitive gaming worldwide.
In this brave new world of eSports, on key difference sets League of Legends apart when compared to its closest competitor, Starcraft II: fan support of community figureheads and projects. We know that League of Legends captures the largest audience amongst its brethren, but why does the wider fanbase not rally around its casters and content producers?
While this conundrum has plagued me for some time, IPL’s Buddy Hutton spurred my need to speak when he asked the Reddit community what kind of shows they would be interested in supporting. IPL announced that their LoL Update series has been having trouble finding a wide audience in spite of its high production quality, humorous writing, and professional player appearances. Surprised by this news, I checked their latest show and discovered that it had received a disappointing 15,000 views. YouTube content producers know that this translates to a paltry $30 to $50, depending on how many viewers were served advertisements. From IPL’s perspective, using several salaried employees to produce a show that generates little revenue is a significant waste of resources.
As a result of these low numbers, the bosses at IPL are reducing the number of LoL Updates to only two per month and focusing their efforts on new content. While I’m sure the crack crew at IPL will produce some more wonderful shows for the community, it seems that any new production is doomed to monetary failure. How can that possibly be the case when IPL commands so much attention due to their tournaments and prestige?
The most perplexing aspect of the League of Legends fanbase remains how little it seems to care about supporting the shows, casters, and websites that fans claim to value. Many of the people who enjoy LoL Update do not subscribe to the IPL’s LoL YouTube channel and they do not follow the hosts on Twitter. In fact, the only reason that many people watch LoL Update at all is because it appears, conveniently, on the front page of the League of Legends sub-Reddit.
As any LoL content producer knows, one of the only ways to get views, watches, or listens on your product is to post it to the LoL sub-Reddit and pray that it gains traction. While Reddit only accounts for a tiny portion of the sizeable League of Legends community, it is the one and only content-friendly board for our favorite game. Fans have become so reliant on the LoL sub-Reddit to bring them content, that producers must place every single show on the board or risk receiving drastically lower views, no matter the quality of the show or article in question.
A capitalistic argument could be made that this content fails because it lacks appeal. I think that the majority of people who actually watch LoL Update, or much of the other quality content produced by our talented scene, want it to continue but neglect their duty to subscribe. Good content, and companies like IPL that take risks to raise the bar on production quality, legitimizes eSports and helps develop the community we love. In order to truly thrive, the community must support those who create content and provide services. Individuals like Travis Gafford from State of the League help to make shows that fans enjoy, but it’s up to us to help them make a living and dedicate more time to creating content. Please, as fans, lets support them.
Even casters in League of Legends hold minute fan-bases compared to their Starcraft 2 counterparts. Leigh ‘Deman’ Smith is, without a doubt, one of the most famous and accomplished casters in League of Legends, and has been featured at the overwhelming majority of important offline events. Deman’s Twitter followers number a paltry 2,800, while well-known Starcraft caster Nick ‘Tasteless’ Plott commands 62,000. Why does this discrepancy exist? The League of Legends community is failing its heroes and, without these content-producers thriving, eSports cannot succeed.
The tournaments will continue, but the interstitial content holds interest in the downtime and helps maintain community zeal between competitions. The analysis, debates, and conversations keep the ball rolling and mint long-term fans. The Starcraft community loves its content producers and supports them at every turn, offering constructive criticism and celebrating its own scene.
While I am by no means an advocate of universally supporting content, I know that many of us fail to take the time to offer a follow or a subscription. If you call yourself a fan of something, spend a minute or two to demonstrate your appreciation on social media and message boards. Let’s get excited and enthusiastic about the wonderful people in League of Legends who help to author the experiences that we adore.
I challenge League of Legends fans to acknowledge the content producers and become more involved in the scene. A follow on Twitter and a quick message saying how much you enjoy your favorite caster’s work can make their day. For many content producers, recognition from fans is what keeps them slaving away at keyboards, in front of cameras, and on the microphone. Let’s do it, as it will only mean better content for you and a brighter future for LoL as an eSport.
Category: The Upper Bracket
About the Author (Author Profile)
Christopher "MonteCristo" Mykles covers the League of Legends eSports scene as an editorialist, interviewer, video analyst, caster, and tournament producer. He hails from the Warcraft 3 scene, where he coached/managed Verge Gaming and served as one of the principal English-language casters. In what little spare time he has, he enjoys practicing Muay Thai, reading, and savoring the best beer and cocktails.Subscribe
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- The Upper Bracket: Rally Behind Your Content Producers! | | July 18, 2012
Some thoughts:
I wonder how many views a re-current SC2 show would gain if it wasn’t listed under the TeamLiquid calendar? Granted, the TL calendar grants more visibility than a reddit post, but I think visibility within the predominant community site is as much of a necessity in SC2 as in LoL. It just so happens that TL has a tool that makes it easy for quality recurrent-shows/tournaments to gain visibility whereas Reddit does not.
But even in SC2 land, you can make the claim that great content still gets buried due to lack of visibility – from Jason Tugman’s eSports production series (http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL65D508B5BEF170CB&feature=plcp) to Complexity’s “The Executives” Series (http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9DB6E32981EE9255&feature=plcp)
And in regards to the caster situation, I feel comparisons with SC2 casters are bound to fall short. Especially at the beginning of SC2, the stars of the tournament would be the casters instead of the players. I cannot think of a LoL caster that have the charisma *or* the game knowledge of the top SC2 casters, let along both.
LoL is a young community still. You say that the “League of Legends community is failing its heroes”, but I would argue that it’s too early for LoL to even have heroes at this point. It’s branding of a kind. Tasteless has been generally accepted as *the* go to caster for years now, whereas the quality of Deman’s brand is nowhere near as strong.
I’m rambling at this point, but I think the main differences between LoL and SC2 right now are branding and visibility. Branding will come with time, as high-quality producers show that they consistently put out good work. However, the reliance on reddit may be a hinderence to visibility – as the site was not built for the promotion of re-current content (and if anything, it was built to prevent it).
“casters in League of Legends hold minute fan-bases compared to their Starcraft 2 counterparts.”
Comparing casters who started casting in LoL to Tasteless or Artosis is pointless. They are not “Starcraft 2 casters”. They have casted for many years more, and when they casted Starcraft 1, they were the only ones covering pro play live in English, giving them a monopoly on the fans.
I think there is far more to the game that is unseen in SC2 (or even DotA, especially when comparing drafting) than in LoL. Casters’ and commentators’ real contribution to watching the game, in my opinion, has always been so that they can inform the more casual or learning audience about the decision making processes of the players. Mind- and metagaming in SC2 is just so much more deep than LoL’s.
Also, as you addressed a little bit, LoL has Reddit, Starcraft has Team Liquid. Is there even a remotely fair comparison for community news and outreach?
“I think there is far more to the game that is unseen in SC2″
That’s nonsense. From the non-experienced viewer standpoint, SC2 gives much more clear view – You see guy with bigger army and a guy with lesser army, guy with bigger army wins. You don’t need to know build orders, timings or anything to understand and enjoy it.
In mobas you need to know (besides the champion abilities, that more often than not are pretty unclear) why suddenly weak character tripled it’s damage and now contributes much more to the team. And you will rarely understand how that happened, because nobody will explain that properly.
Twitter doesn’t seem to be a big thing for league of legends players. Responses on Reddit would be a better indicator as it seems to be where the largest group of LoL fans hang out.
Every esports game is going to have a different crowd and atmosphere to it. LoL fans are pretty wary of outsiders and it will always take longer for a new content producer to get a following here.
A few points to add into your thought process about the state of League of Legends content:
1. The professional players release content primarily in the form of unprofessional blogs. This turns the entire scene, or at least those that follow them, into a pseudo reality show. You don’t really watch TSM’s blogs to learn things, you get to see puppies and ridiculous “Q&A” sessions that are only followed up on by Xpecial. This immediately lowers the expectations of content as anyone with an internet connection and a friend that’s a pro can stream and be “famous.”
2. The game is still relatively new. Many games don’t have a huge, massive coverage in the beginning because the game is still trying to catch its stride. Most players are too busy trying to play League like Pokemon – gotta catch ‘em all. This leaves a lot of analysis and gameplay talks in the dark because they will change every other week.
3. The massive amount of champions, the game being entirely free to play and the relatively low computer specs needed attracts a wide audience. There is very little reason not to at least try the game to anyone involved, giving an inflated value and expectation of “League of Legends PLAYERS” not “People who play League of Legends”
4. Starcraft started off in a different time and a different place. When you wanted a build, to discuss SC strategies or watch Korean matches, there weren’t many places to go. Team Liquid had a site up in the early times of SC and kept it going strong with community involvement. This funneled everyone in and set up a single place to be. Fast forward to today and every single pro team for LoL has a website (dignitas, TSM, CLG, etc.) on top of many other sites existing (mobafire, lolking, etc.). There is no single place because you can go wherever you want to go for whatever reason. There are too many places to be explored.
5. People have misconceptions about what it means to be good at League of Legends. In SC you can know the build orders to the millisecond and that won’t do a damned thing for you. In League, you can know how to play a character and do well with them, even if all you do is farm your lane. This leads people to think that League of Legends = a good guide or watching pros stream, and to a degree it is. The amount of discussion about champion matchups, perks and styles gets stale pretty quickly and everyone has a guide with a different item line up for every champ. “Content” to a lot of people translates into a guide that they can just read and move on with, not a recurring show. People don’t check out my videos because I do them weekly, daily or monthly. They want to see people jungle X character and therefore seek that video out only.
6. As much as the term “eSport” exists, this isn’t a professional sports game yet. Sure there’s a huge prize pool, massive player following, decent tournament output and support for Riot. There’s even enough streaming money, sponsorship and other stuff out there to make this game seem legitimate. The issue lies in the professionals. The “pro” players are either immature, unprofessional, children, arrogant, condescending or entitled. While these people exist in the real world of sports, they’re usually the “bad guys” like Terrel Owens in football and are expected to act like such. In League of Legends almost every pro team has half of its members with a combination of these traits and the only time a team is truly professional is pretty much never. There’s a ton of squabbling drama going on between teams on online tournaments, players raging out on others in game, pissing on expectations of fans and overall bad manner. There aren’t enough Xpecials to go around and set a tone that “hey guys, we’re [pretty much] adults and someone somewhere looks up to us.” Many can be an eSports legend if they try hard enough, or at least in the 1800+ range. Others sports really make it hard to climb to the top but it seems every week a new “pro” team hits the scene.
7. This might be the most important point and has been brought up by a rare few people. Content producers need to love what they’re doing and do it because they love it. A big chunk of producers put work out that is half-assed, forced or attempting to “make it big.” or live off of the game like the pros do. Many of the people that are popular now are also friends of professionals and got into the scene via meeting some pro that plugged their stuff. This leads to the top content producers pushing things out that aren’t really top quality and the ones that work hard, fighting for some spotlight in the dark. There are millions of videos and streams and guides for this game, however a majority of them are a dick measuring contest (guides/top play videos), forced (nearly anything done by pros by request of fans) or not fully developed. There isn’t enough passion, enthusiasm and love for the game in enough of the popular content producers to create a solid foundation and approval of them.
I’m sure there’s a few more points I’m forgetting, but the tl;dr is there isn’t a central place to rally around because League of Legends and its content is still fledgling and has to grow up in the age where anyone can produce something and call it content.