LCS players not allowed to stream competing games

[quote=Kazega]I'm going to take a look at Riots response then... [quote] We say this all the time: we want League of Legends to be a legitimate sport. There are some cool things that come from that (salaried professional athletes, legitimate revenue streams, visas, Staples Center), but there’s also a lot of structural work that needs to be done to ensure a true professional setting.[/quote] The way you treat something as if it was a sport is to make it fun to watch. You shouldn't have to demonize the competition to do this. and while some of the stipulations make sense (gambling drugs and all) you shouldn't demonize other games. I understand not wanting to promote, but demonizing other games makes it seem like you feel that your game is superior somehow. This is a bad approach because then your game and systems will be looked at for flaws and they will be found and brought out. [quote] We recognize there may be some differences of opinion in the perception of pro players’ streams. In the past, pro gamers only had to worry about their personal brands when streaming and, at most, may have had to worry about not using the wrong brand of keyboard to keep their sponsor happy. [/quote]I fail to see how this point makes any sense. If Dyrus were to sign with Razer as a sponsor, then he will use Razer equipment. If he considers signing with another sponsor, he can tell Razer "sorry but these guys offered me something a little better." The company may be a little miffed at first but either Razer would bounce back with a new deal or say "good luck man, hit us up if it doesn't workout" [quote]Now, however, these guys are professionals contracted to a professional sports league. When they’re streaming to 50,000 fans, they’re also representing the sport itself.[/quote] ...eh... more like 5000-10000 at a time. even then its more likely to be on the lower end of that spectrum. They also aren't representing the sport as much as Riot thinks they are. yeah they are playing the game, but at the same time they aren't playing it seriously. it's like a pro football player playing with some 6th graders. Its more for publicity than anything at that rate. Steamers do it for the same reason, to interact with their fans. Without the fans, the players don't have any real reason to play publicly. [quote] I can’t stress enough how these guys in the LCS are on the road to being real, legitimate athletes. This is new territory for a lot of teams (especially in esports),[/quote]Then maybe you should look at how "real sports" started. Look at how the NBA, MLB, and NFL started. look at oversea's leagues and see what they are doing and how those started and thrived. [quote]because the transition goes from being a group of talented individuals to being real icons of a sport and a league.[/quote]This already happened, what were you guys sleeping the past couple years? [quote]Similarly, you probably wouldn’t see an NFL player promoting Arena Football or a Nike-sponsored player wearing Reebok on camera.[/quote]actually several NFL players have either started in Arena Football, or go to Arena Football when they can't compete in the NFL. Also when you get free shoes from Nike, you are going to wear those free shoes from Nike. If Reebok sends you better shoes, well you have a decision to make, but you won't make both companies happy either way. [quote] Pro players are free to play whatever games they want – we’re simply asking them to keep in mind that, on-stream, they’re the face of competitive League of Legends.[/quote]If you were asking them to keep this in mind, you would not have made it so they couldn't play other games. you couldn't have simply said just you said here: "you Represent the best of League of Legends are are expected to act as such." Clean, simple, and no red tape to get caught up in. ------------- I'm pretty sure most of this has been said but I'm putting it next to Riot's response to this to drive home I know some of you are going retort several of these points, but that's why i bring it up.[/quote]

[quote=luizdeh][quote]We recognize there may be some differences of opinion in the perception of pro players’ streams. In the past, pro gamers only had to worry about their personal brands when streaming and, at most, may have had to worry about not using the wrong brand of keyboard to keep their sponsor happy.[/quote] [quote=Kazega]I fail to see how this point makes any sense. If Dyrus were to sign with Razer as a sponsor, then he will use Razer equipment. If he considers signing with another sponsor, he can tell Razer "sorry but these guys offered me something a little better." The company may be a little miffed at first but either Razer would bounce back with a new deal or say "good luck man, hit us up if it doesn't workout"[/quote] It's what I've been saying all along... before this contract, they only had to worry about their personal sponsors, now they REPRESENT League of Legends as members of teams competing in the LCS. And they're not talking about switching sponsors, they are talking about making sure the players are actually using what the sponsors want them to use. It's like being represented by Nike and showing up to a sporting event rocking some Adidas. The more I read about this and the more I discuss, the more sense it makes. This is one of the ways to ensure things get even more professional.[/quote]

[quote=Meiyjhe]@Kazega; Tbh I am not sure if you understand the point of Riot. They aren't demoralising competition, they just keep their representatives to be their representatives. The proplayers can go ahead and play DOTA2 and stuff, but then they shouldn't expect to be funded by Riot. This is logical, you even pointed it out in your own example with the equipment sponsor. You can say whatever you want, but most of the pro players are well known because they are pro players for league of legends. It is their main content. If you go watch pro players you watch them because they play league, not because they play hearthstone. Their fanbase can still enjoy their content because it is the reason why they went to their streams in the first place. If the fanbase gets shown more hearthstone than league on League representing streams then they will likely go for hearthstone instead driving away some of LoL's players, which Riot doesn't want of course :P[/quote]

[quote=Darcurse]I dunno, is it that hard to understand? CocaCola sponsors some athlete and they don't want him to drink Pepsi during an advertisement.[/quote]

[quote=GrandmasterD][quote=Darcurse] I dunno, is it that hard to understand? CocaCola sponsors some athlete and they don't want him to drink Pepsi during an advertisement. [/quote] Exactly. They are allowed to drink Pepsi but not when the cameras are aimed at 'em.[/quote]

[quote=SOAC Bas][quote=Kazega] But they aren't being paid to stream. they are paid to compete. [/quote] This is a very simplistic view. They are being paid to play publicly - their stream's value is based on their being in Riot. While other professional sporting athletes are free to do what they want in their own time, they are fined regularly for saying things that are detrimental to their team or sport on their personal twitter, television, or anything that is being shown in the public eye. Let me give you an example, Call of Duty recently had Dwight Howard play some exception games with some CoD players. When they introduced Dwight Howard it was as Professional NBA Player for the Los Angeles Lakers Dwight Howard. He is a representative of that team, and even when he plays CoD or another game in the public eye he is playing as an NBA representative and not for himself. The players who play for League of Legends and are paid by league of legends are free to do whatever they want on another's stream or in their free time, but when they are being paid (sponsors, donations) on their personal stream they are still doing it as a representative of Riot and League of Legends. This is a huge hit for games like Infinite Crisis, Hearthstone, and Dawngate who were getting huge advertisement publicity by promoting "Pro" teams facing each other playing their games. Riot noticed this and said, "Whoa why are we paying players to promote games that want to compete against us." That would be like an NBA player being paid to promote a rival basketball league in North America, but still playing for the NBA. It wouldn't happen. NFL Players cannot go and play in the Arena League while they are still playing for the NFL.[/quote]

[quote=Schneeball]I think this is again a good step into the correct direction. Like the posters before said earlier, if you want to play another game you could possibly create another stream channel as a pro league player. So in my opinion it's just a bit more professional. So I hope to see also an improvement on the pro-streams. Maybe in the future better microphones, quality, content etc.[/quote]

[quote=PsiGuard]http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/1sa59j/update_on_the_lcs_streaming_policy/ Fking love Riot. I feel like most companies would have just stuck with their plan since it accomplished what they wanted it to, but Riot revised the rules around streaming to accommodate streamers playing stuff like hearthstone while in queue, as long as they aren't being paid by another company to play a different game.[/quote]

[quote=Kazega][quote=PsiGuard] http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/1sa59j/update_on_the_lcs_streaming_policy/ Fking love Riot. I feel like most companies would have just stuck with their plan since it accomplished what they wanted it to, but Riot revised the rules around streaming to accommodate streamers playing stuff like hearthstone while in queue, as long as they aren't being paid by another company to play a different game. [/quote] agreed. Riot has always been good at listening to the fan base and taking measure of what would be best for the game as a whole, see the announcement that they were going to bring out skins that were previously determined to never be available again. You can always count on Riot to recognize mistakes made and work to fix them so the community is better as a whole. *Joke about EUW servers.[/quote]

[quote=Omnislash GG]Looks like Riot has done it again :D Love how they are flexible and can change their rules just like that. Most companies have set rules/regulations that can't be broken, even if common sense demands it, and you can see that's not the case with Riot. Good on you[/quote]