Riot Reverses Policy Barring LCS Pros Streaming Other Games

[BlameTheWizards]

Riot Reverses Policy Barring LCS Pros Streaming Other Games

After much internal debate, Riot admits that the original policy "was clearly an overreach."

It was only <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/130237-New-LCS-Contract-Forbids-Streaming-Dota-2-Blizzard-Games>earlier this week that Riot Games enacted a new policy which forbade professional League of Legends players from streaming competitors games, such as Dota 2, Starcraft II and Hearthstone. The studio came under <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/130312-Awesomenauts-Heroes-of-Newerth-Studios-Speak-Out-Against-LCS>heavy criticism from fellow developers as well as the community, and it appears the feedback has gotten through. Earlier tonight, Riot's director of eSports, Whalen Rozelle, posted on Reddit that they have changed the requirements of the League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) contract so that competitors can once again stream content from other games. The only catch is that these players cannot accept sponsorships from other companies to promote their titles.

Rozelle went into a little background on Reddit as to why Riot initially chose their policy. "There've been instances of other game studios trying to buy access to League fans by using (or trying to use) LCS teams/players to promote their competing games on stream," he wrote. "The way we chose to deal with this was clearly an overreach. It hit our goal of preventing companies from advertising through LCS players, but it also encroached on pros' ability to have fun and entertain viewers during long Challenger queues - and we realize that's not cool." The change came after much internal debate at Riot over the last 24 hours, he wrote.


Source: Reddit via <a href=http://www.polygon.com/2013/12/6/5183912/riot-games-reverses-policy-restricting-players-from-streaming-other>Polygon

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[DugMachine]

Well good. Glad the fans can change their mind cause like I stated in the previous thread, if Riot was adamant and didn't give a shit about fan feedback, I know the LCS players themselves would have done absolutely nothing about it.

 

[mistwolf]

This seems much more reasonable. I am not sure it is great, or desirable for the community as a whole, but it is definitely reasonable. It will be more like football/baseball where you have one team and that's what you are on, and less like racing where if you can find an inch on the car, we'll take your money. Fine. Definitely fixed the problem of 'can't play games with other people while we employ you' which came close to 'if you drink a coke, and work at a pepsi factory, expect to be fired'.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

I wonder if this was because of what they are saying or if large swaths of players were threatening not to play.

 

[DrOswald]

The speed of this reversal and the language leads me to believe that there is a bit more to this reversal than we are seeing. I bet there were a few higher up CEO owner types that were saying "We need to have control!" and the Riot employees were saying "This is a terrible idea, please don't make us do this, everyone will hate us."

And then yesterday happened, and they were proven right. Because there is no way that the gamer types at Riot didn't foresee the shit storm. Only someone completely blind to gamer culture could not see it coming.

 

[Strazdas]

Good. I just hope gamers wont instantly forget about it like usually happens.

 

[MasterOfHisOwnDomain]

Fair play to Riot, they always seem to genuinely listen to and consider the feedback they receive, and then usually act on it. I've always considered them a decent company, accordingly.

 

[mindfaQ]

Fair play to Riot, they always seem to genuinely listen to and consider the feedback they receive, and then usually act on it. I've always considered them a decent company, accordingly.

The bad thing is that they do stuff like this in the first place. Tells a lot about them. Same with Microsoft's Xbone plans. Same with EA always feeding their customers with crap and then apologizing.

 

[Techno Squidgy]

The speed of this reversal and the language leads me to believe that there is a bit more to this reversal than we are seeing. I bet there were a few higher up CEO owner types that were saying "We need to have control!" and the Riot employees were saying "This is a terrible idea, please don't make us do this, everyone will hate us."

And then yesterday happened, and they were proven right. Because there is no way that the gamer types at Riot didn't foresee the shit storm. Only someone completely blind to gamer culture could not see it coming.

I'd like to believe this is the case, but at the same time, I'm angry enough about the state of the EU West server to consider that this just could be them cocking up again.
That new server base cannot get here fast enough.

 

[The Wykydtron]

The speed of this reversal and the language leads me to believe that there is a bit more to this reversal than we are seeing. I bet there were a few higher up CEO owner types that were saying "We need to have control!" and the Riot employees were saying "This is a terrible idea, please don't make us do this, everyone will hate us."

And then yesterday happened, and they were proven right. Because there is no way that the gamer types at Riot didn't foresee the shit storm. Only someone completely blind to gamer culture could not see it coming.

I'd like to believe this is the case, but at the same time, I'm angry enough about the state of the EU West server to consider that this just could be them cocking up again.
That new server base cannot get here fast enough.

Wait didn't they fix EU West just last night? I'm sure tha-oh nevermind the gaffa tape must have fallen off the server again. That homepage message yo'

Really, how do they even run into problems this consistently?


Oh.

 

[Techno Squidgy]

The speed of this reversal and the language leads me to believe that there is a bit more to this reversal than we are seeing. I bet there were a few higher up CEO owner types that were saying "We need to have control!" and the Riot employees were saying "This is a terrible idea, please don't make us do this, everyone will hate us."

And then yesterday happened, and they were proven right. Because there is no way that the gamer types at Riot didn't foresee the shit storm. Only someone completely blind to gamer culture could not see it coming.

I'd like to believe this is the case, but at the same time, I'm angry enough about the state of the EU West server to consider that this just could be them cocking up again.
That new server base cannot get here fast enough.

Wait didn't they fix EU West just last night? I'm sure tha-oh nevermind the gaffa tape must have fallen off the server again. That homepage message yo'

Really, how do they even run into problems this consistently?


Oh.

I'm pretty sure I should be playing ranked by now, but the number of games I've been disconnected from just before it ends is ridiculous. Recently it's mostly been a hardware fault on my end, but the constant down time really isn't helping the situation, especially as down time seems to mysteriously coincide with my free time under my current workload :/

 

[walrusaurus]

I still think it'd would be perfectly reasonable to restrict them from playing any other MOBAs while on stream. The non-compete concept breaks down a bit once you start talking about things like CoD or Starcraft, but I can hardly blame riot from not wanting to have their salaried players advertising Dota2 of HoN or w/e.