LCS Offmychest

So some years ago I got into the lcs, which is the biggest League of Legends tournament in the world. I don't want to give up names so let's say I was really good and got into a good team.

I'm gonna use a throwaway and for this one. Some of the stuff I'll say might hurt some people but I don't care, I need to vent real hard. I don't want to prove anything I say, if it's a problem for you stop reading. I changed some facts about me as well so don't bother please.

Sorry in advance for words words words.

Some background. I was always nerdy as fuck, and didn't have any plans or anything for the future, still don't. growing I was playing video games all the times. Now I didn't have too many friends, and you can guess why. I'm not a social guy and I still find it hard to deal with people. It's not as hard as it was when I was a teenager but it's still is.

I wasn't really liked in school. I wasn't hated either, just another one of the nerds no one gives a fuck about. Back then and especially where I grew up sports was a major thing, at least for my peers. I wasn't really into it, and then with adolescent coming along I started to develop this superiority complex, where I looked down at other people for being less smart than me. Trust me, it doesn't make me feel really good writing this but it was what it was.

A big part of that was sports. Every time people tried to talk to me about it I would do this dumb reduction when you describe the game in the most offensive way possible. Basketball=5 guys running after a ball WOW dude so amazing real contribution to the world these guys are so smart. Yay irony since at the same time I got into esports. Not too hard since back in the day it was actually hard to watch it, and my internet wasn't amazing as well, but I could still see people playing video games in ways I didn't know were possible. Some of the things they did back in the day in Starcraft are amazing, and it's real sad that new gamers who don't know startcraft won't be able to appreciate them. It doesn't happen in sports, jumping 2 meters in the air will always be amazing and doesn't matter how many years will pass.

I played Starcraft, UT, Quake, and a little bit of dota, CS. All with a competitive mindset. Some players play to have fun, but If I wasn't actually improving it felt pointless to me. Losing felt like shit and winning was everything, unless I learned something from losing.

And then came League.

I got into it during beta, and started pouring hours into it. What drew me was the simplicity mostly, and how good I was at it. Back then everyone was shit which also helped people who took it seriously. If you understood how to min-max in games you were already better than 80% of players on the server. I don't want to give too much detail, but playing long enough and hard enough got me into the lcs. It's a procces, much harder nowadays, but I made it because I was and still am real good.

Far from the top, but good enough.

What you need to understand about league if you never played it is that compared to other games it's nothing. The micro compared to starcraft is nothing. The fast reflex compared to quake/ut is nothing. The teamwork compared to any team sport is nothing. Like I started watching basketball with my brother two years ago and it dawned on me how much what I do for a living is a complete joke compared to what they do when it comes to teamwork.

Our team was doing fine the first year in the tournament, and I got paid. While people in my hometown sometime got menial jobs and shit I was getting money for playing videogames. I was also noticed by girls which was actually huge for me. I'm past 20 and I still never had a girlfriend but at least while playing I'm semi famous to those that give a fuck so I can look at girls and not feel bad. I still look like shit from playing videogames all day but at least I don't feel like back when I was a teenager, who convinced himself that girls are not important so he went home for final fantasy.

I also got a lot of friends from the team and the scene, people who could understand me because we had so much similar stuff happening to us, and if you don't have that you can always talk video games.

And we continued to do good, and that's another year and some more. but eventually things started to get to me. The biggest problem was playing the game for days on end to keep in shape, it how fucking dumb and boring it felt to do it in this game of all games. But it got me paid and I had a contract so no way I was gonna change. I don't think I'm even good enough for any other game, perhaps except for hots. Watch this classic with fatal1ty playing quake:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdkDjsBiO58

League doesn't have shit on that in terms of mechanics or reflex. Not even close, and this is a large map. On small maps in a deathmatch it gets insane. This level of skill needed in league is piss poor compared to that.

When It comes to strategy it's a fucking joke compared to dota, when it comes teamwork it's a joke compared to basketball.

I want to say to people who don't know e-sports that even if you think it's just a game, it takes hours on fucking hours to be the best - you need to practice. No way to avoid it. And doing it when you don't enjoy is like any other job.

And in the meantime I'm surrounded by people who play this game all day. And off course you talk league and compare it to other games, and here's the funny part, almost everyone agrees. Like barely any argument on it. The amount of disrespect you develop to the game you play for a living is so absurd to me. Do athletes feel the same way about sports they do?

We read patch notes together usually a day after release to learn the new strats, and we usually pinpoint exactly what's gonna happen to the game. Oh boy Riot made tank items stronger now it's tank meta. Oh boy Riot made ap assasisins weaker now it's ad assassins meta. Like none of us give a fuck. It's the same game we play they just changed the numbers. Once you understand how it's designed there's nothing more for you to understand, it's just a game of numbers.

And you don't get monetary compensated to compete, you get it for participation and not getting eliminated. As long as you're on the top half and not the winner, it doesn't matter what you do. You play so many games that don't really count for anything. And we know we can do well enough to get where we need and we know we can't win so why even bother. You see, I don’t feel like I'm some amazing player on his way to the top of the world, because I'm not even in a real competition. I can't play against my real opponents oversea enough to actually get good, because of the way the only tournament I'm allowed to participate in is structured that way. I just can't practice enough to get good.

But the rest of the guys don't care. We aren't players in a tournament. We aren't paid to win. We are given a salary each month by a company to play in their tournament, where it doesn't matter what we do. We are there to entertain, we are entertainers. And what we are paid for is to play in some huge advertisement for a solo-q.

You see, the game isn't meant for us. It's designed around random people who never knew each other, to group into a team rapidly and play as a team. They don't need to speak between themselves because everything is handed to them by Riot, who don't even give them a fucking voice chat to communicate. Because they don't need it, the game is simple enough to not need it.

The division into roles, the dumb itemization, the forced meta, the features lacking, the way the e-sport is organized… none of is about us. It's about people who sit at home and want to play a pseudo competitive game while feeling they are on the way to become pros, and I'm selling it. Because they look at me doing the same strategies they do and win games, so obviously they are on the right path. And if I'm getting paid for it so that means the game must be complex and hard.

And like… any game that isn't solved yet like tic-tac-toe or checkers can be played competitively, that is if you pay people to do it. If I pay you a million dollars to play Minecraft it doesn't make into a real competitive worthy title, and it doesn't make it hard enough and complex enough to actually take it seriously. It just means that somewhere around the world a team would be willing to spend a lot of time at a chance at getting paid.

When I talk on this with my team and other pros we pretty much agree on it. People don't do it because they care about the game, they do it for the fame and money, and because it might help them to become streamers and actually make money from this. There's simply not enough money in competitions, so some people don't even care about competing as much as they care about the chance to make money from streaming… what the fuck kind of attitude is that? And I understand it, I don't blame anyone. I'm not naïve.

I got to talk to some people who work for Riot, not just artists or marketing, and they know. They know about the balancing issues and how it fucking really is, just a roundabout of viable champion who do the same thing, and get switched around with nerfs, and they're ok with it. The game remains exactly the same and it's fine, because the game is not about us, it's about the people who don't play enough or think enough about the game to notice nothing changed. For them things changed because things look different. And it doesn't matter what we think since we are employs with a contract who aren't dumb enough to speak out and ruin our public image.

Last year the jungle was changed so people got excited. Neutrals were changed with all sort of bells and whistles around it. Now, most players think it's a big deal because for them if it looks different than it is different, but we know that the net effect of the change was almost zero. The jungle gives the same things it did before, even if some things behave a little different.

So what the fuck am I doing playing this…

I'm not saying it got me depressed, because there are so many things to it beside playing a video game, and I hate people who self-diagnose on the internet. It's not clinical, I'm just tired of playing a shit game for a living. I'm tired of feeling like an advertisement, and I feel I'm wasting time. I should probably start some online college courses or something just to feel my life is going somewhere. I also had someone I'm somewhat close to die, which made me think about stuff. I'm not even sad or angry when playing, I'm just following a known pattern and win. No big outplays or skill, just do my thing and win.

The player count for league has actually plateaued or possibly went down in the past year and half, which is expected I think. But it does make you think that it will die eventually, and if now there's no real career in it for you then when will it have. Some of my friends think about it as a cash grub and don't care about the future, but I do I guess.

I will never be good enough to be 1#, and I won't ever move to Korea to practice there or something. I don't think anyone on my team even cares about it anymore.

I went a con with fighting games, small tournament with no real prize. Talking to fans you see they care. The con wasn't about Nintendo, it was about the game. Not a single add for that trash company, cause it's not about them, it's about the game and the players who love it. When I talk to mine I just want to sit them down and explain to them how League is designed instead of the bullshit they're sold. Let them decide once they have the full picture.

I'm rambling, I know, sorry.

Like holy hell half the PR Riot does has nothing to do with the game. Shit youtube videos, long fluffy paragraphs on why they don't want to work harder. The same time a competing game has an 18$ million dollar tournament and a new engine+client, they tell the fans that practicing in sandbox is bad, and I just knew it. I'm so fucking used to this dismissive nonsense.

I'm locked in a job that is too good to leave, and I don't have any skills that could help me find another. I know I'm young and I can leave and do things with my life, but it's really easier said than done. I'm lucky to get paid as much as I do with my resume, and I should be grateful for it.

I'm tired of two faced people who sell the fans that it's a hard game with complex strategies, when other games do what League does better. And they go to me and joke about how dumbed down it is. If the fans had any idea what some of the guys I know really think about league, and how much more they appreciate dota, cs and starcraft, like shit…. that would be both funny and sad to see.

But I love some of them, they're my friends, and I'm also getting paid to say the same thing, or shut up about others.

I've talked to my family about it, and it comes down to it that it's better to think about the future and what you want to do while you have job, instead of doing it unemployed.

Also E, I'm happy that you came out and everything worked out well, but you really need to chill and talk less about LGBT rights and stuff. No nice way to say it, you keep derailing every conversation to that topic. It's important and I fully support you, but really stop injecting LGBT issues to everything. I'm lucky to have you as a friend, but damn.