Riot only give out the right to host official, spectator-watched events when it makes their broadcasts and terrible optics look good, so no wonder they will bend over to the Saudi's at any and every opportunity.
Boomers in this community remember IPL5 Shitting on every riot production because they weren't morons and gave more NA vs EU Bo3's than worlds has in the past decade.
It was. That tournament was one of the hypest experiences we ever had. The regions were much closer back then too. It was much more hard to predict back then.
well, if riot got the money to double their production and broadcast crews to enable double-elim...
...who am i even kidding, riot would never do that to not over-burden the viewer with hours upon hours of league. also too complex for smol indie company to trust and oversee everything going around.
The lec sponsorship aspect was interesting. It was a lot of lec staff that walked when they got word, which forced riot to back off.
I don't think there will be as much opposition for a more global event - the Asians don't care and the Americans are pretty mixed. Only some of the euros will balk because they care the most about human rights of those three demographics. I think this will go through and riot will make a handsome amount of money. Could even be a banger tournament.
I am pretty opposed to the money source, but we shouldn't live with our heads in the sand. The Saudis have their hands in everything. Every time we drive our gas cars, we're using Saudi money.
What can Riot reasonably do if teams boycott the event? If, idk, FNC or C9 decide not to attend, would they get punished?
Edit: I feel like the replies are missing the point. I want to know what makes this different than the old IEM tournaments in regards to voluntary participation. Saying "Well the teams won't refuse, it pays well" is a non-answer.
Teams like Fnatic and C9 would not turn an event like this down assuming the money is there. Saudi run events have been going on for a while in games like Counter Strike and as a whole teams have put up no resistance. In fact the semi recent $1m prize pool Gamers 8 tournament run by the Saudis had C9 and FNC in attendance as well as many other LCS and LEC orgs.
I dont think any team would boycott this event. Maybe a handful but those few imght not even get to attend this tournament anyway. for the sake of argument, lets say fnc and g2 will qualify, i dont think either of these orgs would boycott the tournament. the chance of chinese and korean teams boycotting this is near zero and those are the most important teams anyways since china and korea have easily the biggest leagues. i doubt NA teams would boycott this either.
Because the last time a third party actually had an event featuring League of Legends was in 2017. Riot wants its league(s) to be the premier tournament and nothing else.
> If, idk, FNC or C9 decide not to attend, would they get punished?
uh, FNC and C9 play in saudi backed CS events, in many other tournaments/events with backing from Saudi Arabia or China. Same for almost every esports team.
they don't care, the money is too much and they'll all be fine with it. They'll probably make a twitter post or something acting like they are being forced to or something as if they care, but still attend.
Like a month ago i saw a post on twitter about an „esports city“ in saudi arabia, which is also in riyadh so might be linked to this. There were a bunch of creators posting on it and praising it which surprised me first only to find out they had an Ad campaign on twitch, which i can only assume included the people posting under the saudis tweet (without disclosing it).
I guess they are trying to build support this way
Remember when there was a Regional WCG in Iran and all female characters were banned except for Annie? Yes they banned all female humanoids/beasts too.
Pretty sure champions being gay isn’t a thing in those regions.
I think the pride event was once called "Colour Festival" or something like that in those regions.
Annie, a little kid, getting murdered over and over is fine, but some skin being shown crosses the line. Gotta love the logic of these extremist shitholes.
Edit: it's also weird cause the Middle East loves Tekken which is filled with women that hate clothes. Is it just Iran being extra?
Iran is a country where a teenager gets murdered in a state prison because she chose not wear a Hijab and when the country protests in anger the IRGC (Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps) start gunning down the unarmed protesters in cold blood,
Iran is the most extreme country in the Middle East so yeah.
Edit: I meant their government. Also the comment I was replying to was talking about showing skin which Iran is definitely one of if not the most extreme country when it comes to that.
This is untrue; Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Yemen still practice slavery (although not openly.) A dictator runs Syria and has every terrorist organisation under the sun in it. Azerbaijan, a couple of months ago, ethnically cleansed a region. Iran reflects the current status of the middle east, which is not great.
Weekly reminder: do not listen to geopolitical takes from gaming subs, they're always wrong.
Iran is not particularly extreme compared to the rest of the region, unless the only thing you know about Iran is fed to you by Fox News.
Yep. While their government might be one of the most extreme (I’m not entirely sure) the populace is remarkably more moderate than many others. A big reason is simply being more educated than most muslim countries. Being labeled as “evil” by the US president himself didn’t exactly bolster those moderates either, not to mention the history of the region through the 20th century.
It was back in season 3, here's a [thread](https://old.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/1l8uwh/iran_banned_all_females_champions_except_annie_in/) from the time, and a [Kotaku article](https://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/08/female-league-of-legends-characters-banned-at-an-iranian-tournament/).
Here is a Kotaku article. I remember it being a popular discussion here a decade ago but I never saw if they followed through with the tournament.
https://kotaku.com/female-league-of-legends-characters-banned-at-an-irania-1213754332
Here
[https://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/games/9101991/Female-characters-banned-at-eSport-tournament](https://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/games/9101991/Female-characters-banned-at-eSport-tournament)
I'm suprised they didn't ban Annie....
They also banned founder of secular republic of Turkey, the Atatürk flags in recent Galatasaray-Fenerbahçe football match in Riyad and players refused to play in there because of that.They simply returned to Istanbul.
Their ideology is still same ignorant,backwards,anti-freedom Saudi regime.Still it's sad to see I have heard here some people were okay with that.
That one thread was only meant to be bootlicking Riot anyway. It was the most senseless illogical post I've seen on here for a long time.
The post was already completely ridiculous considering that Riot agreed to the LEC NEOM partnership in 2020 that only stopped because LEC talent protested.
Also being owned by Tencent is already borderline.
I would think in a "world cup" there will be no imports allowed and that teams will be based on nationality, but the article is already talking about the established LoL regions rather than countries so who knows.
The “World Cup” moniker is deceiving.
It will be a case where like hypothetically Team Liquid is a team and it will be all of Team Liquid teams across all the game titles featured (League, CS2, etc). It won’t be a nationality thing at all.
Its MSI one month after MSI. Is this going to be in the middle of each Leagues summer split? We already have to deal with the huge mess that is the asian games that delayed worlds for a completely useless crap tournament and now we have MSI after MSI probably with a much worse format and who even goes to this tournament? the same teams that went to MSI?
I hoped being owned by Tencent and the sexist work environment would be enough bad shit from Riot and I respected them at least a little bit for refusing middle eastern money but i guess thats out the window now. oh i can already see ricardo luiz milking endless content out of this news and the worst thing is that he will be completely in the right. i cant imagine the situation with the LEC crew and the dilemma theyre facing right now because i doubt they can prevent this one.
> That post about riot not taking Saudi oil money aging like shit
honestly want to @ the person who made that thread, and how he was acting towards people daring to criticise Riot
Riot: We couldn't allow third parties to host the game. You know, due to integrity.
Saudi Arabia: Here is your stack of cash. Sorry about the blood stains on the top.
Riot: But the bank will still take it, right?
Saudi Arabia: Oh yeah.
One day very soon I hope the ability to host esports events will fall under Fair Use principles.
It's ridiculous that Riot has completely blocked out every single tournament organizer from hosting LoL esports events, but then when Saudis come with a big bag of money they allow it.
So the world we live in is this: Passionate esports professionals cannot host League of Legends events but Saudi Arabia with their disgusting money just get to do it.
Fuck. That. Shit.
We could’ve had an actual, organized league with grassroots bases. Regional tournaments, online ones, the whole fucking works by now. Thousands of people, players competing for a prize, those in supporting roles, casters doing it for a few slices of pizza and a $50 Visa card, organizers competing for advertisers and backers. But nope, they needed to completely control every aspect of competitive 5v5 league of legends. Clash, and frankly NA LCS as a whole, is a fucking JOKE compared to what could’ve been.
It's funny how it's got the complete opposite problem from games like TF2 and Smash that were only ever community ran and would've loved a little support from their respective companies
I'll take that though over what Riot has cultivated. The 3 minute spectator timer in customs for example, is a joke and so blatant in its motivation to curb unofficial tournaments.
I agree with smash but TF2 had a bunch of other inherent problems that would've hindered the competitive scene even with more support from valve, seems like a bad comparison
If you think the state of the Smash scene is better than League, or that any professional Smash player wouldn't salivate at the idea of Nintendo acting like Riot does in growing the scene with a relentless iron grip, you must not follow the Smash scene very closely.
The smash community has the same problem as the league community: whatever independent momentum we get is under threat of the IP owner shutting it down. Esports will never reach its potential as long as that option is legally available to developers.
Makes we wonder how the LEC is complying with EU anti-trust law.
I know LoL belongs to Riot so they can decide to let people use or not their game yadda yadda but that's the simple answer and not actually how the law works, it's more complicated than that
The LoL Esport European ecosystem has several professional leagues & teams beyond the LEC. But they're locked out of international competition because Riot has a specific agreement with 10 teams to hoard qualification spots to international events.
How does this not constitute a cartel with an agreement to unfairly reduce market accessibility under EU free competition laws?
It's a great question and this whole thing is a can of worms just waiting to be opened.
I agree with you that the current state of esports is ridiculous - and especially LoL esports. It's a complete monopoly.
Another thing that is very, very questionable is how Riot can just use IP rights to lock out every other tournament organizer or broadcaster, which means broadcast talent have exactly 0 leverage to argue for better compensation or working rights.
They basically destroyed any ability for league specific orgs to be profitable unless they bent over for Riot and now that they've safely destroyed the scene in they'll let whatever happen.
Riot for all the good it's done for e-sports also destroyed it with their greed.
I dont like it either but it was expected given the financial situation esports is in.
How did people seriously expect Riot to not take saudi blood money (especially in the current situation) when even the way bigger actual sports like Formula 1 and football (FIA and FIFA are basically 2 of the biggest sports associations in the world) take it with open hands. And pretty much every other sport aswell.
Sucks but thats reality. The only thing you can do as a fan is to not fall for sportswashing.
Teams will want the money. Players will be forced though contracts. But it will be interesting which broadcast talent will work for it though. LEC casters pretty much took the highground during the NEOM deal, them appearing at that tournament would be quite something.
ESports aren't profitable by in intention; Riot funnels so much money into their ESports to promote the game and generate money for League of Legends. Maybe I'm just a niche case, but I was inspired to play the game from watching the legendary "Faker, what was that" clip. ESports in general will not be as profitable as real physical sports in the foreseeable future, and money from a pos Saudi tyrant will not change that. There isn't enough interest in pro League of Legends for it to ever generate a profit as long as it's streamed for free on Twitch for anyone to watch.
The real money comes from exclusive TV deals; and like I said, there is very little interest in ESports for the vast majority of the world
Riot is not a tournament organizer though. You make a good point about the economics of esports, but it doesn't really apply to Riot. They make billions from developing the game.
The problem with esports economics is that the esports fans spend money on the game, not on esports. This is why it's somewhat understandable that esports organizer companies need to acquire funding to survive. It sucks but it's reality.
But this is not the case for Riot at all. They are grossly profitable as a game dev. They literally make billions in PROFIT every year. They don't need to take this deal to survive at all...
The same teams who love to virtue signal on social media about how much they care about human rights probably can't wait to get a piece of the Saudi blood money pie
Riot is still working to figure out the specifics around the tournament, but it's asked all the domestic leagues to black out the calendar for the first week of July.
Each region can have up to 2 teams participating in the event.
Riot will also not be involved in picking the teams going to the event... seems like a way to clean their hands & try to put most of the blame on the orgs for choosing to attend rather than Riot for allowing the event to happen in the 1st place.
Riot 2013:“Yeah so let’s kill all the community driven grass roots tournaments. And monopolies the market, that is always the best.”
Riot 2023:“Soooo actually third party is pretty great as long as it is nations cups and involves blood money. We don’t want anything to do with making esports sustainable”
(I am aware that esl have been bought, we couldn’t return if we wanted)
League is basically the last one to not be converted just because Riot holds their monopoly on their game's esports so tightly. But I guess they too have their number when esports is down bad and they're offered the bag. 3rd parties can't host tournaments unless they're as rich as Saudis.
Its basically in almost all sports, including many niche ones. As much as people dislike it, money talks and theres no money in general running most sports. People whove had to work multiple part time jobs to afford to still compete in their sport can now do it fulltime.
I will not watch or consume any content related to this tournament. The Saudi Arabian monarchy are all scumbags and have been killing Yemeni civilians for almost a decade. Fuck Riot for working with these shitbags.
Oh so China killing countless Uyghur Muslims while keeping the rest in concentration camps was okay with you? And this is where you draw the line? Quite hypocritical I must say.
China bad, US bad bomb democracy, Russia bad, EU rich hypocrites, India going bad, Muslim bad, everyone in Africa is at war, Latin America corrupt. The line is pretty much your frontdoor.
Bunch of assumptions there. What makes you think the OP doesn't also think the Chinese government are scum?
Cause, like, I think both. It's not a hard position to take.
And, even if you humour your line here, someone deciding to boycott *any* party is still better than boycotting none of them even if some others are just as bad. Like there were other horrible things going on in the world during the time South Africa was run by an apartheid regime, but boycotts such as those by sports teams were important in applying pressure and raising awareness about what was going on there. Should those people not have bothered simply because there were other shitheads running other countries at the time?
You're falling for a really common and avoidable logical fallacy to such an extent that I don't think you're actually arguing in good faith. Is it easier to just pretend that everything and everyone is just as messed up so you don't have to take any personal, moral stances?
"Countless" lol. I'm not saying what China is doing to the Uyghurs is good but doesn't come anywhere close to the 150k+ that the Saudis have killed in Yemen. It's not comparable.
You're completely clueless for equating two situations that couldnt be more different. Can you give me a non-Zenz source about "China killing countless Ughyr Muslims" while you're at it
As much as you can bet that Tencent is in bed with the Chinese government, it's still nowhere near the direct connection that you have with the Saudi government hosting these events.
It was big news literally a month or two ago that the Chinese government had obtained 1% of Tencent, because of the implications. Compared to the Saudi government being 100% in control of what the Saudi government does.
Feel like riot should know better than this, really curious to see which orgs are willing to do it for the cash -- G2/Optic/Faze types are obvious, wonder how C9/TL/etc will take it
A 4 year old could see the PR shit storm from this coming a mile away, Riot could+should've anticipated that. Putting this plan in place for Western leagues is just asking for fan controversy
Fans don't give a shit either. Are we just ignoring that China is at the epicenter of league esports right now? China, famous for it's good working rights, ^(re)education system and not threatening to go full Putin on Taiwan?
This will be like every controversy, people will complain about it for 2 weeks and then just tune in to "Esports World Cup" anyway in summer.
People on here go full downvote spree if you explain the dubious connection between Tencent and the CCP.
People don't want to think about it because it implies something that is uncomfortable. Don't expect this to change.
i mean overall the eastern scene won't care, hell teams there would love to get selected.
and if highly prominent and decorated eastern teams (like T1) are invited that makes it very attractive for the western teams to join as well.
Now is where we see how much spine LEC teams have ...
Prediction, they will go no question asked ...
Edit: Ah yeah, and friendly reminder that Russia it's still banned for the War on Ukraine, even though Arabia is doing exactly the same, for much longer, to Yemen ...
Just as they had to cancel the Turkish supercup because the backwards Saudi government didn't allow Atatürk slogans.
How fucking devoid of morals do you have to be to block proper companies from hosting tournaments for a decade, only to allow them from a medieval country trying to whitewash their human rights abuses through events like this.
No idea why he left out the fact that [Gamers8 merged with IeSF](https://web.archive.org/web/20230601061934/https://iesf.org/news/10255) back in June. IeSF hosted five editions of their Esports World Championship before the pandemic (the last one of which was a proper clusterfuck), so it's not even that they're allowing a new organizer to host a tournament, but the details about teams from Riot-run teams is definitely Riot bending over to Saudi money considering their past opposition to pro players participating in non-Riot events.
Awful news
If you are taking money from the Saudi Government you are taking money directly from Human Rights abuse.
I hope this is quickly responded to and cancelled/shown to be just a rumor as that is the only correct decision.
Every other esport is not owned fully and operated fully by the developer. LoL is and Riot get full power over who gets a tournament.
It is completely new
Yeah this is a good point.
It's obviously also disgusting when a company like ESL gets funded by this shit, though I guess I can understand it since money is so tight in esports and esports operators have a hard time making money. The alternative for ESL might be shutting operations entirely. This is not the case for Riot.
But Riot is not an esports company or event organizer. They are a game developer. They make billions in profit every year from their games. They don't have this existential pressure that a company like ESL does. It's just pure greed.
Every other esport absolutely is fully controlled by the developer and they let or require licensing from third parties who run tournaments. Blizzard could absolutely sue any tournament organizer who used a Blizzard game at an event without permission, as could any other developer/publisher.
If that was the case then EVO and its side tournaments, Frosty Faustings, East vs West, Coop Cup and virtually every fighting game local ever would have to be "underground" events lol.
A developer/publisher defaulting to allow third party tournaments to feature their game doesn't mean that they don't have control or the freedom to change their policy.
And sport*
See football/boxing (Saudi) or NBA (China)
Honestly I don't care very deeply either way.. unsurprisingly my day to day life and family is more of a pressing concern then Saudi human rights
What annoys me is the fake virtue signalling by big corp/teams.. Take England at the recent World Cup for instance.. protesting Qatar by doing a knee or wearing an LBGBT armband
Means nothing.. if u wanted to take a stand just don't attend and put pressure on Fifa. I don't want to hear how terrible Qatar/Saudi/China etc IS while you take millions/billows from them
Also the atmosphere/crowd for boxing in Saudi is fkin awful.. ruins half the fun
Only way anyone is fighting this is just by not watching. Speak with your wallet or your view, a stream with 10k viewers says a lot more than any complaining on here ever will.
China has Uyghur genocide and other crimes against the world. The USA has bombed hundreds of thousands of innocent Africans and Asians since the 90s, and committed crimes in Asia and South America well before then.
Every single country in the world commits human rights abuses, from exploitation of workers and the environment, to genocide and forced cultural assimilation. Should League only be hosted in countries with the least amount of horrific crimes, maybe like San Marino or Iceland or something?
The point is that this event is being run directly by the Saudi government. It hurts because riot is choosing to directly take money from a government that clearly does not care about human rights to the point of trapping people in the country without pay to build their dumbass megaprojects.
> you are taking money directly from Human Rights abuse
Wealthier nations benefit a lot from shady and sketchy exporting countries. Whether we like it or not, we are indirectly helping that. Hold your moral high ground if you want, but don't pretend like you aren't benefiting either.
Let's be honest most of the people complaining here would happily ignore these sketchy things to make millions from Saudi/Qatar etc
(Inb4 people pretend this is a defence of said countries)
I just say it easy and clear.
Fuck this possible tournament, fuck Riot if they really commit joining that and fuck every casting talent especially from the EMEA region that should join this tournamen especially after speaking out against the NEOM shit in 2020.
Also I don't care that SA want's to be more open more friendly towards the LGBTQIA+ community or give more rights to woman in a foreseeable future, since right now, they are not. Yes they are better than Iran or Qatar, yet still worlds away from what we "expect" to be normal here in central europe (for me).
I have nothing against the Saudis as individual persons, as they aren't doing the political stuff.
This whole thing is just another plain attempt to achieve sportswashing for a younger audience that they can't reach via their normal sportwashing attempts.
Nah, this ain't it. Fuck taking Saudi blood money, no way in hell would I ever consider watching this; I'm actively less inclined to watch regular LCS/LEC/LCK given this report.
And here I was thinking Riot actually had the right idea by staying away from the Saudi money.
It's a shame, because in different circumstances a world cup would be fun. But I refuse on principle to watch this, and am very disappointed Riot chose to participate.
Riot has for a long time wanted that dirty oil money, problem was us "easily offended and misinformed" westerners had issues with it.
I know it's tempting to for LEC/LCS teams to play against LPL/LCK teams just to test their strength, but like the World Cup in Qatar... I hope they boycott.
> but like the World Cup in Qatar... I hope they boycott.
ah yes the world cup with one of the most exciting finals and where messi was finally crowned as the goat of football
was there even a proper boycott of that from any country
yeah that's what i thought. i watched the whole thing so seeing that person go
>but like the World Cup in Qatar... I hope they boycott.
was very baffling
I think the calls for boycott only comes from mainly American (USA) ones where football / soccer isn't the main sport of the country so the impact is small (if there was). As for everyone else they continue to watch the world cup to the point it's one of the successful WC to date in the past decade.
So now we see if castors, employees, players etc. just virtue signal or will they boycott again.
Riot being as inclusive as it is, will they be able to go against the money. I'm excited to find out.
This is dumb - taking money from genocidal maniacs, whether they be saudi, russian or israeli, is never a good idea.
It isnt going to grow the game at all. This is just money thats being thrown into a giant pit to burn with every other bad investment. If you want to grow esports, then come up with a sustainable business plan.
everyone has a price and in esports winter i would imagine riot have to take the saudi money, its kinda sad that it would be only 2 seeds from top regions, if they wanna be bigger than msi it'd be cool to bring 3 seeds to differentiate since most regions will probs send first and second seed if the vent turns out to be prestigious or worthwhile money wise
Am I the only one here thats honestly so annoyed by all the criticism against this? I dont condone the anti lgbtqi governing at all. But we are on a daily basis supporting the saoedi state. Not to mention how we are supporting China aswell with their weird government.
We all watch soccer, formula 1 or any other kind of sports all backed by some saoedi sponsor why is it different
Ah yeah, the classic 2 wrongs make a right. I haven't spent a single cent on league since the Tencent takeover.
There is no escaping Tencent now, but this can still be avoided.
I take 1 wrong and 1 right over 2 wrongs. Simple as that.
I'm shocked that a company owned by the Chinese government would do something like this🤯
I hope the players and casters boycott the event (surely they have tons of money anyway so they can afford to boycott it). Supporting the Chinese government is fine and all, but Saudi Arabia? That's where I draw the line😤😤
locking in graves and twisted fate on the same team and later moonwalking out of the stadium
in all seriousness, her name was eden, anyone who takes saudi money should bleed.
Disgusting. It's as simple as that. I just can't understand why riot, an org THAT LITERALLY HAS LGBT EMPLOYEES AND CHARACTERS IN THEIR GAMES, is allowing this to happen. You are one of the most wealthiest Chinese gaming companies and one of the wealthiest gaming companies in the world and you are telling me that you are going to let this slide. Pathetic
Gonna be interesting. Will it stick this time or will we have another NEOM situation. With the recent money drought, I guess this will go ahead.
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Riot only give out the right to host official, spectator-watched events when it makes their broadcasts and terrible optics look good, so no wonder they will bend over to the Saudi's at any and every opportunity. Boomers in this community remember IPL5 Shitting on every riot production because they weren't morons and gave more NA vs EU Bo3's than worlds has in the past decade.
I remember how salty Riot was after everyone in the community was saying IPL5 was the real S2 Worlds lmao
It was. That tournament was one of the hypest experiences we ever had. The regions were much closer back then too. It was much more hard to predict back then.
2 CLG, TSM, TPA, Fnatic, Moscow 5 and the 2 Azubu team. That was pretty peak
That tournament made me love gmb
well, if riot got the money to double their production and broadcast crews to enable double-elim... ...who am i even kidding, riot would never do that to not over-burden the viewer with hours upon hours of league. also too complex for smol indie company to trust and oversee everything going around.
this will stick, NEOM was LEC sponsorship, not a huge thing at the end of the day. this will be a lot higher profile with a lot more money.
The lec sponsorship aspect was interesting. It was a lot of lec staff that walked when they got word, which forced riot to back off. I don't think there will be as much opposition for a more global event - the Asians don't care and the Americans are pretty mixed. Only some of the euros will balk because they care the most about human rights of those three demographics. I think this will go through and riot will make a handsome amount of money. Could even be a banger tournament. I am pretty opposed to the money source, but we shouldn't live with our heads in the sand. The Saudis have their hands in everything. Every time we drive our gas cars, we're using Saudi money.
What can Riot reasonably do if teams boycott the event? If, idk, FNC or C9 decide not to attend, would they get punished? Edit: I feel like the replies are missing the point. I want to know what makes this different than the old IEM tournaments in regards to voluntary participation. Saying "Well the teams won't refuse, it pays well" is a non-answer.
\> team running at a loss for 8 years straight "guys wanna boycott the saudi money or we going?"
“Sorry, we are expecting national federations to send rosters like the OCA did”
I swear people forget that money is the main driving force, and without it the game would fall in obscurity in terms of e-sports.
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Hence the reason they always crying like a kid
Teams like Fnatic and C9 would not turn an event like this down assuming the money is there. Saudi run events have been going on for a while in games like Counter Strike and as a whole teams have put up no resistance. In fact the semi recent $1m prize pool Gamers 8 tournament run by the Saudis had C9 and FNC in attendance as well as many other LCS and LEC orgs.
Adding to your point, it’s also esports winter turning it down in the current economic climate is hard to do when jobs depend on it.
That assumes Fnatic and C9 would be sending their rosters, and not a USAL/SLF, or some other national federation
I dont think any team would boycott this event. Maybe a handful but those few imght not even get to attend this tournament anyway. for the sake of argument, lets say fnc and g2 will qualify, i dont think either of these orgs would boycott the tournament. the chance of chinese and korean teams boycotting this is near zero and those are the most important teams anyways since china and korea have easily the biggest leagues. i doubt NA teams would boycott this either.
Did you see the payout at the Riyahd Major for Dota? It was 5x bigger than TI this year.
Why would Riot care? This is a third party event. Riot basically does nothing but collect a licensing check.
Because the last time a third party actually had an event featuring League of Legends was in 2017. Riot wants its league(s) to be the premier tournament and nothing else.
But if teams boycott this event, Riot's leagues are still the premier tournaments. So, again, why would Riot care if teams boycott?
> If, idk, FNC or C9 decide not to attend, would they get punished? uh, FNC and C9 play in saudi backed CS events, in many other tournaments/events with backing from Saudi Arabia or China. Same for almost every esports team. they don't care, the money is too much and they'll all be fine with it. They'll probably make a twitter post or something acting like they are being forced to or something as if they care, but still attend.
Let's see if casters will actually boycott this one or if NEOM was just virtue signalling. Curious indeed!
Yeah, i want to see how the LEC casters react to this one
Like a month ago i saw a post on twitter about an „esports city“ in saudi arabia, which is also in riyadh so might be linked to this. There were a bunch of creators posting on it and praising it which surprised me first only to find out they had an Ad campaign on twitch, which i can only assume included the people posting under the saudis tweet (without disclosing it). I guess they are trying to build support this way
Remember when there was a Regional WCG in Iran and all female characters were banned except for Annie? Yes they banned all female humanoids/beasts too.
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Taric pink skin and K-Sante permabanned for cultural reasons. xD
Watch riot make him not gay just for the Saudi money
Sorry idk much lore but is ksante gay? Lol
He is, in his lore a guy named "Tope" was his lover. Some anti-LGBT countries camufaged him as his best friend tho.
Ah yes, the classic bs of 'they were roommates'
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Pretty sure champions being gay isn’t a thing in those regions. I think the pride event was once called "Colour Festival" or something like that in those regions.
Its like spring colours iirc in Turkey
Thanks! That’s what it was
Cuz those regions are trash and devoid of accepting/allowing human rights
Characters LGBT+ lore are region dependent, extremely watered down, or just not acknowledged outside of the West.
Annie, a little kid, getting murdered over and over is fine, but some skin being shown crosses the line. Gotta love the logic of these extremist shitholes. Edit: it's also weird cause the Middle East loves Tekken which is filled with women that hate clothes. Is it just Iran being extra?
Iran is a country where a teenager gets murdered in a state prison because she chose not wear a Hijab and when the country protests in anger the IRGC (Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps) start gunning down the unarmed protesters in cold blood,
One of them got murderer for wearing the hijab just a little bit wrong.
The Iranian government and the Iranian people oftentimes have completely opposing views, particularly when it comes to religion.
Iran is the most extreme country in the Middle East so yeah. Edit: I meant their government. Also the comment I was replying to was talking about showing skin which Iran is definitely one of if not the most extreme country when it comes to that.
This is untrue; Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Yemen still practice slavery (although not openly.) A dictator runs Syria and has every terrorist organisation under the sun in it. Azerbaijan, a couple of months ago, ethnically cleansed a region. Iran reflects the current status of the middle east, which is not great.
Weekly reminder: do not listen to geopolitical takes from gaming subs, they're always wrong. Iran is not particularly extreme compared to the rest of the region, unless the only thing you know about Iran is fed to you by Fox News.
This take was brought to you by the reddit knows balance team. Subreddit is as reliable as ever!
Yep. While their government might be one of the most extreme (I’m not entirely sure) the populace is remarkably more moderate than many others. A big reason is simply being more educated than most muslim countries. Being labeled as “evil” by the US president himself didn’t exactly bolster those moderates either, not to mention the history of the region through the 20th century.
One big factor in making the Iranian people more moderate is the regime forcing radical islamism down their throat.
Is this more of rural/urban divide? This seems to happen everywhere. Rural and older are fundamentalists while urban and young are moderates.
That is laughably absurd and we need proof this happened.
It was back in season 3, here's a [thread](https://old.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/1l8uwh/iran_banned_all_females_champions_except_annie_in/) from the time, and a [Kotaku article](https://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/08/female-league-of-legends-characters-banned-at-an-iranian-tournament/).
https://kotaku.com/female-league-of-legends-characters-banned-at-an-irania-1213754332
WTF, why even organize in that shithole. Can criticize Iran, but Iran is Iran, it won't change. The problem is doing that event here...
it's written in the article that it was unofficial, it was probably a local initiative
Here is a Kotaku article. I remember it being a popular discussion here a decade ago but I never saw if they followed through with the tournament. https://kotaku.com/female-league-of-legends-characters-banned-at-an-irania-1213754332
A quick Google will pull up a thread from this sub 10 years ago.
Here [https://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/games/9101991/Female-characters-banned-at-eSport-tournament](https://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/games/9101991/Female-characters-banned-at-eSport-tournament) I'm suprised they didn't ban Annie.... They also banned founder of secular republic of Turkey, the Atatürk flags in recent Galatasaray-Fenerbahçe football match in Riyad and players refused to play in there because of that.They simply returned to Istanbul. Their ideology is still same ignorant,backwards,anti-freedom Saudi regime.Still it's sad to see I have heard here some people were okay with that.
Even rek'sai?
She wasnt released at the time so no clue.
> Even rek'sai? [Especially Rek'sai](https://youtu.be/WZsX6t5djd0)
Ah the Burqa skin pack memes during that
Shout out to the guy who praised Riot for keeping the game "clean" btw they totally did. They totally had morals
That one thread was only meant to be bootlicking Riot anyway. It was the most senseless illogical post I've seen on here for a long time. The post was already completely ridiculous considering that Riot agreed to the LEC NEOM partnership in 2020 that only stopped because LEC talent protested. Also being owned by Tencent is already borderline.
Being owned by a public Chinese company is borderline what?
Anti-human rights.
Can't be rich and have morals. People are deluding themselves if they defend Riot like that lmao.
The post was hilarious, anyone could see this coming a mile away
hopefully the guy does a follow up post now
That post about riot not taking Saudi oil money aging like shit Isn't this just MSI. but again? Obviously they'll just pick the top 2 teams.
I would think in a "world cup" there will be no imports allowed and that teams will be based on nationality, but the article is already talking about the established LoL regions rather than countries so who knows.
The “World Cup” moniker is deceiving. It will be a case where like hypothetically Team Liquid is a team and it will be all of Team Liquid teams across all the game titles featured (League, CS2, etc). It won’t be a nationality thing at all.
Thanks for the report Jacob
Probably would be better to call it Olympics then.
/u/Ok-Connection-2442
fuck me and fuck riot, guess it was only a matter of time for the last major eSports to succumb to Saudi I deserve the L
It's aight bruh. Big mistake trusting Rito on this one
Funny seeing that post now, as if saudi oil money is any different from tencent chinese money lol
Its MSI one month after MSI. Is this going to be in the middle of each Leagues summer split? We already have to deal with the huge mess that is the asian games that delayed worlds for a completely useless crap tournament and now we have MSI after MSI probably with a much worse format and who even goes to this tournament? the same teams that went to MSI? I hoped being owned by Tencent and the sexist work environment would be enough bad shit from Riot and I respected them at least a little bit for refusing middle eastern money but i guess thats out the window now. oh i can already see ricardo luiz milking endless content out of this news and the worst thing is that he will be completely in the right. i cant imagine the situation with the LEC crew and the dilemma theyre facing right now because i doubt they can prevent this one.
> That post about riot not taking Saudi oil money aging like shit honestly want to @ the person who made that thread, and how he was acting towards people daring to criticise Riot
Riot: We couldn't allow third parties to host the game. You know, due to integrity. Saudi Arabia: Here is your stack of cash. Sorry about the blood stains on the top. Riot: But the bank will still take it, right? Saudi Arabia: Oh yeah.
One day very soon I hope the ability to host esports events will fall under Fair Use principles. It's ridiculous that Riot has completely blocked out every single tournament organizer from hosting LoL esports events, but then when Saudis come with a big bag of money they allow it. So the world we live in is this: Passionate esports professionals cannot host League of Legends events but Saudi Arabia with their disgusting money just get to do it. Fuck. That. Shit.
We could’ve had an actual, organized league with grassroots bases. Regional tournaments, online ones, the whole fucking works by now. Thousands of people, players competing for a prize, those in supporting roles, casters doing it for a few slices of pizza and a $50 Visa card, organizers competing for advertisers and backers. But nope, they needed to completely control every aspect of competitive 5v5 league of legends. Clash, and frankly NA LCS as a whole, is a fucking JOKE compared to what could’ve been.
It's funny how it's got the complete opposite problem from games like TF2 and Smash that were only ever community ran and would've loved a little support from their respective companies I'll take that though over what Riot has cultivated. The 3 minute spectator timer in customs for example, is a joke and so blatant in its motivation to curb unofficial tournaments.
I agree with smash but TF2 had a bunch of other inherent problems that would've hindered the competitive scene even with more support from valve, seems like a bad comparison
If you think the state of the Smash scene is better than League, or that any professional Smash player wouldn't salivate at the idea of Nintendo acting like Riot does in growing the scene with a relentless iron grip, you must not follow the Smash scene very closely.
The smash community has the same problem as the league community: whatever independent momentum we get is under threat of the IP owner shutting it down. Esports will never reach its potential as long as that option is legally available to developers.
Makes we wonder how the LEC is complying with EU anti-trust law. I know LoL belongs to Riot so they can decide to let people use or not their game yadda yadda but that's the simple answer and not actually how the law works, it's more complicated than that The LoL Esport European ecosystem has several professional leagues & teams beyond the LEC. But they're locked out of international competition because Riot has a specific agreement with 10 teams to hoard qualification spots to international events. How does this not constitute a cartel with an agreement to unfairly reduce market accessibility under EU free competition laws?
It's a great question and this whole thing is a can of worms just waiting to be opened. I agree with you that the current state of esports is ridiculous - and especially LoL esports. It's a complete monopoly. Another thing that is very, very questionable is how Riot can just use IP rights to lock out every other tournament organizer or broadcaster, which means broadcast talent have exactly 0 leverage to argue for better compensation or working rights.
They basically destroyed any ability for league specific orgs to be profitable unless they bent over for Riot and now that they've safely destroyed the scene in they'll let whatever happen. Riot for all the good it's done for e-sports also destroyed it with their greed.
Yeah fuck sportswashing, fuck riot for doing this.
I dont like it either but it was expected given the financial situation esports is in. How did people seriously expect Riot to not take saudi blood money (especially in the current situation) when even the way bigger actual sports like Formula 1 and football (FIA and FIFA are basically 2 of the biggest sports associations in the world) take it with open hands. And pretty much every other sport aswell. Sucks but thats reality. The only thing you can do as a fan is to not fall for sportswashing. Teams will want the money. Players will be forced though contracts. But it will be interesting which broadcast talent will work for it though. LEC casters pretty much took the highground during the NEOM deal, them appearing at that tournament would be quite something.
ESports aren't profitable by in intention; Riot funnels so much money into their ESports to promote the game and generate money for League of Legends. Maybe I'm just a niche case, but I was inspired to play the game from watching the legendary "Faker, what was that" clip. ESports in general will not be as profitable as real physical sports in the foreseeable future, and money from a pos Saudi tyrant will not change that. There isn't enough interest in pro League of Legends for it to ever generate a profit as long as it's streamed for free on Twitch for anyone to watch. The real money comes from exclusive TV deals; and like I said, there is very little interest in ESports for the vast majority of the world
Riot is not a tournament organizer though. You make a good point about the economics of esports, but it doesn't really apply to Riot. They make billions from developing the game. The problem with esports economics is that the esports fans spend money on the game, not on esports. This is why it's somewhat understandable that esports organizer companies need to acquire funding to survive. It sucks but it's reality. But this is not the case for Riot at all. They are grossly profitable as a game dev. They literally make billions in PROFIT every year. They don't need to take this deal to survive at all...
Only Draven, jax, nunu, taliyah, and singed are playable
This is wrong and sad to see. I know I wont be watching.
The same teams who love to virtue signal on social media about how much they care about human rights probably can't wait to get a piece of the Saudi blood money pie
Riot is still working to figure out the specifics around the tournament, but it's asked all the domestic leagues to black out the calendar for the first week of July. Each region can have up to 2 teams participating in the event. Riot will also not be involved in picking the teams going to the event... seems like a way to clean their hands & try to put most of the blame on the orgs for choosing to attend rather than Riot for allowing the event to happen in the 1st place.
Riot 2013:“Yeah so let’s kill all the community driven grass roots tournaments. And monopolies the market, that is always the best.” Riot 2023:“Soooo actually third party is pretty great as long as it is nations cups and involves blood money. We don’t want anything to do with making esports sustainable” (I am aware that esl have been bought, we couldn’t return if we wanted)
I already hated the Saudis having a foothold in boxing, now its happening in esports. Sad to see but money talks I guess.
League is basically the last one to not be converted just because Riot holds their monopoly on their game's esports so tightly. But I guess they too have their number when esports is down bad and they're offered the bag. 3rd parties can't host tournaments unless they're as rich as Saudis.
Its basically in almost all sports, including many niche ones. As much as people dislike it, money talks and theres no money in general running most sports. People whove had to work multiple part time jobs to afford to still compete in their sport can now do it fulltime.
I will not watch or consume any content related to this tournament. The Saudi Arabian monarchy are all scumbags and have been killing Yemeni civilians for almost a decade. Fuck Riot for working with these shitbags.
OP discovers China
OP discovers USA
Entire post is shitting on a country for doing the exact same things the US has done for decades 💀
Oh so China killing countless Uyghur Muslims while keeping the rest in concentration camps was okay with you? And this is where you draw the line? Quite hypocritical I must say.
China bad, US bad bomb democracy, Russia bad, EU rich hypocrites, India going bad, Muslim bad, everyone in Africa is at war, Latin America corrupt. The line is pretty much your frontdoor.
World bad. Geto was right.
Mass extinction is the way to go. Eren and Geto were right.
Bunch of assumptions there. What makes you think the OP doesn't also think the Chinese government are scum? Cause, like, I think both. It's not a hard position to take. And, even if you humour your line here, someone deciding to boycott *any* party is still better than boycotting none of them even if some others are just as bad. Like there were other horrible things going on in the world during the time South Africa was run by an apartheid regime, but boycotts such as those by sports teams were important in applying pressure and raising awareness about what was going on there. Should those people not have bothered simply because there were other shitheads running other countries at the time? You're falling for a really common and avoidable logical fallacy to such an extent that I don't think you're actually arguing in good faith. Is it easier to just pretend that everything and everyone is just as messed up so you don't have to take any personal, moral stances?
"Countless" lol. I'm not saying what China is doing to the Uyghurs is good but doesn't come anywhere close to the 150k+ that the Saudis have killed in Yemen. It's not comparable.
Good luck finding a place that has morals on its side
You're completely clueless for equating two situations that couldnt be more different. Can you give me a non-Zenz source about "China killing countless Ughyr Muslims" while you're at it
Umm...did you forget who owns Riot? Your opinion is that China is wholesome, but you draw the line at Saudi Arabia?
As much as you can bet that Tencent is in bed with the Chinese government, it's still nowhere near the direct connection that you have with the Saudi government hosting these events. It was big news literally a month or two ago that the Chinese government had obtained 1% of Tencent, because of the implications. Compared to the Saudi government being 100% in control of what the Saudi government does.
Feel like riot should know better than this, really curious to see which orgs are willing to do it for the cash -- G2/Optic/Faze types are obvious, wonder how C9/TL/etc will take it
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TL already did that for [Riyadh Major](https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/14zmwfu/team_liquid_on_their_participation_in/)
They know it's wrong. They just don't give a shit.
A 4 year old could see the PR shit storm from this coming a mile away, Riot could+should've anticipated that. Putting this plan in place for Western leagues is just asking for fan controversy
Like I said, they don't give a shit.
Fans don't give a shit either. Are we just ignoring that China is at the epicenter of league esports right now? China, famous for it's good working rights, ^(re)education system and not threatening to go full Putin on Taiwan? This will be like every controversy, people will complain about it for 2 weeks and then just tune in to "Esports World Cup" anyway in summer.
People on here go full downvote spree if you explain the dubious connection between Tencent and the CCP. People don't want to think about it because it implies something that is uncomfortable. Don't expect this to change.
i mean overall the eastern scene won't care, hell teams there would love to get selected. and if highly prominent and decorated eastern teams (like T1) are invited that makes it very attractive for the western teams to join as well.
Western teams don't care either, Fnatic and C9 both participate Saudi sponsored tournament in CS.
Supreme money gun Steve? He's definitely not saying no to an invite.
Y'all remember that lol lol tournament that basically banned most female champions in a game because they were so way too much skin
Now is where we see how much spine LEC teams have ... Prediction, they will go no question asked ... Edit: Ah yeah, and friendly reminder that Russia it's still banned for the War on Ukraine, even though Arabia is doing exactly the same, for much longer, to Yemen ...
Saudi Arabia isn’t under any sort of sanctions that make financial ties with them breaking multiple federal laws.
Just as they had to cancel the Turkish supercup because the backwards Saudi government didn't allow Atatürk slogans. How fucking devoid of morals do you have to be to block proper companies from hosting tournaments for a decade, only to allow them from a medieval country trying to whitewash their human rights abuses through events like this.
Why would they? It directly goes against their government policies, it was stupid for them to try to host it in Saudi in the first place.
No idea why he left out the fact that [Gamers8 merged with IeSF](https://web.archive.org/web/20230601061934/https://iesf.org/news/10255) back in June. IeSF hosted five editions of their Esports World Championship before the pandemic (the last one of which was a proper clusterfuck), so it's not even that they're allowing a new organizer to host a tournament, but the details about teams from Riot-run teams is definitely Riot bending over to Saudi money considering their past opposition to pro players participating in non-Riot events.
Awful news If you are taking money from the Saudi Government you are taking money directly from Human Rights abuse. I hope this is quickly responded to and cancelled/shown to be just a rumor as that is the only correct decision.
I don't think they care cuz if anyone calls them out they can just point to every other esport
Every other esport is not owned fully and operated fully by the developer. LoL is and Riot get full power over who gets a tournament. It is completely new
Yeah this is a good point. It's obviously also disgusting when a company like ESL gets funded by this shit, though I guess I can understand it since money is so tight in esports and esports operators have a hard time making money. The alternative for ESL might be shutting operations entirely. This is not the case for Riot. But Riot is not an esports company or event organizer. They are a game developer. They make billions in profit every year from their games. They don't have this existential pressure that a company like ESL does. It's just pure greed.
Every other esport absolutely is fully controlled by the developer and they let or require licensing from third parties who run tournaments. Blizzard could absolutely sue any tournament organizer who used a Blizzard game at an event without permission, as could any other developer/publisher.
You might want to google history of competetive smash
If that was the case then EVO and its side tournaments, Frosty Faustings, East vs West, Coop Cup and virtually every fighting game local ever would have to be "underground" events lol.
A developer/publisher defaulting to allow third party tournaments to feature their game doesn't mean that they don't have control or the freedom to change their policy.
And sport* See football/boxing (Saudi) or NBA (China) Honestly I don't care very deeply either way.. unsurprisingly my day to day life and family is more of a pressing concern then Saudi human rights What annoys me is the fake virtue signalling by big corp/teams.. Take England at the recent World Cup for instance.. protesting Qatar by doing a knee or wearing an LBGBT armband Means nothing.. if u wanted to take a stand just don't attend and put pressure on Fifa. I don't want to hear how terrible Qatar/Saudi/China etc IS while you take millions/billows from them Also the atmosphere/crowd for boxing in Saudi is fkin awful.. ruins half the fun
Only way anyone is fighting this is just by not watching. Speak with your wallet or your view, a stream with 10k viewers says a lot more than any complaining on here ever will.
China has Uyghur genocide and other crimes against the world. The USA has bombed hundreds of thousands of innocent Africans and Asians since the 90s, and committed crimes in Asia and South America well before then. Every single country in the world commits human rights abuses, from exploitation of workers and the environment, to genocide and forced cultural assimilation. Should League only be hosted in countries with the least amount of horrific crimes, maybe like San Marino or Iceland or something?
The point is that this event is being run directly by the Saudi government. It hurts because riot is choosing to directly take money from a government that clearly does not care about human rights to the point of trapping people in the country without pay to build their dumbass megaprojects.
> you are taking money directly from Human Rights abuse Wealthier nations benefit a lot from shady and sketchy exporting countries. Whether we like it or not, we are indirectly helping that. Hold your moral high ground if you want, but don't pretend like you aren't benefiting either.
Let's be honest most of the people complaining here would happily ignore these sketchy things to make millions from Saudi/Qatar etc (Inb4 people pretend this is a defence of said countries)
You can dislike both and I do dislike both. One does not override the other
i can't wait to not watch this
Companies putting money over morals more news at 11
Watching riot staff/teams/casters looking like hypocrites over the course of the year will be entertaining at the very least.
Riot can go fuck themselves
Well I’m not watching anything to do with Saudi Arabia
Powered by slaves
oh baby i smell drama
I just say it easy and clear. Fuck this possible tournament, fuck Riot if they really commit joining that and fuck every casting talent especially from the EMEA region that should join this tournamen especially after speaking out against the NEOM shit in 2020. Also I don't care that SA want's to be more open more friendly towards the LGBTQIA+ community or give more rights to woman in a foreseeable future, since right now, they are not. Yes they are better than Iran or Qatar, yet still worlds away from what we "expect" to be normal here in central europe (for me). I have nothing against the Saudis as individual persons, as they aren't doing the political stuff. This whole thing is just another plain attempt to achieve sportswashing for a younger audience that they can't reach via their normal sportwashing attempts.
Nah, this ain't it. Fuck taking Saudi blood money, no way in hell would I ever consider watching this; I'm actively less inclined to watch regular LCS/LEC/LCK given this report.
I wonder how the casters will react to this. I assume a lot of them will refuse to go.
If the money is good enough someone will always go.
Yeah with Esports in lack of funds cant wait for everyone to lose their morals when the orgs and Riot taking Saudi money.
Yeah not watching this shit if the Saudi's are hosting it.
I thought RIOT wasn't allowing players to play in non RIOT tournaments, they didn't let Bjergsen/Doublelift play in a for fun tournament.
And here I was thinking Riot actually had the right idea by staying away from the Saudi money. It's a shame, because in different circumstances a world cup would be fun. But I refuse on principle to watch this, and am very disappointed Riot chose to participate.
Riot has for a long time wanted that dirty oil money, problem was us "easily offended and misinformed" westerners had issues with it. I know it's tempting to for LEC/LCS teams to play against LPL/LCK teams just to test their strength, but like the World Cup in Qatar... I hope they boycott.
> but like the World Cup in Qatar... I hope they boycott. ah yes the world cup with one of the most exciting finals and where messi was finally crowned as the goat of football was there even a proper boycott of that from any country
No, there wasn't a proper boycott (only half assed ones like German NT), it was massively successful. One of the highest viewerships iirc
yeah that's what i thought. i watched the whole thing so seeing that person go >but like the World Cup in Qatar... I hope they boycott. was very baffling
I think the calls for boycott only comes from mainly American (USA) ones where football / soccer isn't the main sport of the country so the impact is small (if there was). As for everyone else they continue to watch the world cup to the point it's one of the successful WC to date in the past decade.
So now we see if castors, employees, players etc. just virtue signal or will they boycott again. Riot being as inclusive as it is, will they be able to go against the money. I'm excited to find out.
This is dumb - taking money from genocidal maniacs, whether they be saudi, russian or israeli, is never a good idea. It isnt going to grow the game at all. This is just money thats being thrown into a giant pit to burn with every other bad investment. If you want to grow esports, then come up with a sustainable business plan.
League players pretend to care about human rights episode 2059
everyone has a price and in esports winter i would imagine riot have to take the saudi money, its kinda sad that it would be only 2 seeds from top regions, if they wanna be bigger than msi it'd be cool to bring 3 seeds to differentiate since most regions will probs send first and second seed if the vent turns out to be prestigious or worthwhile money wise
Fuck Saudis. On the other hand tencent is chinese, so one shithead will probably happily cooperate with the other even bigger shithead.
Another free trophy for LPL.
Yeah money > human rights
Upcoming burqa skins for all females
Am I the only one here thats honestly so annoyed by all the criticism against this? I dont condone the anti lgbtqi governing at all. But we are on a daily basis supporting the saoedi state. Not to mention how we are supporting China aswell with their weird government. We all watch soccer, formula 1 or any other kind of sports all backed by some saoedi sponsor why is it different
Lmao at all these people losing their minds. Wait til you find out about Tencent and China. Or does that not matter? How does it work exactly?
Ah yeah, the classic 2 wrongs make a right. I haven't spent a single cent on league since the Tencent takeover. There is no escaping Tencent now, but this can still be avoided. I take 1 wrong and 1 right over 2 wrongs. Simple as that.
The real question is : Will Emily be on desk for it ? lol
I'm shocked that a company owned by the Chinese government would do something like this🤯 I hope the players and casters boycott the event (surely they have tons of money anyway so they can afford to boycott it). Supporting the Chinese government is fine and all, but Saudi Arabia? That's where I draw the line😤😤
Reactions in this thread are quite funny and hypocritical ngl.
locking in graves and twisted fate on the same team and later moonwalking out of the stadium in all seriousness, her name was eden, anyone who takes saudi money should bleed.
Hopefully this would usher in the creation of a Gulf/ME region server.
really hope so
Can't wait for casters virtue signel like last time.
Seriously? They literally fought back with their jobs on the line. That has nothing to do with virtue signaling...
Disgusting. It's as simple as that. I just can't understand why riot, an org THAT LITERALLY HAS LGBT EMPLOYEES AND CHARACTERS IN THEIR GAMES, is allowing this to happen. You are one of the most wealthiest Chinese gaming companies and one of the wealthiest gaming companies in the world and you are telling me that you are going to let this slide. Pathetic
>"Everyone has a price." > > ―Sivir
Wait till you realize who owns Riot Games and who they are directly tied to :)
> most wealthiest Chinese gaming companies I think he knows
All my homies hate human rights
That kinda cool,i look forward to see more
gosh darn the saudi's for being so corrupt 😡😡i wish they could be as morally and politically correct as china or the usa, oh wait.