I'm not familiar enough with physical sports to know: do professional sports organizations generally do this kind of restriction? Worldwide? Is there any kind of cross-sport prohibition? I could believe it, since I've never actually seen or heard of players showing off without a contract of some kind... and yet, that might simply be because I don't hear about it.
College Sports have some strange rules regarding what they can do concurrently. Of particular note is the case of Jeremy Bloom[1], who was an excellent college football player and an Olympic skier. The NCAA really seems pretty anti-students-rights anyway, though, and I can't speak to more professional sports.
Sports will have have restrictions on playing other sports, but the motivation is reducing the risk of injury. They'll also restrict things like motorcycling for the same reason.
It's not just an American thing. There are cross-over athletes who could play competing sports (rugby union vs rugby league) but they sign multi-year contracts with one team in one sport. Australia has competing football codes and the players don't float between them if they are contracted to one.
Ronaldo famously said that there is too much modern slavery in football because they are owned professionally by the clubs they play for.
Deion Sanders[1] played professional football and baseball at the same time.
Interesting little tidbit: On October 11, 1992, Sanders played in a Falcons game at Miami and then flew to Pittsburgh, hoping to play in the Braves' League Championship Series game against the Pirates that evening and become the first athlete to play in two professional leagues in the same day. Sanders ultimately did not, however, appear in the baseball game that night.
The quick answer is no, there is no cross-sport prohibition in most sports leagues. The long answer is that almost anything can be negotiated and that player are usually willing to make concessions in these deals in turn for more money.
Many modern sports contracts have clauses in them that protect the employer if an athlete is injured doing an athletic activity outsider of their normal training. A good example might be a football player blowing out his knee playing pickup basketball. These clauses usually give the team the ability to withhold future salary or even go after previously paid wages. Although these clauses aren't always exercised depending on the player's relationship with the team, the severity of the injury, and the activity that caused the injury. A team doesn't want to risk alienating a player or their fans unless there is a huge gap between the financial impact of the injury and the player's future perceived value.
There are also various sponsorship agreements that players and teams have with companies that have restrictions about supporting a competitor. For example an NBA player sponsored by Nike might not be allowed to wear an Adidas shoe during a game.
Considering these precedents and that Riot appears to act as some combination of a sponsor and team/league that employees these eathletes, I think this decision is pretty reasonable.
This would be an appropriate comparison if they had restricted all competitive games (although the Hearthstone ban is fairly damning), but given that they didn't, I think it would be more enlightening to ask if pro sports leagues prevent their players from participating in other leagues for the same sport.
My knowledge of professional sports is pretty limited to the US, where there is essentially a monopoly in each sport. Does anyone know about this? I suspect soccer or cricket, both fairly international sports, might have good examples?
The answer is a big "it depends." Most times it is simply not feasible for an athlete to participate in two different leagues in the same sport due to either the overlap in their seasons or the geography involved (the highest paying leagues almost all end up as monopolies in their region in that particular sport).
One notable example is female basketball players. The two most popular and highest paying leagues are in Russia and in the USA and have seasons that do not overlap. It is pretty common for good players to play in both leagues. As far as I am aware, there is no restriction on this by either league.
Another example would be in football/soccer. Player's who play in the US are often "loaned" to teams in Europe in order for them to continue playing during the duration of the off-season. This allows them to stay in shape, face better competition, and improve their game. The team that receives the player will generally pay the team that loans the player an agreed upon fee in order to compensate them for the risk of injury. If the two teams can't agree on a fee, the player will be prevented from playing for the second team.
As noted above, there are clauses placed in individual contracts in an attempt to limit injury.
The UCI (pro cycling sanctioning body) also prohibits the top-tier cyclists from racing in events that lack a UCI sanction.
This has been a large problem in US pro-mountain biking, as most long-distance races are not UCI sanctioned. In theory, pro racers wishing to participate in these events risk fines.
Riot's side of the argument would be something like: how do you think Nike would feel if Tiger Woods decided to switch to Titleist balls next week despite having a contract that pays him to use Nike golf balls?
This seems more like Nike getting mad that Tiger took his son to a Putt Putt that didn't use Nike balls. He isn't really contradicting his endorsement by using the balls that Putt Putt gives him to play miniature golf with his son, and they aren't really contradicting their position as League of Legends pros by playing other games during their downtime.
I think you've poisoned this analogy a bit with the putt putt company's semi-requirement and the difference between what someone does in their private life and in public as a performer.
If Swifty goes to Blizzcon and is forced to use a competitor's mouse to play the new xpac alpha I don't think Razer complains but if it gets out that he's using a Logitech G600 at home based on his stream he's going to lose that endorsement.
Circling back to Tiger, it'd be more like Tiger Woods scheduling his own live event, Tiger and Son Putt Putt Happy Time Hour, and he chose to use Titleist Putt Putt Balls.
These people aren't prevented from playing other games, just from publicly streaming those games. As sponsored spokespeople for Game X I don't find this an egregious requirement and if Riot isn't paying enough to make this requirement worth honoring then the players should tell balk at the terms.
This is just a power play by Riot. League of Legends is the most popular of the games in the genre of "Aeon of Strife-Style Fortress-Assault Games Going On Two Sides," with tens of millions of players. The professional tournaments attract hundreds of millions of players. It's understandable, from Riot's perspective, the want to lock down the golden geese. The threats emerging from other ASSFAGGOTS games and the console-centred streaming are legitimate threats to (one of) Riot's income streams.
Consider the next-largest ASSFAGGOTS title, Valve's Dota 2. They have started having prize pools at their annual invitational tournament, The International, that exceed several millions of dollars. This, for a single tournament! Plus, mainstream "professional gaming" is still a pretty new phenomenon for the western world. Riot would be foolish to assume that they aren't going to be threatened by other competitive games, some of which haven't even been created yet. It's a monopolistic move, but it's understanable.
That being said, I think that it should be up to the players to choose whether or not they want to do this. Would you really want to lock yourself out of another game? Competitive fighting game payers often "play the field;" they may be really, really good at one or two games, but most have played several, even in tournaments.
This is really where eSports will come into its own, in these (I prefer to call them MOBAs) games. Just like in professional sports, the players here will need a union.
The players will only need unions if the companies insist on these sort of anti-competitive contracts. I don't think that a company like Valve would insist on such a clause for competitive Dota, which might make it more attractive to players with the skillsets that make them good at ASSFAGGOTS titles. I've played League, HoN, Dota, Dota 2, and Smite, and I can confirm that, while differences in styles of play exist, many of the core mechanics are similar. This is especially true at high levels, where the most important factors in a teams victory is communication and predictive thought.
Many people in the DotA scene have been calling for players unions, as many of the teams' contracts are not well thought-out and leave room for a lot of exploitation of players (citation: /r/DotA2 has like one posted every other week).
This is the flipside of Riot's agreement: Riot can be reasonably expected to hold up their end of the deal. The details on how pro-esports teams are supposed to make a living and pay their bills are still up in the air, but generally teams that get "sponsored" end up getting raw deals.
But Twitch revenue can help offset the lack of funds. Ex-Brood War player AngryTestie was able to live comfortably streaming whatever game he wanted, from HoN to a bit of SC2 to Dota.
The point about fighting game players is spot on. I wonder if Riot will actually try to enforce this against popular players who stream Starcraft II custom maps or something similar.
In case anyone sees the (rather derogatory) term "ASSFAGGOTS" and is wondering why it's all caps, it's ostensibly short for "(A)eon of (S)trife (S)tyled (F)ortress (A)ssault (G)ame (G)oing (O)n (T)wo (S)ides".
MOBA has essentially won as the acronym for this genre, despite having such a vague meaning that it also describes every MMO, every worms-style game, every online FPS, some MUDs, every online fighting game, every RTS, and probably some other stuff I haven't thought of.
Genres are useful for categorizing but the category titles are all pretty arbitrary.
Take RPG: a description that applies to just about every game out there.
MMO tends to refer to games with a persistent overarching game world, but I think it's fair to describe games like Call of Duty and Battlefield as "massively multiplayer online"
MUD is associated with text based games but "multi-user dungeon" aptly describes most MMOs
4x (Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate) describes just about every RTS game, they should really be called RT4x or something...
I could go on all day, but I think you catch the drift.
I don't think it is fair to call games like Call of Duty "massively multiplayer online." They are multiplayer, and they are online, but the scale isn't all that massive. Call of Duty allows, what? 20 players?
I think the global stat ledgers and unified multiplier progression paths lend themselves to qualities normally associated with other "massive" games. True, the maps are limited in player size, but the feeling that there is a huge world of individual characters of varying class/strength/expertise that you may randomly encounter is pretty similar. It's like WoW battelegrounds/instanced dungeons minus the persistent world.
I have trouble following that thinking. If ledgers made something massively multiplayer, it seems like all those arcade games with miles-long high score lists in the '80s would have to be considered massively multiplayer. But a lot of them were actually single-player.
C'mon that's just silly. The "massive" part of an MMO is kind of an important attribute and ~20 players is about as non-massive as you can get. Quake in 1996 supported 16 players and there were leaderboards and ladders. It's not an MMO and neither is COD.
In practice you don't interact with more than a few dozen players when playing an MMO. Many of the most popular MMOs like WoW and Star Wars:TOR shove their best content into instanced zones styled in a format similar to many multiplayer FPS titles with similar player limits per instance. The core of MMO gameplay comes down to "RPG" style character progression that gives players a sense of complex and gradual character growth that is on display for other players in the community. The same is true of CoD and Battlefield, except there is only instanced content and no out-world. You might argue that games like EVE, where most of the content is non-instanced, are the only true MMOs, but the most popular "MMO" of all time has maximum player limit of 25 on 99% of the game's bosses, and similar limits in the PvP battlegrounds and arenas.
Quake in 1996 supported 16 players and there were leaderboards and ladders
If you're comparing the multiplayer experience of CoD and BF to Quake I have to wonder if you've ever played those titles. They aren't simply "leaderboards", they are detailed character RPGs that take a lot of grinding and deliberation over gear, just like an MMO, and that is what makes them stand out as blockbusters compared to other FPS games in the genre - your high level CoD character is on display to potentially any other player that participates in the CoD community, Quake leaderboards were just a list of kills, no persistent character growth.
Like it says in the name an MMO is a game with massive online play. CoD has no massive online play. CoD is not an MMO. PlanetSide2 is what an MMOFPS looks like.
Yes, I understand what the popular definition of MMO is.
Maybe a better example would be an IRC trivia bot in a channel with 1000 players, since that meets your rigid definition of massive. My entire point is that the genres aren't so rigid and that an uninformed reader could reasonably interpret any game where you can play with players all around world as "massively online multiplayer". In the annals of gaming history, MMOs are a very specific thing, but as far as the English language goes, massive doesn't necessary imply "X number of players on the server".
Personally, I think like anything over 64 players and up counts as pretty massive but that's my totally arbitrary opinion.
A term only "wins" when you let it. I don't like the breadth of the term "MOBA;" I think ASSFAGGOTS better describes the specific subgenre that includes LoL, Dota, HoN, and Smite. To me, the separation is similar to using the term "backstroke" over the term "swimming."
DotA-like was fairly common in LoL's early days, and still seems fairly appropriate. There are not, to my knowledge, any games that compete with DotA for creating the genre.
Defense of the Ancients, like Tides of Blood, Eve of the Apocalypse, and Advent of the Zenith, was an AoS-style map. If you say AoS, though, few people will know what you mean.
AoS was the name everyone used in Starcraft and Warcraft 3 custom maps, but as new games become popular, the genre just keeps switching to popular game in genre-like.
I actually narrow the definition to include a broad set of these games. Here are the qualities I use to define it:
2 Teams of a set number of players on each side (5 on 5, 3v3, 10v10)
A commitment by the players to play a full round of the game, start to finish. A full match, if you will.
Players choose from a variety of playable character or customizations, which rely on player skill.
Extreme emphasis on team work.
By these definitions, World of Tanks is a MOBA, but WoW and Starcraft are not.
Well, that is a useful definition, and perhaps we should pick an acronym that encodes it. The current acronym encodes "Multiplayer online battle arena."
Might be good to note that this was made up as a joke back when people were arguing about what to call these style of games and just kind of stuck around.
The core mechanics and metagame (footsies) of many fighting games are similar. But the top players that actually do well in tournaments in multiple games spend significant amounts of time studying details of game-specific culture, matchups, and tricks.
Fighting games suck these days though. I hope for an open source Street Fighter III derived engine someday. Open source game engines and commercial leagues are the future.
Alright so this only concerns SPONSORISED STREAMS, and it's not that big of a deal (calming people down before they go crazy on articles that do not provide full details to a story)
This means they can stream other games during the LCS they just can't be paid to put company logos. It's just a commercial agreement more than anything
I had the impression that LCS players were only disallowed from streaming those games if their stream advertised League of Legends content.
At the top of the Elo ladder, queue times can be up to half an hour as the matchmaking service tries to build a fair game. Many of these pro players will play another game (Super Meat Boy, LIMBO, Dust, Mark of the Ninja, Hearthstone) on stream while they're in queue. This ban seems to target other games that could be competitive e-sports, specifically the new Blizzard game Hearthstone.
False. The contract stipulates that during the LCS, they CANNOT stream any of these games on the same stream that they play LoL, as that could be considered adjacent to LoL.
There was a bit of discussion about this on the subreddits for LoL[1] and Dota2[2]. I don't think any esports fan or player is happy that Riot is going this direction.
And over on /r/Starcraft. It's pretty bad, but frankly I'm not surprised. At a convention they stopped Dota2 from being played there.. I wish I had the link for that.
Currently, pro gamers have a lot of downtime between League of Legends games due to having to queue up for a game after finishing a previous one.
These queue times range anywhere from 10-25 minutes on average, during which here is literally nothing to do besides playing other games, like Hearthstone.
I don't think Riot thought this one through. Instead what they should do is figure out a way to fix the queue times at the highest level, and this would honestly not even be a problem. At this point, they just appear overly controlling.
There really isn't a way to fix those queue times, though. When you have a small player pool (like you do on the far end of the skill curve), you have two choices: Accept long queue times or accept the likelihood of wildly unbalanced matches.
Gamers understand that Riot has no way to shorten the queue time dramatically, and that's ok. That's not the root of the problem. The root of the problem is Riot's attempt to prohibit players' behavior to the point where people would consider to be way too invasive and way out of the norm.
With this event going forward, I just hope that the progamers get paid more for agreeing to this clause. This is pretty ridiculous.
I suspect it's the opposite. The current trend was to play another game (Hearthstone in particular) and in some cases the streamer would actually keep playing Hearthstone during champ select/the beginning of the game - a really bad message to be sending your customers (especially with free-to-play games where someone spending money with a competitor means disposable income they can't spend on you).
People who read the news stories might think it sounds controlling (but the number of people who read the story and get notably upset is very small compared to the people watching these streams).
Seems like a calculated and rational choice by Riot.
but the number of people who read the story and get notably upset is very small compared to the people watching these streams
I don't know about that...the player communities of "MOBA" games tend to be pretty stubborn, indignant, unruly, etc. It's definitely a weird little world of abrasive man-children (I've put many hours into DotA and HoN). I see this as exactly the kind of "oppression" that the pros (and thus their followers) would complain about and subvert until it gets reversed.
From the reddit thread:
QTpie on riot contract: "Riot can suck my dick" - QTPie stream 2013, while playing FF X
Diamondprox after reading this: Good. Time to break some rules. opens Hearthstone
Not that I agree or disagree, but as a counter-point: Riot has sunk many dollars into organizing leagues for LoL teams, and has put on numerous high-profile events in attempt to push professional gaming into the mainstream.
They do that because they think it makes sense financially.
They have a history of trying to corner out the market by trying to force traditionally multi-game events into only hosting LoL and not hosting competitors games. They aren't supporting professional gaming, they are supporting their marketing, under the guise of helping out e-sports. This is my opinion on the matter. Riot is also known for many shady business practices, especially with regards to competitors, and they are also owned by Tencent, arguably a company with one of the worst reputations in the world.
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[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 138 ms ] thread[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/30/sports/college-football-ol...
Here, for example, is the NBA's take: http://bammgt.com/?page_id=339
Ronaldo famously said that there is too much modern slavery in football because they are owned professionally by the clubs they play for.
Interesting little tidbit: On October 11, 1992, Sanders played in a Falcons game at Miami and then flew to Pittsburgh, hoping to play in the Braves' League Championship Series game against the Pirates that evening and become the first athlete to play in two professional leagues in the same day. Sanders ultimately did not, however, appear in the baseball game that night.
[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deion_Sanders
Many modern sports contracts have clauses in them that protect the employer if an athlete is injured doing an athletic activity outsider of their normal training. A good example might be a football player blowing out his knee playing pickup basketball. These clauses usually give the team the ability to withhold future salary or even go after previously paid wages. Although these clauses aren't always exercised depending on the player's relationship with the team, the severity of the injury, and the activity that caused the injury. A team doesn't want to risk alienating a player or their fans unless there is a huge gap between the financial impact of the injury and the player's future perceived value.
There are also various sponsorship agreements that players and teams have with companies that have restrictions about supporting a competitor. For example an NBA player sponsored by Nike might not be allowed to wear an Adidas shoe during a game.
Considering these precedents and that Riot appears to act as some combination of a sponsor and team/league that employees these eathletes, I think this decision is pretty reasonable.
My knowledge of professional sports is pretty limited to the US, where there is essentially a monopoly in each sport. Does anyone know about this? I suspect soccer or cricket, both fairly international sports, might have good examples?
One notable example is female basketball players. The two most popular and highest paying leagues are in Russia and in the USA and have seasons that do not overlap. It is pretty common for good players to play in both leagues. As far as I am aware, there is no restriction on this by either league.
Another example would be in football/soccer. Player's who play in the US are often "loaned" to teams in Europe in order for them to continue playing during the duration of the off-season. This allows them to stay in shape, face better competition, and improve their game. The team that receives the player will generally pay the team that loans the player an agreed upon fee in order to compensate them for the risk of injury. If the two teams can't agree on a fee, the player will be prevented from playing for the second team.
As noted above, there are clauses placed in individual contracts in an attempt to limit injury.
The UCI (pro cycling sanctioning body) also prohibits the top-tier cyclists from racing in events that lack a UCI sanction.
This has been a large problem in US pro-mountain biking, as most long-distance races are not UCI sanctioned. In theory, pro racers wishing to participate in these events risk fines.
It's a shame to limit people's personal pursuits
If Swifty goes to Blizzcon and is forced to use a competitor's mouse to play the new xpac alpha I don't think Razer complains but if it gets out that he's using a Logitech G600 at home based on his stream he's going to lose that endorsement.
Circling back to Tiger, it'd be more like Tiger Woods scheduling his own live event, Tiger and Son Putt Putt Happy Time Hour, and he chose to use Titleist Putt Putt Balls.
These people aren't prevented from playing other games, just from publicly streaming those games. As sponsored spokespeople for Game X I don't find this an egregious requirement and if Riot isn't paying enough to make this requirement worth honoring then the players should tell balk at the terms.
Consider the next-largest ASSFAGGOTS title, Valve's Dota 2. They have started having prize pools at their annual invitational tournament, The International, that exceed several millions of dollars. This, for a single tournament! Plus, mainstream "professional gaming" is still a pretty new phenomenon for the western world. Riot would be foolish to assume that they aren't going to be threatened by other competitive games, some of which haven't even been created yet. It's a monopolistic move, but it's understanable.
That being said, I think that it should be up to the players to choose whether or not they want to do this. Would you really want to lock yourself out of another game? Competitive fighting game payers often "play the field;" they may be really, really good at one or two games, but most have played several, even in tournaments.
But Twitch revenue can help offset the lack of funds. Ex-Brood War player AngryTestie was able to live comfortably streaming whatever game he wanted, from HoN to a bit of SC2 to Dota.
No, I didn't make that up.
Take RPG: a description that applies to just about every game out there.
MMO tends to refer to games with a persistent overarching game world, but I think it's fair to describe games like Call of Duty and Battlefield as "massively multiplayer online"
MUD is associated with text based games but "multi-user dungeon" aptly describes most MMOs
4x (Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate) describes just about every RTS game, they should really be called RT4x or something...
I could go on all day, but I think you catch the drift.
Quake in 1996 supported 16 players and there were leaderboards and ladders
If you're comparing the multiplayer experience of CoD and BF to Quake I have to wonder if you've ever played those titles. They aren't simply "leaderboards", they are detailed character RPGs that take a lot of grinding and deliberation over gear, just like an MMO, and that is what makes them stand out as blockbusters compared to other FPS games in the genre - your high level CoD character is on display to potentially any other player that participates in the CoD community, Quake leaderboards were just a list of kills, no persistent character growth.
Personally, I think like anything over 64 players and up counts as pretty massive but that's my totally arbitrary opinion.
2 Teams of a set number of players on each side (5 on 5, 3v3, 10v10) A commitment by the players to play a full round of the game, start to finish. A full match, if you will. Players choose from a variety of playable character or customizations, which rely on player skill. Extreme emphasis on team work.
By these definitions, World of Tanks is a MOBA, but WoW and Starcraft are not.
Fighting games suck these days though. I hope for an open source Street Fighter III derived engine someday. Open source game engines and commercial leagues are the future.
This means they can stream other games during the LCS they just can't be paid to put company logos. It's just a commercial agreement more than anything
"onGamers has confirmed with the team representatives that LCS players are disallowed from streaming the games listed below outright"
At the top of the Elo ladder, queue times can be up to half an hour as the matchmaking service tries to build a fair game. Many of these pro players will play another game (Super Meat Boy, LIMBO, Dust, Mark of the Ninja, Hearthstone) on stream while they're in queue. This ban seems to target other games that could be competitive e-sports, specifically the new Blizzard game Hearthstone.
They're not allowed to stream those games if they have any affiliation with Riot.
> This ban seems to target other games that could be competitive e-sports, specifically the new Blizzard game Hearthstone.
It does lean that way, though I'm not sure there's much of a danger of Warcraft: Orcs & Humans becoming a competitive e-sport.
[1] http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/1s38ea/lcs_...
[2] http://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/1s38uc/dota_2_censore...
These queue times range anywhere from 10-25 minutes on average, during which here is literally nothing to do besides playing other games, like Hearthstone.
I don't think Riot thought this one through. Instead what they should do is figure out a way to fix the queue times at the highest level, and this would honestly not even be a problem. At this point, they just appear overly controlling.
With this event going forward, I just hope that the progamers get paid more for agreeing to this clause. This is pretty ridiculous.
People who read the news stories might think it sounds controlling (but the number of people who read the story and get notably upset is very small compared to the people watching these streams).
Seems like a calculated and rational choice by Riot.
I don't know about that...the player communities of "MOBA" games tend to be pretty stubborn, indignant, unruly, etc. It's definitely a weird little world of abrasive man-children (I've put many hours into DotA and HoN). I see this as exactly the kind of "oppression" that the pros (and thus their followers) would complain about and subvert until it gets reversed.
From the reddit thread:
QTpie on riot contract: "Riot can suck my dick" - QTPie stream 2013, while playing FF X
Diamondprox after reading this: Good. Time to break some rules. opens Hearthstone
Read a book.
With what do you substantiate your claim.
They have a history of trying to corner out the market by trying to force traditionally multi-game events into only hosting LoL and not hosting competitors games. They aren't supporting professional gaming, they are supporting their marketing, under the guise of helping out e-sports. This is my opinion on the matter. Riot is also known for many shady business practices, especially with regards to competitors, and they are also owned by Tencent, arguably a company with one of the worst reputations in the world.
Basically, they changed the terms so players can no longer accept sponsorship from other game companies to stream their games.