The focus on Esports might be unhealthy for the game

Now I am not whining about "they only balance for pros" etc etc, I'm more looking at this from a more basic perspective as Media Studies is my field of research (current aiming for my Master Degree). The study on the phenomenon of Esports has given quite some results, entire books have been written about it. Many consider the sucess of Starcraft as the "birthyear" for the modern Esport, even tho opinions differ on it, some setting the "Year One" a bit sooner or later. But almost two decades have passed since then, so of course there has been quite some reasearch on it.

And one of the very common things seems to be: Esport is usually an accident.

Let me explain this: usually developers had no clue if their game would be a big hit or not. Some would help out with hosting tournaments or supporting a small but loyal fanbase, but there is a difference in a small circle and in international phenomenon that Starcraft or other games have created. And for that to happen the game needs to fulfil a few criteria, such as fairness, balance, challenge, etc. etc, I could list and analyze even more of those aspects, but the last time I did that that took more than ten pages and I'm not going to write my bachelor thesis again here. To make it short, it has to be a good game.

This does not only apply to basic designs. A "good game" also has a radiation through it's characters, lore, art, atmosphere, etc that makes artists, writers and all other kinda of creative fans flock to it, creating a vibrant and pulsating community that then again attracts and binds even more players.

So the esport is an unexpected result of a game being good. What does that mean for us? It means that you cannot design a game "to be an esport". Blizzard tried that with Overwatch. And yeah, Overwatch is fun, it's like a new Team Fortress 2 with less hats but more action. But would I play it hyper-competitively as an Esport? Lol no. That game is something I tune in to have a blast. A very awesome blast. But to me it is impossible to view this game as something I could play competitively on a tournament.

However, as Esport seems to be an area where the big money can be made, it is no surprise that the tendency goes into attempts to focus specifically on Esport. There is nothing wrong with the devs supporting the community a little, but especially in Riot's case the focus on Esport is a) not exactly doing what is should and is b) binding a lot of resources that would be needed in other places.

As we remember: the appeal of a game as an esport comes from inside the game. Not from the esport elements pumped into it. Every time when there are big events I am kind of confused how much content gets specifically produced just for this. Icons, skins, blog and videos about players, and the whole other stuff that I look at and don't even want as I don't watch any kind of that. If Korean Team A fights Korean Team B I don't exactly care. I'm busy playing the game on my own after all, and I think there are many people with me on this. Also, super-high level play is extremly boring. Two teams dance around each other for 20 minutes while nothing happens and everyone waits for another to make a mistake. A valid strategy, but not exactly interesting to watch.

Yet I see all that resources going into Esport and kinda feel left out. I for example am a lore-nut, yet we get so little content to work with, and during the first big bangs of LoL as an esport, seasons 2-4, we got effectively NOTHING to work with. Note how the worst executed Retcon I have ever seen falls into that time period? Yeah that's a typical case of putting ressources where they shouldn't be.

And that's only describing it for the lore people. There is so much work to be done in this game, so many reworks, visual and gameplay, scheduled and needed, so many balance issues to fix, yet instead this matter seems secondary compared the amount of attention the Esport section gets.

Some might argue that this focus on Esport also is to appeal to a group of fans to draw into the game, yet I might claim that with Esports the only people you will get into the game are people who want to tryhard and win, and not those who are actually here for what makes this game actually great, such as the stories and characters, and most of all, THE GAME ITSELF.

Not to mention that such focus is highly inefficient. The esport-appeal of a game is a BYPRODUCT by the game being good. So why are less resources allocated to doing exactly that and instead we get brainless esport content none ever asked for? I do not care for your teams. I do not care for your star-players. I do not care for your videos about them or what they pick. I do not care for your ugly Esport Skins that I view a waste of artist capacity (Imagine if we got like, 5 actually cool skins more each year instead of that...).

I am here for the lore, and most of all, as a player I am here for the actual game. And like that I'd wish that this overly excessive focus on Esport would stop and instead shift to areas where it would be more usefull. I do not mind of people like watching Worlds and LCS, but that was always supposed to be a side thing, not what this entire game was supposed to be all about. And if you truly want to improve on the esports-side, you have to improve the game. Everything else is nonsenical and inefficient and most likely a result of "let's make some quick money"-mindset, and that has ruined the one or other thing in the past already, so it would be sad to see Riot Games go down that road.