LCS - Efficiency is not entertaining

Disulfiram··2 votes·1,327 views

it is said that RIOT is making overloaded kits and other decisions to make LCS entertaining, but if it is so then they are not addressing a fundamental problem with this:

#pros will go for efficiency over entertainment every time.

Why? Because for their carreer and for their revenue, winning is all that matters. There's just too much at stake, they don't have any incentive to try to win the crowd - in fact they get punished for playing in an entertaining but sub-optimal way.

Snowballing makes this even worse... if the winner is a foregone conclusion after first blood, then the game is boring - the stakes simply become too low - AND it makes pros even more afraid of making entertaining plays, knowing how easily those can cost them the victory.

This theme was explored already by the media, for example in the Gladiator movie:

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xeCBPRmF4Y

Imho, this problem may be addressed by giving pros some incentive to make games entertaining even if it may cost them the victory.

For example there could be a second tournament, where victory is awarded by jury vote instead of by which Nexus blew up.

Or where the prize is divided proportionally to the number of viewers each team attracted (maybe measured by analizing the viewership of each match).

Or even just a second prize within the LCS itself, that is awarded by entertainment value instead of to the winner.

3 Comments

Khristophoros1 votes

Imagine if pro sports leagues did what you're suggesting. That should tell you everything you need to know.

If you want "entertainment" watch the harlem globe trotters.

Doge20203 votes

{quoted}

Imagine if pro sports leagues did what you're suggesting. That should tell you everything you need to know.

If you want "entertainment" watch the harlem globe trotters.

If you want entertainment watch the multitude of league videos on YouTube. Watching a twitch stream also works

Hyquiem1 votes

Except if this game as “proplayers”then it should be considered an esport patch,not for the servers. Does riot not understand it wouldn’t take lives to make a sperate server for proplay and it would only change things on that server in terms of proplay

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