14 DAY TRIAL // Riot Games, the developer of the extremely popular League of Legends online battle arena title, has revealed a new set of rules that professional players need to follow in order to continue receiving their salaries and endorsements.
League of Legends is one of the most popular free-to-play titles out there, with tens of millions of players engaging in the MOBA title each month.
Given this popularity, some decisions made by developer Riot Games have caused different controversies, and now a recent change to the rules for professional LoL players has caused the biggest debate yet.
More specifically, players are forbidden from streaming gameplay from other titles that are not League of Legends (e.g. Dota 2, Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, or other such things).
Riot has issued a statement on Reddit and revealed that this is just another step into the direction of turning League of Legends into an actual sport.
"We recognize there may be some differences of opinion in the perception of pro players' streams. In the past, pro gamers only had to worry about their personal brands when streaming and, at most, may have had to worry about not using the wrong brand of keyboard to keep their sponsor happy."
"Now, however, these guys are professionals contracted to a professional sports league. When they're streaming to 50,000 fans, they're also representing the sport itself. I can't stress enough how these guys in the LCS are on the road to being real, legitimate athletes."
Riot also used a sports analogy, saying that football players won't participate in other public sports.
"Pro players are free to play whatever games they want – we're simply asking them to keep in mind that, on-stream, they're the face of competitive League of Legends."
It's unclear if Riot will back down from its current stance.