In class, we discussed how currency is used today and where the values of money is put today.
One thing we specifically honed in on was gaming and “Farming”. Farming is term used in the digital age, specifically to gaming. Its an action in which gamers will make gold aka: Farming. In the gaming community, there are workshops that we looked at which normal people that spend more than average time around a computer and play games all day for a living. It’s almost like a hobby/job rolled into one.
Since we started talking about paid to play, I thought about League of Legends.
League of Legends is a multiplayer online battle arena game that is published and created by Riot Games. The game is completely free to play and in 2013 their revenue came to over $624 million and they have over 5 million concurrent players.
The game will continue to entertain people as an official spectating sport and for those that pursue the competitive side of LoL; that is another story.
League of Legends holds a tournament every year known as the LCS: League Championship Series. There are two servers in which the best of the best of those servers will move forward to The World Series: The North American and European servers.
There are many teams for each server and consist of 5 members that each have a role in the game.
As a pro team, Counter Logic Gaming (CLG) or Dignitas or Curse will train everyday to understand and practice their role, whether it’s last hitting as ADC to get the farm for gold or jungle to get the ganks when your team needs it. Teams are sponsored by companies to play and will fund the equipment for optimum playing capacity and to advertise their name and reputation across the globe. A popular way to advertise is through live streaming. This allows the audience to watch live what the pros are doing and spectate a game. TwitchTV is a steaming service that is very popular and used for gaming. Not only do the pros have to study their own roles in terms of which items to build, when to engage, know the champions, and understand the meta of the game, they must look to their competitor, both NA and EU, and know who they are going to go against, who they play well and don’t play well, and understand their strategy as well.
Managers for the teams will set up traveling and training for the players along with networking to spread their teams name to the world as well. As a paid sport, they must dedicate hours upon hours training to make it to the LCS and World Series otherwise they lose their sponsors and potentially their job as a pro gamer.
Life of a League of Legends Pro –> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWdjCGpAZNs
Training and Home Space –> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EHKBqmYqSw
The People Behind the Pros –> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weCmYpFi2rs&list=PLPZ7h6L6LC7Vbe37XMR4Z8jAPFRp_513K&index=111
Article on money made by Riot serving as a free MMO
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/league-of-legends-revenues-for-2013-total-624-million/1100-6417224/
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