There's no stream cuz its not mainstage

SR 1-2 FUN
Funhavers do have fun destroying people's dreams.

okay, maybe I was a bit optimistic... Maybe it's time to change the rules to 1 import only.

MRG is not winning any of this year's VCJ splits nor are they going to Ascension, but at least VCJ is saved with a bunch of people going to suffer watching their fav team play in main stage.

Yeah, all these naïve kids needs to first think "why" Riot needs to support esports. They don't "need" to support esports if its a bad investment.

DW, the fundamental reason why so many Koreans are in VCJ is due to language proximity. SEA doesn't have that, and outside of Koreans, most "foreign" players who can't speak Japanese were players with dual citizenship who counts as locals. Even if SEA goes to shitters, I don't think that the spillover will be that bad. Maybe a few top-of-the-top prospects like Something but not much more.

Good thing we have Kato and Biju streaming at least

Now, where the actual issue lies is the emerging market, ie SEA and South Asia. And sorry to break it to you, SEA fans, but emerging markets are not the priority markets for most game devs/publishers. Unless you could pull numbers similar to that of mobile games like MLBB or PUBG mobile, the ROI from emerging market is never going to be good, and that's the problem. Valo is a PC game, and it is never going to be as accessible as mobile games in the emerging markets. From the average wage/spending power standpoint, your average player in the emerging markets is no different from a kid living in a Western country who has to rely on his pocket money that he got from his parents to buy a Paysafe card. Most of the times, currency of emerging markets are equally weak, so for Western publishers who operates on dollars, there's even less incentive to spend the resource they could've otherwise spend on the Western or Chinese market. This is very apparent from the fact that SEA was the only region where an external publisher (Garena) was granted publishing rights for League, apart from China.

It's the same reason why all the outrage concerning the T2 SEA League and SOOP exclusive streaming rights made no sense in the first place (I've seen some SEA fans claiming that Riot is conspiring to make SEA weaker, in order to cement Korean dominance in APAC because Jake Shin is Korean and they have favoritism towards Korea. Bro what?) It's understandable that SEA fans are emotionally shook, but like I've said, there's no money to be made in SEA. Like, when you see that news, the first question that should come to your mind is how bad the ROI should be, that Riot is virtually axing the T2 esports scene of the entire region by handing over the tournament organizing rights to a platform no one fucking uses, and is full of bugs that you never want to watch anything again on said platform. If you really think that Jake could singlehandedly decide what he wants to do with an entire damn region with multiple national leagues, and it's streaming rights, there's no need to talk further. I've seen people mentioning viewership numbers of around 30~70k concerning the national leagues before the downfall, but the thing is, that's still not enough. You'll need numbers rivaling VCJ if you really want to convince Riot that they should keep on investing to keep the respective T2 scene healthy.

The biggest problem with investing in the emerging market as a game publisher is the fact that video games doesn't work like physical goods. In case of physical goods like electronic devices or cars/motorcycles, clothes and so forth, branding matters, and it makes sense to invest to promote your brand with 10 years down the line in mind. That doesn't work for video games. How high are the chances that your 10 year old game will be gaining active players, finding new markets? Video game players move on fast, and you can't invest in emerging markets expecting immediate gains. Simply put, it's very understandable from financial standpoint as to why Riot is backing out of SEA esports.

Valorant launched just as the esports bubble burst, and we are seeing its long-term effects. The thing is, unless you are having gambling money involved like in CS, only the publisher (in Valo's case, Riot/Tencent) could fund the pro-scene. It has been re-iterated countless times that Riot never made any money out of LoL esports outside of China. Though they've still invested in it due to the intangibles, ie promoting their product. LoL esports did this quite successfully, since LoL esports is one of the biggest reason the game is still pretty healthy in terms of player counts and interest. It has therefore been a good ROI, despite LoL esports losing money for Riot on paper. Even so, Riot had to merge several regions to create LTA and APAC league this year.

Now, talking about Valo, again, unless Riot wants to allow CS-style open circuit with external TOs hosting tournaments with gambling sponsorship money, they have to bear the whole expenditure of maintaining the esports scene. Funny thing is, at the beginning of Valo, Riot mentioned that they are planning to structure Valorant esports unlike that of LoL but closer to that of CS : 3rd party TOs, lot of different international LANs, etc. For some reason, they've altered their plans and now here we are, with VCT as we know today.

So from Riot's point of view, everything revolves around the ROI, ie how much marketing the pro-scene does for Valo. Riot recoups the investment they've made on the esports scene by added interests of viewers that leads to more play-time and money spent in-game. Players and watchers of VCT all shit on Riot for creating the franchised system and ruining the national/regional leagues as a result, but Riot must've done some calculations before jumping to the franchised structure. Especially, what'd matter is how much ROI they'll be able to get from key markets, that is the Chinese market and the Western market. It is very plausible that the ROI of creating and maintaining 4 international leagues is much better than maintaining every single individual national T1 leagues, as it has been pre-franchise.

I think that Riot couldn't care less about T2. Had it been possible, I think that they wanted to replicate the success of the European LoL esports scene, where both the LEC and ERL/EM were very popular. This obviously hasn't worked in Valo, but at least from the viewership standpoint, I think T1 has worked out well for Riot.

When Valve introduced that policy DOTA still wasn't its own thing but a WCIII user made map. DOTA was actually decently popular in Korea but its popularity was soon surpassed by one of the numerous DOTA clones at the time, called Chaos, another WCIII custom user made map.

When Valve launched Dota 2, they introduced the game in Korea as well with Nexon as publisher, but that was after League got its stronghold in Korea.

Kinda agree. Sports thrive the most when there are two greates players rivaling each other. The problem would be that there are 4 major regions in Valo. Messi and Ronaldo played in the same League.

It obviously recovered, but that I feel is because the fundamentals of Basketball as a traditional sport is obviously quite different compared to that of any video game.

Hard to argue someone's goat without the most important title of the circuit. It's like S1mple situtation before 2021 but Tenz's case is even weaker.

Respectable dedication as a fan but no

Probably the most easily refutable goat claim in any major esports titles.

had brainfart. meant MJ

There's at least a post or two every 3~4 days asking who the goat is, so I've wondered if you guys want to have a clear goat in Valo.

I feel like having a goat is good for the scene as long as he's there to play. It's exciting both to cheer for or against, and if he's easily likable, like how Faker is for example, it's an easy choice for lighthearted fans to rally behind. Certainly helps in terms of viewership as well.

Though it's very similar to putting all eggs in one basket. NBA suffered a lot when MJ retired. League will as well when Faker retires, same with Apex if Falcons guys retires.

Still cant understand how CGZ bombed out despite having both DH and Hyunmin. These two were absolutely styling on MRG and they've still lost.

Good idea. It's a Pacific league. Going around cities outside of Korea for roadshows should've happened, and now they're doing it.

Theu tried their best to find a foto that doesn't contain either Tokyo Tower or Skytree

ah, that's why the option to keep them as NS academy is not possible. Was wondering the whole time

I see. I've only considered individual players rather than the whole team.

True. There's certainly too much room for fluke wins. aD will probably bomb out for example.

Yeah, make sense. I guess a lot of teams are using split 3 to experiment with stuff, since there's nothing really signifiacnt on the line. Most of them would probably be thinking that they could qualify through premier regardless for split 1

Bangnan jailed in DK, time to look out for an actually decent team.

Fennel can't compete this split cuz they changed too many of their players. Same for Scarz. I've heard that it's unclear if they'll be able to play in split 1 next year either.

I wasn't watching VCJ round robin recently, but how the hell did CGZ and SG bomb out? Who the fuck are these Delight and BABO guys? Only know Ask and Yowamu in BABO but how are they 3-0 against NFX and SG? Also, can't tell if aD qualifying over Striderz is fluke/luck or actual skill. All of these are so unexpected.

How the fuck did they lose to Sherpa

It's common in East Asia for big league sports teams to be owned by corporates.

Heard it's fucked because of cheats

Since there's a rumour concerning NS that they would acquire SPG and turn them into NS, would it be possible for NS to convert their current Challengers roster into NS Academy and retain the spot in Challengers KR?

Well, at least Zeta GC played in an international LAN this year.

That's also true. Though I think that's also something that has to do with how long League has been around, as well as how they've been putting a lot of work into video production the past few years post-Covid. Compared to that, with how packed the Champions match schedules are, and since they create teaser for every match day instead of each round, they don't really have time to produce quality teaser videos that are as memorable during Champions. I don't even need to go further in explaining this, since the differences in view counts between Worlds and Champions teasers speak for themselves. Upsides and downsides I guess. And since those teasers are so memorable, and since they use main theme in teasers as well, the main theme becomes song for the winners of that particular Worlds as well.

So yeah, I think there are things they could improve in terms of how they utilize main themes they create for Champions, and potentially with an orchestral theme they could create that could be used for every Champions.

Thanks my man. Exactly my point there. I would also add F1 as a recent addition.

Die For You and Ticking Away are good songs, but they ain't something they could use again and again forever. It would get stale at some point. I think part of it is due to having lyrics. Like, this year's grand finals teaser also used Die For You, but they would be better off to have something that could hit as emotional as Worlds Orchestral Theme.

An orchestral theme is not only versatile and has great longevity but most importantly very recognizable and memorable. Obviously not saying that they should use the orchestral theme in every single teaser and highlight/recap videos they make, but it's something you could always rely on if you need it. Especially if the main theme is too forgettable like this year's song.

wtf is Minecraft pvp supposed to even be 💀

After watching Worlds finals 2 days ago, and especially after revisiting the teaser video which might have been the best ever, I really think VCT needs an orchestral theme like Worlds. Like, this thing fucking slaps. They make a new version of this same song that came out in 2016 every year and it never gets old. Also it's very versatile. You could make it ultra hype or absolutely emotional, or both, depending on the edit. There were other great League themes like Piercing Light (football montage editors' favourite) or Summoner's Call (OG theme), but there's a reason LoL Esports stuck with this one song for 9 years. I'm very sure they will continue to use this song next year at Worlds, the next year after that, and so on. It's literally Worlds' version of Champions League Anthem.

With a very capable music team, I don't think it's asking too much of them. Maybe something orchestral doesn't suit what Riot wants as Valorant's image, quite apparent by musical style of past Val/VCT themes, but I still think an orchestral theme is better than anything else.

Sorry, HxH knock off from Temu and power fantasies are not accepted.

I blame Narou and Korean mass production fantasy novels for current literary disaster facing East Asians.

btw, who's your bet on player that wil play for Riddle in place of Aace in split 3?

The Long Ballad (長歌行) and Kalburim. None of that power fantasy crap. Actual quality story. None of your ctrl c+v webtoon bullshit.

Honourable mention : Gosu
Unfortunately became a power fantasy crap in the later half, but it was a good light hearted comedy with great visuals at the beginning.

Nothing to miss from negative aura person who backtracks on his good bye manifesto after making all the fuss. Even more so if he's an asshole ready to turn some innocent guy into a criminal.

Bro what are you talking about. There hasn't been a single Japanese player in the entire history of Korea Challengers, even counting First Strike days.

Fennel is more like Mittiii and 𝑮𝑶𝑵 𝑴𝑨𝑪𝑯𝑰𝑵𝑬...

you mean GON

Ain't no way Padres does Yu so dirty. The offense was fucking MK ultra'd into not hitting any runs.

L0kia hits again

Remember folks, never trust GenG when it comes to (World) Champions(hip)

The important question is to which hero he jacked off to

I'm going to post about the summary of Yukishiro and VDK's stream after the news broke. According to VDK they kinda told them by the end of July that things might go wrong and it might not happen in Tokyo, but rest assured, it will be alright. Man was fucking pissed

Though we should consider that sp.1 is always better in terms of view than sp.2 becuase of the long break there has been in valo pro scene. Also consider that CR is gone. Knowing that Murage, Riddle and Fennel are raking up all the viewers, it's quite understandable that the official account doesn't have much viewers these days. Everyone watches either on Mittiii's, Unkochan's or VDK's stream. Overall viewership performance was much better than it has been in 2023.

By long term effects, I mean fans generally losing hope and interest. When collective viewership goes down, then it's real bad.