There's a bit of a difference between non-compete meaning: Don't be actively playing DOTA/our actual competitors and don't play other games on stream (which is what it's sounding more like).
I'm completely fine with Riot not wanting the people they're paying showing off their competition. I don't view Hearthstone as competition for League in any sort of way that really justifies restricting it. It's like if David Beckham was banned from mentioning he occasionally plays poker with friends after practice. Sure both poker and football are 'games' but it's hard to justify, from my point of view, them being close enough that they're in competition.
Well, think of it like this. When you go to twitch, you click the League of Legends button, meaning all the streams you're looking at are branded as League of Legends. Then you click on qtpie's stream, and you don't see League, you see some other game. That doesn't reflect extremely well. It may or may not reflect badly, per se, but each and every stream under twitch's League of Legends category is branded under Riot's brand. The difference between pro players and amateurs is that with pro players, Riot is capable of controlling the quality of streams they have branded.
I'm sure looking forward to the 'quality streams' that will occur while players have nothing to show during que time.
I wonder what the discussion would be if Riot had successfully managed to push the rule that companies who had a League team weren't allowed to have other e-sports teams in other games.
Apparently SMNC isn't on the list of things they can't stream.
Card games are competition but other games in the actual genre we occupy apparently aren't? I mean I know SMNC is pretty dead at this point but that's like kicking a corpse.
I'm pertty sure Demigod is more dead (since it kind of had about a 90+% piracy rate and a huge shitstorm because Gamestop broke the release date by a week so their servers were nonfunctional), and it's still on the list.
I guess the reason I think it's kinda silly is that the issue only exists because of how the game works.
It's not the streamers fault that they're playing this stuff. I'm willing to bet that if they could League 24/7 on demand they would stream nothing but that with maybe an ocassional fan night of something else.
However as it stands they're entertainers who're stuck using the other games as a substitute and Riot's complaining about a problem that's not really the streamers fault.
there is a very legitimate question of what are the players getting in exchange for curtailing their streaming? if it's that they get tehir jobs, that is clearly coercion. if your work present restrictions to you after you've accepted and started working at the company, without any quid pro quo for you, the new contract would have been signed under duress.
really, stop thinking that companies can do whatever they want, and you just have to sit there and take it because lol, contract.
I guess the reason I think it's kinda silly is that the issue only exists because of how the game works.
It's not the streamers fault that they're playing this stuff. I'm willing to bet that if they could League 24/7 on demand they would stream nothing but that with maybe an ocassional fan night of something else.
However as it stands they're entertainers who're stuck using the other games as a substitute and Riot's complaining about a problem that's not really the streamers fault.
Streamers are people too. I know that some of them probably only like to play League, but it's entirely possible that they might actually, y'know, like to play other things and hope that their fans understand that. And since the ban is on streaming a bunch of different games at any time, it's pretty clear Riot believes the possibility exists streamers might decide to play a competing game.
It's hilariously sad how people think this matters. However is poor Dyrus to put food in his mouth if he can't play Hearthstone for 4 minutes inbetween 40 minute league games?
RIP Streaming 2010-2013
Steam / Xbox Live: WSDX NNID: W-S-D-X 3DS FC: 2637-9461-8549
shockingly it's possible for people to be mistreated and be well-off, and it doesn't mean that people have to go complain about other mistreatments instead
remember that riot has used money to force events not to run other competing games, and they wanted to make it so that if say Curse had a LoL team, they couldn't have a dota 2 team
they are completely willing to strong-arm their way into a situation that is great for them if worse for the viewers and just because it's the american standard to let companies stick it up your butt doesn't mean people can't get mad about it
It's more about how Riot are consistently being dicks and attempting to curtail competition, even when it's not really competition.
This is a pretty fucking useless rule, since most of the games they prohibit streaming are not competing with them, and I sincerely doubt any of the LoL people are doing dota 2 games while in league queue.
So are they banned from playing all games on stream or just some games? Because to me it looks like they still have lots of options to use to fill the gap between queues?
So are they banned from playing all games on stream or just some games? Because to me it looks like they still have lots of options to use to fill the gap between queues?
Just not direct competitors to Riot.
I feel like "direct competitors" may be a little broad. "Direct competitors, anything by blizzard, and other games that show up on twitch" seems more accurate, along with the general "we don't want anybody to know our players are over 18" moral bans (I dunno if any LCS players smoke, but not smoking on stream for a lot of hours would actually be a pretty big deal).
So are they banned from playing all games on stream or just some games? Because to me it looks like they still have lots of options to use to fill the gap between queues?
Just not direct competitors to Riot.
I feel like "direct competitors" may be a little broad. "Direct competitors, anything by blizzard, and other games that show up on twitch" seems more accurate, along with the general "we don't want anybody to know our players are over 18" moral bans (I dunno if any LCS players smoke, but not smoking on stream for a lot of hours would actually be a pretty big deal).
I just re-checked the list of specified bans. While I didn't recognize all the tittles, the general theme seemed to be "Don't play other MOBAs or MOBA-derivatives on stream. Also don't play rival E-sports games. Or certain games with very strong brand recognition. (Diablo and WoW products.)" While the Diablo and WoW bans are rather circumspect I can understand why they don't want 90% of the games on that list showing up on the streams of their contracted employees.
There's nothing there about stuff like Final Fantasy or Serious Sam or Osu or any of the other single player games I seen show up on streams while waiting for queues.
So are they banned from playing all games on stream or just some games? Because to me it looks like they still have lots of options to use to fill the gap between queues?
Just not direct competitors to Riot.
I feel like "direct competitors" may be a little broad. "Direct competitors, anything by blizzard, and other games that show up on twitch" seems more accurate, along with the general "we don't want anybody to know our players are over 18" moral bans (I dunno if any LCS players smoke, but not smoking on stream for a lot of hours would actually be a pretty big deal).
I just re-checked the list of specified bans. While I didn't recognize all the tittles, the general theme seemed to be "Don't play other MOBAs or MOBA-derivatives on stream. Also don't play rival E-sports games. Or certain games with very strong brand recognition. (Diablo and WoW products.)" While the Diablo and WoW bans are rather circumspect I can understand why they don't want 90% of the games on that list showing up on the streams of their contracted employees.
There's nothing there about stuff like Final Fantasy or Serious Sam or Osu or any of the other single player games I seen show up on streams while waiting for queues.
That's kind of the point, though: Riot has worked into their contract a system of bans that is entirely about making professional League players unable to publicly stream (or likely even discuss) a rather broad and ridiculous list of games. Yes, they can still play single player games, but people are mad because Riot is (again, given the "no teams but League teams in an organization, no games but League at a tournament") basically saying "we have money, we're big, we own you, League is the only game that should exist."
Nobody is really saying that they're arbitrarily trying to make streams worse by banning all games; it's clear they're intentionally banning direct competitors and indirect games that have a strong twitch following (and Fat Princess?). While a side effect is that some streamers are going to have less to do during dead air, the big thing is just that they're attempting to monopolize their LCS players and eliminate competition (which is especially interesting since their funding of LCS and LCS players is already going a long way to monopolizing the professional scene around the one "important" tournament/league.)
So are they banned from playing all games on stream or just some games? Because to me it looks like they still have lots of options to use to fill the gap between queues?
Just not direct competitors to Riot.
I feel like "direct competitors" may be a little broad. "Direct competitors, anything by blizzard, and other games that show up on twitch" seems more accurate, along with the general "we don't want anybody to know our players are over 18" moral bans (I dunno if any LCS players smoke, but not smoking on stream for a lot of hours would actually be a pretty big deal).
Both the smoking and firearms things are ridiculous. I can get porn, because there are actual legal restrictions on presenting that to minors, but firearms are a constitutionally guaranteed American right, and prohibiting stuff related to them is ridiculous. Doubly so in a game in which you shoot people to death all the time. Since the evidence shows violence in video games doesn't matter, that doesn't matter in and of itself, but banning someone from cleaning a target pistol used only to perforate paper in-between rounds of a violent video game is hypocritical as fuck.
So are they banned from playing all games on stream or just some games? Because to me it looks like they still have lots of options to use to fill the gap between queues?
Just not direct competitors to Riot.
I feel like "direct competitors" may be a little broad. "Direct competitors, anything by blizzard, and other games that show up on twitch" seems more accurate, along with the general "we don't want anybody to know our players are over 18" moral bans (I dunno if any LCS players smoke, but not smoking on stream for a lot of hours would actually be a pretty big deal).
I just re-checked the list of specified bans. While I didn't recognize all the tittles, the general theme seemed to be "Don't play other MOBAs or MOBA-derivatives on stream. Also don't play rival E-sports games. Or certain games with very strong brand recognition. (Diablo and WoW products.)" While the Diablo and WoW bans are rather circumspect I can understand why they don't want 90% of the games on that list showing up on the streams of their contracted employees.
There's nothing there about stuff like Final Fantasy or Serious Sam or Osu or any of the other single player games I seen show up on streams while waiting for queues.
That's kind of the point, though: Riot has worked into their contract a system of bans that is entirely about making professional League players unable to publicly stream (or likely even discuss) a rather broad and ridiculous list of games. Yes, they can still play single player games, but people are mad because Riot is (again, given the "no teams but League teams in an organization, no games but League at a tournament") basically saying "we have money, we're big, we own you, League is the only game that should exist."
Nobody is really saying that they're arbitrarily trying to make streams worse by banning all games; it's clear they're intentionally banning direct competitors and indirect games that have a strong twitch following (and Fat Princess?). While a side effect is that some streamers are going to have less to do during dead air, the big thing is just that they're attempting to monopolize their LCS players and eliminate competition (which is especially interesting since their funding of LCS and LCS players is already going a long way to monopolizing the professional scene around the one "important" tournament/league.)
But it's not a broad list at all. Apart from the WoW and Diablo bans, which are silly, it's a list of competitors. Correct me if I'm wrong, but apart from World of Warmachines 1&2, WoW, Diablo and StarCraft (which still makes sense because e-sport competitor) every single game on that list is a MOBA or MOBA-derivative. Which they completely understandably does not want their contracted employees to be showcasing/ giving free advertising to.
Now if they were saying "To stream League, you can't stream these other games" to absolutely every LoL streamer, then we'd have a serious problem. Just like we have a problem when they try to force teams to only have teams in on E-sport or tournaments to only have one game. Yes, Riot have been outright ham-handed and clumsy in how they've tried to strong-arm out the competition previously. They should not try to limit e-sports by forcing out other games. That's bloody stupid of them. But that they would like people who're on their payroll and who are representing their game to not give their competitors free advertising? I can understand them not wanting their employees to stream other MOBAs and MOBA-derivatives. I can also understand why they don't want them to show off StarCraft. Banning World of Warmachines, WoW and Diablo? It would please me if they backed off on that silliness.
So they're employees of Riot? That can be fired on a whim of a third party, the teams?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but LCS players are paid by Riot? And contracted into the LCS? That's what I assumed, anyway. Please show me if that's not the case and I'm wrong. That's entirely possible. Though it would seem they are contracted into the LCS seeing as we're currently discussing the thing they have to sign to participate.
So I would assume that no, they can't be fired from a team, but yes, they can be barred from playing in the LCS which will probably lead to them being fired from a team. Or put on a B-team.
So are they banned from playing all games on stream or just some games? Because to me it looks like they still have lots of options to use to fill the gap between queues?
Just not direct competitors to Riot.
I feel like "direct competitors" may be a little broad. "Direct competitors, anything by blizzard, and other games that show up on twitch" seems more accurate, along with the general "we don't want anybody to know our players are over 18" moral bans (I dunno if any LCS players smoke, but not smoking on stream for a lot of hours would actually be a pretty big deal).
Both the smoking and firearms things are ridiculous. I can get porn, because there are actual legal restrictions on presenting that to minors, but firearms are a constitutionally guaranteed American right, and prohibiting stuff related to them is ridiculous. Doubly so in a game in which you shoot people to death all the time. Since the evidence shows violence in video games doesn't matter, that doesn't matter in and of itself, but banning someone from cleaning a target pistol used only to perforate paper in-between rounds of a violent video game is hypocritical as fuck.
Eh, speaking as someone who comes from a more strict country regarding guns I can absolutely see why that's in place. Because guns scare the crap out of me and the whole notion of having a gun collection that isn't just some shitty air rifle you use to keep rabbits under control is a scary notion.
Real guns are scary things that are entirely different to fake guns regardless of context and I can totally understand Riot not wanting to show guns as associated to League in any close manner.
So are they banned from playing all games on stream or just some games? Because to me it looks like they still have lots of options to use to fill the gap between queues?
Just not direct competitors to Riot.
I feel like "direct competitors" may be a little broad. "Direct competitors, anything by blizzard, and other games that show up on twitch" seems more accurate, along with the general "we don't want anybody to know our players are over 18" moral bans (I dunno if any LCS players smoke, but not smoking on stream for a lot of hours would actually be a pretty big deal).
I just re-checked the list of specified bans. While I didn't recognize all the tittles, the general theme seemed to be "Don't play other MOBAs or MOBA-derivatives on stream. Also don't play rival E-sports games. Or certain games with very strong brand recognition. (Diablo and WoW products.)" While the Diablo and WoW bans are rather circumspect I can understand why they don't want 90% of the games on that list showing up on the streams of their contracted employees.
There's nothing there about stuff like Final Fantasy or Serious Sam or Osu or any of the other single player games I seen show up on streams while waiting for queues.
That's kind of the point, though: Riot has worked into their contract a system of bans that is entirely about making professional League players unable to publicly stream (or likely even discuss) a rather broad and ridiculous list of games. Yes, they can still play single player games, but people are mad because Riot is (again, given the "no teams but League teams in an organization, no games but League at a tournament") basically saying "we have money, we're big, we own you, League is the only game that should exist."
Nobody is really saying that they're arbitrarily trying to make streams worse by banning all games; it's clear they're intentionally banning direct competitors and indirect games that have a strong twitch following (and Fat Princess?). While a side effect is that some streamers are going to have less to do during dead air, the big thing is just that they're attempting to monopolize their LCS players and eliminate competition (which is especially interesting since their funding of LCS and LCS players is already going a long way to monopolizing the professional scene around the one "important" tournament/league.)
But it's not a broad list at all. Apart from the WoW and Diablo bans, which are silly, it's a list of competitors. Correct me if I'm wrong, but apart from World of Warmachines 1&2, WoW, Diablo and StarCraft (which still makes sense because e-sport competitor) every single game on that list is a MOBA or MOBA-derivative. Which they completely understandably does not want their contracted employees to be showcasing/ giving free advertising to.
Now if they were saying "To stream League, you can't stream these other games" to absolutely every LoL streamer, then we'd have a serious problem. Just like we have a problem when they try to force teams to only have teams in on E-sport or tournaments to only have one game. Yes, Riot have been outright ham-handed and clumsy in how they've tried to strong-arm out the competition previously. They should not try to limit e-sports by forcing out other games. That's bloody stupid of them. But that they would like people who're on their payroll and who are representing their game to not give their competitors free advertising? I can understand them not wanting their employees to stream other MOBAs and MOBA-derivatives. I can also understand why they don't want them to show off StarCraft. Banning World of Warmachines, WoW and Diablo? It would please me if they backed off on that silliness.
So they're employees of Riot? That can be fired on a whim of a third party, the teams?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but LCS players are paid by Riot? And contracted into the LCS? That's what I assumed, anyway. Please show me if that's not the case and I'm wrong. That's entirely possible. Though it would seem they are contracted into the LCS seeing as we're currently discussing the thing they have to sign to participate.
So I would assume that no, they can't be fired from a team, but yes, they can be barred from playing in the LCS which will probably lead to them being fired from a team. Or put on a B-team.
Remember that twitch streams are not owned by Riot, they're owned by the players. You can try to argue that Riot can be right in deciding to strong-arm players into not even playing other games in their personal time because they'd get fired from their job, but I (and it seems, a lot of other people) aren't buying that.
I take it back, the gun rant is the most hilarious thing.
They're being prevented from publicly streaming about 25 specific titles, only one of which is actually played at all on streams currently. Some serious perspective required here.
Steam / Xbox Live: WSDX NNID: W-S-D-X 3DS FC: 2637-9461-8549
Eh, speaking as someone who comes from a more strict country regarding guns I can absolutely see why that's in place. Because guns scare the crap out of me and the whole notion of having a gun collection that isn't just some shitty air rifle you use to keep rabbits under control is a scary notion.
Real guns are scary things that are entirely different to fake guns regardless of context and I can totally understand Riot not wanting to show guns as associated to League in any close manner.
Well maybe in COMMUNIST EUROPE, but this is MURRICA and owning a gun but never using it is fairly normal, and last I checked Riot is based in THE US OF A so
I take it back, the gun rant is the most hilarious thing.
They're being prevented from publicly streaming about 25 specific titles, only one of which is actually played at all on streams currently. Some serious perspective required here.
>So I would assume that no, they can't be fired from a team
Players got dumped from teams all the time last season, and it is my understanding that the teams themselves control the LCS roster, as in they could get rid of all of their current players and replace them all and it would still be the same "team". This makes me suspicious about who's employ the players are in. Do the teams get a stipend for each player, deduct expenses and then give whatever is leftover to the players? Do the players get paid directly? I don't know, but I'm suspicious that these players feel an urge to stream for money when their base pay was supposed to be fairly comfy at $100k.
Given that the teams make roster/personnel decisions, it seems to me that the players aren't directly paid by Riot.
I mean, look, it's great that Riot has given everyone a base salary/stipend, but it also looks like they're following the same path that every other sporting franchise has done and are screwing the talent.
I'm not trying to make a statement about what they're actually paid, but saying "they wouldn't feel the need to stream for money if they were making enough" is kind of absurd.
It would be like telling you I would pay you for breathing. I mean, unless there were a really compelling reason not to, why wouldn't you get paid for that? You were planning on doing that anyway. In fact, you kind of have to.
>So I would assume that no, they can't be fired from a team
Players got dumped from teams all the time last season, and it is my understanding that the teams themselves control the LCS roster, as in they could get rid of all of their current players and replace them all and it would still be the same "team". This makes me suspicious about who's employ the players are in. Do the teams get a stipend for each player, deduct expenses and then give whatever is leftover to the players? Do the players get paid directly? I don't know, but I'm suspicious that these players feel an urge to stream for money when their base pay was supposed to be fairly comfy at $100k.
Given that the teams make roster/personnel decisions, it seems to me that the players aren't directly paid by Riot.
I mean, look, it's great that Riot has given everyone a base salary/stipend, but it also looks like they're following the same path that every other sporting franchise has done and are screwing the talent.
Riot has been pretty clear that player salary, doled out per season, is divvied up based on amount of games played per season. So if you played in 2/5 games as a sub for your team, you would get 2/5 of the salary of the player you subbed for. Players don't stream because they're poor destitute abused hobos who aren't being paid. They stream because it's free income for doing what they're going to do anyway.
It boggles my mind that anyone is upset over what amounts to very standard business practice. These are paid contractors of a company (just like sports players aren't owned by the league, they're owned by the teams but still must abide by league rules) who says very clearly you cannot promote and make visible these competing or negative things in a public space.
Oh no, Riot is treading on player's god-given rights to play Hearthstone on stream! Just like Verizon fired me tread on my god-given rights to tell a customer I was helping that he should go to Sprint because their phones are super rad! What assholes! Scandalous! Outrageous! Unbelievable!
Look at the list. Out of the entire thing there are maybe 5 games I've seen streamers play ever. Blizzard gave out keys to popular League streamers to get free exposure and publicity and Riot is justifiably saying no, fuck you Blizzard and your upcoming MOBA (which will launch out of the same battle.net launcher that Hearthstone is launched from *gasp*) do your advertising elsewhere.
A lot of responses seem to act as if players will have noooothing to do while they wait for queue. Or they could play any game ever that's not on that list like I already see many of them do. Risk of Rain. OSU. etc.
maybe instead of streaming for cash screwing around with troll builds in yolo q, they'd be practicing their teams game more.
They have to get other teams together to scrim. They cant just pull that out of thin air. They scrim fairly regularly but other teams are always busy doing something so its not as often as a lot of teams would actually like.
Surprisingly, streamers often stop streaming to go scrim.
TSM seems to be the anomaly there. They all stream for as long as they are awake, and never seem to scrim. QT might play 3-4 games before he goes scrim, and Scarra doesn't stream until afterwards. I think Dignitas might scrim for 8 hours a day, every day.
Streaming makes for a weird mix of private and public life. If an NFL player wants to drink a beer, he can go to a bar no problem. But he can't be in a beer commercial. If a player were found to be taking money on the side for only drinking a single brand of beer every time he goes out, he'd be in a world of shit. Same if he took money to appear in a certain bar. Streaming is ostensibly a window into the private life of the player, but they are absolutely being paid for it. So it comes down to if you think that the broadcast constitutes an endorsement (because they want people to watch) or it doesn't (because they are not being paid by the producer of the product on display).
Joshmvii has the right of it, it's up to the players to get a CBA and get it ironed out the way they want.
Sceptre: Penny Arcade, where you get starcraft AND marriage advice.
3clipse: The key to any successful marriage is a good mid-game transition.
So are they banned from playing all games on stream or just some games? Because to me it looks like they still have lots of options to use to fill the gap between queues?
Just not direct competitors to Riot.
I feel like "direct competitors" may be a little broad. "Direct competitors, anything by blizzard, and other games that show up on twitch" seems more accurate, along with the general "we don't want anybody to know our players are over 18" moral bans (I dunno if any LCS players smoke, but not smoking on stream for a lot of hours would actually be a pretty big deal).
Both the smoking and firearms things are ridiculous. I can get porn, because there are actual legal restrictions on presenting that to minors, but firearms are a constitutionally guaranteed American right, and prohibiting stuff related to them is ridiculous. Doubly so in a game in which you shoot people to death all the time. Since the evidence shows violence in video games doesn't matter, that doesn't matter in and of itself, but banning someone from cleaning a target pistol used only to perforate paper in-between rounds of a violent video game is hypocritical as fuck.
Eh, speaking as someone who comes from a more strict country regarding guns I can absolutely see why that's in place. Because guns scare the crap out of me and the whole notion of having a gun collection that isn't just some shitty air rifle you use to keep rabbits under control is a scary notion.
Real guns are scary things that are entirely different to fake guns regardless of context and I can totally understand Riot not wanting to show guns as associated to League in any close manner.
I can see them restricting them from a real life tournament in an area where otherwise their carry would be allowed, but if seeing a gun on a screen is an issue, well, seek psychological counseling.
And FWIW, we need to keep these under control:
It just adds to the ridiculousness of it. Feel free to substitute the bullshit tobacco ban if you like. I don't use it personally, but I know plenty of people who, say, dip while playing video games.
Posts
Yes, well, this much is true
Joe's Stream.
Card games are competition but other games in the actual genre we occupy apparently aren't? I mean I know SMNC is pretty dead at this point but that's like kicking a corpse.
Joe's Stream.
Edit: I also just played my first ranked Taric game of the preseason, went 5/0/5 and caused the enemy AD carry to ragequit
Outrageous
It's not the streamers fault that they're playing this stuff. I'm willing to bet that if they could League 24/7 on demand they would stream nothing but that with maybe an ocassional fan night of something else.
However as it stands they're entertainers who're stuck using the other games as a substitute and Riot's complaining about a problem that's not really the streamers fault.
really, stop thinking that companies can do whatever they want, and you just have to sit there and take it because lol, contract.
Joe's Stream.
Streamers are people too. I know that some of them probably only like to play League, but it's entirely possible that they might actually, y'know, like to play other things and hope that their fans understand that. And since the ban is on streaming a bunch of different games at any time, it's pretty clear Riot believes the possibility exists streamers might decide to play a competing game.
RIP Streaming 2010-2013
remember that riot has used money to force events not to run other competing games, and they wanted to make it so that if say Curse had a LoL team, they couldn't have a dota 2 team
they are completely willing to strong-arm their way into a situation that is great for them if worse for the viewers and just because it's the american standard to let companies stick it up your butt doesn't mean people can't get mad about it
This is a pretty fucking useless rule, since most of the games they prohibit streaming are not competing with them, and I sincerely doubt any of the LoL people are doing dota 2 games while in league queue.
Sweet.
EDIT: And that's why Trist is the best ever at everything.
Just not direct competitors to Riot.
Would be funny when it comes out to complete a full Heroes game in the time it takes a queue to pop.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
if you sucked, you'd have twice the games played as you do
I feel like "direct competitors" may be a little broad. "Direct competitors, anything by blizzard, and other games that show up on twitch" seems more accurate, along with the general "we don't want anybody to know our players are over 18" moral bans (I dunno if any LCS players smoke, but not smoking on stream for a lot of hours would actually be a pretty big deal).
I just re-checked the list of specified bans. While I didn't recognize all the tittles, the general theme seemed to be "Don't play other MOBAs or MOBA-derivatives on stream. Also don't play rival E-sports games. Or certain games with very strong brand recognition. (Diablo and WoW products.)" While the Diablo and WoW bans are rather circumspect I can understand why they don't want 90% of the games on that list showing up on the streams of their contracted employees.
There's nothing there about stuff like Final Fantasy or Serious Sam or Osu or any of the other single player games I seen show up on streams while waiting for queues.
That's kind of the point, though: Riot has worked into their contract a system of bans that is entirely about making professional League players unable to publicly stream (or likely even discuss) a rather broad and ridiculous list of games. Yes, they can still play single player games, but people are mad because Riot is (again, given the "no teams but League teams in an organization, no games but League at a tournament") basically saying "we have money, we're big, we own you, League is the only game that should exist."
Nobody is really saying that they're arbitrarily trying to make streams worse by banning all games; it's clear they're intentionally banning direct competitors and indirect games that have a strong twitch following (and Fat Princess?). While a side effect is that some streamers are going to have less to do during dead air, the big thing is just that they're attempting to monopolize their LCS players and eliminate competition (which is especially interesting since their funding of LCS and LCS players is already going a long way to monopolizing the professional scene around the one "important" tournament/league.)
So they're employees of Riot? That can be fired on a whim of a third party, the teams?
Joe's Stream.
Both the smoking and firearms things are ridiculous. I can get porn, because there are actual legal restrictions on presenting that to minors, but firearms are a constitutionally guaranteed American right, and prohibiting stuff related to them is ridiculous. Doubly so in a game in which you shoot people to death all the time. Since the evidence shows violence in video games doesn't matter, that doesn't matter in and of itself, but banning someone from cleaning a target pistol used only to perforate paper in-between rounds of a violent video game is hypocritical as fuck.
But it's not a broad list at all. Apart from the WoW and Diablo bans, which are silly, it's a list of competitors. Correct me if I'm wrong, but apart from World of Warmachines 1&2, WoW, Diablo and StarCraft (which still makes sense because e-sport competitor) every single game on that list is a MOBA or MOBA-derivative. Which they completely understandably does not want their contracted employees to be showcasing/ giving free advertising to.
Now if they were saying "To stream League, you can't stream these other games" to absolutely every LoL streamer, then we'd have a serious problem. Just like we have a problem when they try to force teams to only have teams in on E-sport or tournaments to only have one game. Yes, Riot have been outright ham-handed and clumsy in how they've tried to strong-arm out the competition previously. They should not try to limit e-sports by forcing out other games. That's bloody stupid of them. But that they would like people who're on their payroll and who are representing their game to not give their competitors free advertising? I can understand them not wanting their employees to stream other MOBAs and MOBA-derivatives. I can also understand why they don't want them to show off StarCraft. Banning World of Warmachines, WoW and Diablo? It would please me if they backed off on that silliness.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but LCS players are paid by Riot? And contracted into the LCS? That's what I assumed, anyway. Please show me if that's not the case and I'm wrong. That's entirely possible. Though it would seem they are contracted into the LCS seeing as we're currently discussing the thing they have to sign to participate.
So I would assume that no, they can't be fired from a team, but yes, they can be barred from playing in the LCS which will probably lead to them being fired from a team. Or put on a B-team.
Eh, speaking as someone who comes from a more strict country regarding guns I can absolutely see why that's in place. Because guns scare the crap out of me and the whole notion of having a gun collection that isn't just some shitty air rifle you use to keep rabbits under control is a scary notion.
Real guns are scary things that are entirely different to fake guns regardless of context and I can totally understand Riot not wanting to show guns as associated to League in any close manner.
Remember that twitch streams are not owned by Riot, they're owned by the players. You can try to argue that Riot can be right in deciding to strong-arm players into not even playing other games in their personal time because they'd get fired from their job, but I (and it seems, a lot of other people) aren't buying that.
They're being prevented from publicly streaming about 25 specific titles, only one of which is actually played at all on streams currently. Some serious perspective required here.
Players got dumped from teams all the time last season, and it is my understanding that the teams themselves control the LCS roster, as in they could get rid of all of their current players and replace them all and it would still be the same "team". This makes me suspicious about who's employ the players are in. Do the teams get a stipend for each player, deduct expenses and then give whatever is leftover to the players? Do the players get paid directly? I don't know, but I'm suspicious that these players feel an urge to stream for money when their base pay was supposed to be fairly comfy at $100k.
Given that the teams make roster/personnel decisions, it seems to me that the players aren't directly paid by Riot.
I mean, look, it's great that Riot has given everyone a base salary/stipend, but it also looks like they're following the same path that every other sporting franchise has done and are screwing the talent.
Joe's Stream.
It would be like telling you I would pay you for breathing. I mean, unless there were a really compelling reason not to, why wouldn't you get paid for that? You were planning on doing that anyway. In fact, you kind of have to.
Joe's Stream.
It boggles my mind that anyone is upset over what amounts to very standard business practice. These are paid contractors of a company (just like sports players aren't owned by the league, they're owned by the teams but still must abide by league rules) who says very clearly you cannot promote and make visible these competing or negative things in a public space.
Oh no, Riot is treading on player's god-given rights to play Hearthstone on stream! Just like Verizon fired me tread on my god-given rights to tell a customer I was helping that he should go to Sprint because their phones are super rad! What assholes! Scandalous! Outrageous! Unbelievable!
http://static.ongamers.com/uploads/original/0/10/2013-5032433440-1985-.png
Look at the list. Out of the entire thing there are maybe 5 games I've seen streamers play ever. Blizzard gave out keys to popular League streamers to get free exposure and publicity and Riot is justifiably saying no, fuck you Blizzard and your upcoming MOBA (which will launch out of the same battle.net launcher that Hearthstone is launched from *gasp*) do your advertising elsewhere.
A lot of responses seem to act as if players will have noooothing to do while they wait for queue. Or they could play any game ever that's not on that list like I already see many of them do. Risk of Rain. OSU. etc.
And even if they didn't, wouldn't they just stream those instead?
Like, it's money on the table. Regardless of how much they're being paid, you can't expect them not to take it.
Joe's Stream.
They have to get other teams together to scrim. They cant just pull that out of thin air. They scrim fairly regularly but other teams are always busy doing something so its not as often as a lot of teams would actually like.
Surprisingly, streamers often stop streaming to go scrim.
Joshmvii has the right of it, it's up to the players to get a CBA and get it ironed out the way they want.
3clipse: The key to any successful marriage is a good mid-game transition.
I can see them restricting them from a real life tournament in an area where otherwise their carry would be allowed, but if seeing a gun on a screen is an issue, well, seek psychological counseling.
And FWIW, we need to keep these under control:
It just adds to the ridiculousness of it. Feel free to substitute the bullshit tobacco ban if you like. I don't use it personally, but I know plenty of people who, say, dip while playing video games.
Joe's Stream.