League of Legends at the moment it is a mountain of esport. In the years since the birth of the Western professional game, it has fought its way and risen through tectonic shifts on the world stage, eventually rising above most of its competitors, both within its genre and without. She even reached the heights necessary for your mom or dad to hear about her. There is a good chance that if you have a sister, she was dating a middle laner, God help her. Walking around town wearing an Fnatic or Evil Geniuses jersey can in some places get the same reaction as a soccer (real or American) jersey. If I see a zoomer wearing NA team merchandise, I'll probably laugh at him. If I see someone wearing an old school Shalke outfit, I'll probably French kiss them.
But the plates buried under this world of competitive video games continue to grind, causing Riot Games to spread its ever-growing influence into new pastures that its crowning title simply can't reach. Since its release, Valorant has been gaining popularity, with fans and players of its most notable competitor (CS:GO) leaving the ship, leaving only the faithful in their wake. Wild Rift, the League of Legends mobile game, seems to reach similar heights, and Legends of Runeterra is carving out its own audience among hardcore card duels. This once lonely, daunting mountain has acquired a number of family peaks.
This is certainly a good thing for Riot and its base - but with games like Project L and Riot's distant MMO on the way, what is League of Legends' role in this modern landscape? Is it still as important, still as paramount to the success of Riot esports? Is it as brilliant as it used to be, surrounded by fresher, evolving games?
To find out, I flew to Malmo, Sweden for the LEC Summer Split Finals. There, I sat down with fans, creators, and senior staff to come to a consensus on where League of Legends holds in the hearts and minds of its most hardcore fans 13 years after it hit our screens.
Let's start with the fans, the glue that holds it all together. With a live audience in attendance for the first time since 2019 due to COVID restrictions and lockdowns, the vibes around the arena and adjacent LEC Exhibit were elastic—oscillating between an aura of excitement and an aura of relief. Before Saturday's match between Fnatic and Rogue, I chatted with a few patrons floating around the arena. “I watched it from my bedroom, so it’s so much better,” Alex exclaims. He and three friends - Kate, David and Owen - traveled to Malmo from the UK and Ireland - each in their team uniform - to watch the final.
When asked if they were all still enjoying the game, I was met with smirks and faint laughter from the group. "Yes... I'm still a degenerate of the League!" confesses Alex, before his peers tell similar stories. “Of course it can be frustrating sometimes, but I still love playing even now.” Each of them, having played the game together for several years, remains committed to the competitive scene and the game itself even after all this time.
What about the other games that fall under the Riot Games umbrella? General optimism for other RIot games, regardless of genre, was the norm, according to those attending Europe's largest League event this year. “I recently started following Valorant and started playing it too. It's quite fun!" exclaims Harry Savage, a Fnatic fan born and raised in the UK who flew across the North Sea to support his favorite team with a custom jersey on his back. “This is my first ever live event. I wanted to go to one in London back in 2017, but I was at university at the time and just couldn't make it.
Harry, among literally thousands of other players and like-minded spectators, traveled to Malmö as spectators returned to the arena, filling the arena with a capacity of 15 over the weekend. At home, the LEC final drew 500 online viewers, a staggering number for an event that featured only three teams from the same region. Compare that to CS:GO, another superb and endlessly popular esports game that peaked at 732 viewers. With approximately 573 additional spectators, this was a major global event with teams from all over the world. In this context, it's hard to discount the impact the League continues to have on the wider esports landscape, even as other games follow its upward path.
Trevor "Quickshot" Henry, one of League of Legends' most prominent commentators (as well as his weekend presence), sees League as occupying a senior, sibling relationship with Riot's other games.
“This is the older brother who graduated from university, has a great job and is now figuring out his next career,” Henry says. “And because the older brother now has younger siblings who live in his shadow, you get several things: first of all, you get the opportunity to learn, to share knowledge and experience. I think when you look at Valorant in particular, how the ecosystem and the esport scene is evolving, some of the features, the viewer tools around esport and broadcasting... God. I wish I had them in League of Legends.
“Secondly, I think when you look at how the ecosystem has evolved and the speed at which it's evolved, you know it's been two/two and a half years since grassroots tournaments and you're already looking at partnership models. Then you think, 'Okay, it took League of Legends a decade to figure this out.'"
So the League continues to grow, and sister games follow the path blazed by decades of its popularity, but how to keep it at the forefront? And is this even the goal? According to Alberto Guerrero, senior director of EU exports, Riot is looking to turn events like the LEC Finals into larger, fan-centric events that bring players to the competition in person.
“We have an exhibition, which is certainly very important for us. Strategically, this is one of the areas that I think will develop in the future. I imagine a future where we have two incredible days of competition, and why not three or four days of community events? Maybe they can have fun from Thursday to Sunday. Communicate with teams, communicate with players, with our partners who want to do something together with the fans. For me, this is the starting point and one of the areas in which I think we will develop.”
As for the competition itself, Alberto seems proud of the quality and the obvious ceiling they have reached in terms of physical events. The only thing that comes to mind is the wider reach of more traditional forms of media. “I really think we deserve to be seen; I mean broadcast channels. Yes, I don’t want to mention a specific media, but we can become good content for any TV channel. For me it's more like "keep doing what we're doing" and online growth will definitely come. We gather in the largest indoor venues possible. We are in every city. So I don’t imagine anything special, other than the expo, where there is room to grow.”
Whether League of Legends will remain at the top in three, five, or 10 years remains to be seen—it's impossible to tell whether another contender will emerge, or whether interest in the game will suddenly wane overnight. But judging by the feedback from those who work in Sweden, even 10 years later it is difficult to argue that this is not the Everest of the gaming industry - at least for now.
