Eleven rating seasons have passed since the release of League of Legends and more than seven years since the opening of the Russian-language server. Millions of free chests were handed out on e-sports broadcasts and thousands of cosplays were made for the sexiest champions, the best of which were tacitly recognized by the fans from the CIS as drag queens Zachary Sneaky Scuderi… At the same time, the activity of lolers on social networks and on streaming sites is minimal, and news about the game does not attract even a tenth of the attention of users. Why did this happen?
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If we ignore the superficial reasons for the low popularity of League of Legends in the CIS, such as “anime setting”, “bad graphics” and “risk for orientation”, we get many more objective points about why MOBA from Riot Games cannot boast of audience indicators at least from the point esports perspective.
Dota 2> LoL
One of the reasons for the low popularity of League of Legends in the CIS is the existence of Dota 2. The topic is on the surface, so let’s start with it. First of all, the low response to LoL in Russia was influenced by the popularity of the first Dota. The release of the second part lured most of the users into the upgraded version and thus got a core audience. The larger the layer of such an audience, the more popular the game, because word of mouth is the most effective way to advertise something in the post-Soviet space. Yes, LoL was out in the West by the time Dota 2 was released. But how often do we catch trends from abroad quickly? The question is rhetorical.
Art by Lucian from League of Legends. At the entrance, his worst enemy is Thresh. And some liberties in Photoshop …
The Russian-language server of the League has an incredibly bad opening timing – almost three years later, after Dota 2 was released. large-scale game. Moreover, it was not a shooter, strategy or MMORPG that ruled the show in the multiplayer genres. The audience got what they needed. In the CIS, there was no longer a need for this, and the niche was occupied.
The failure of the Russian-speaking office of Riot Games “first convocation”
It is not known for certain what task the first employees of the Russian-speaking office of Riot Games faced, as well as the amount of funding from the parent studio, but rumors are different. I cannot say for sure, but the pursuit of profit among the responsible persons could be one of the reasons for LoL’s poor start in the region.
Let me fantasize: most likely, none of the employees of the first office perceived League of Legends as something close. It was an ordinary office job, with a good salary in hard currency. Surely, many understood that the business model of the American division of Riot Games simply could not work in the CIS. It was necessary to go out of his way and invent something new, to popularize the game, using the national flavor and looking back at the mentality. However, working with the Big Riot patterns was easier. Wish it was effective.
Closed eSports system
LoL championships are grouped by territory. National teams fight each other all year round, meeting only twice with representatives from other regions. In my opinion, this is too little. In addition, there is historically low competition in our region, and many matches are simply not interesting to watch. At the same time, even by supporting “our guys”, we know how to sincerely root for teams from other regions. The old anecdote about football immediately comes to mind: “Who are you going to root for at the World Cup? – For Russia! – And then?”. LoL has a similar story. For lack of “friends” in the usual sense, most of the audience chose the favorite among the major regions – Europe, but they enjoy watching Korea, China and North America. But there is one problem.
The matches of the European regular season have not been broadcast in Russian since the liquidation of broadcasts from StarLadder. Yes, you can watch the tournament in English, but even with sufficient knowledge of the language, it is not interesting for everyone. In addition, some regional leagues stream only in the national language, and without knowledge of Japanese or Portuguese, you can’t join such broadcasts.
There are no young talents in the region – teams simply shuffle the “oldies”
Despite the clearly structured professional scene since the days of Tsar Pea, the really strong players in League of Legends in the CIS can be counted on one hand. The task of the scouts is to correctly assemble the puzzle during the reshuffles, but every year it becomes more difficult to mix. Individually, the majority of esports players who are signed by teams from the lower half of the standings cannot compete with players from teams that advance to the playoffs. It doesn’t matter what exactly is the root cause – the loss of a skill over the years or its initial absence, but the fact remains: collecting a roster of individually weaker players, at the end you get a miracle Yudo and forever remain outside the brackets of the best-of series.
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