Ansibled Profile Joined November 2014 United Kingdom 7479 Posts January 18 2015 15:12 GMT #1 How Riot Games mismanaged the acquisition of the English LPL broadcast.



When Riot first announced that they would be taking control of the English broadcast of the LPL, there was very much a mixed reaction to the news. The expectations of a higher quality product balanced by concerns over a change in casting and the loss of a well-informed and passionate community team. The debut of the LPL stream this week killed those expectations of an improved product to all but the most superficial of fans.



Riot announced the details of how they would be covering the LPL on Thursday 15th, around 10 hours before the LPL season was set to open. This announcement left glaring flaws and questions in Riot's plan to move complete coverage of the major regions to under the RiotGames banner, questions which would be left unanswered for hours. The reason? The poorly worded announcement that left confusion about how the schedule and broadcast was planned to play out.



When Riot first announced that they would be taking control of the English broadcast of the LPL, there was very much a mixed reaction to the news. The expectations of a higher quality product balanced by concerns over a change in casting and the loss of a well-informed and passionate community team. The debut of the LPL stream this week killed those expectations of an improved product to all but the most superficial of fans.Riot announced the details of how they would be covering the LPL on Thursday 15th, around 10 hours before the LPL season was set to open. This announcement left glaring flaws and questions in Riot's plan to move complete coverage of the major regions to under the RiotGames banner, questions which would be left unanswered for hours. The reason? The poorly worded announcement that left confusion about how the schedule and broadcast was planned to play out. Day 1's live broadcast will feature all four Best of 2 matches. Day 2 and Day 3 broadcasts will include the first two LPL Best of 2 matches on the RiotGames stream, with LCK matches following after the games are over and local OPL coverage picking up over on RiotGamesOceania. Beyond Week 1, the remaining unaired LPL matches for Day 2 and Day 3 will be released as VODs in English on Monday.



The LPL matches would be broadcast alongside Korea's Champions, with coverage of Champions picking up after the first two LPL games. However, this announcement makes little sense when you look at the schedule of the leagues. Day 3 of the LPL doesn't feature Champions following it, because it is not broadcast on that day. Day 1 of LPL has Champions games occurring at the same time as LPL games. There is only ever the mention of the RiotGames stream and it appears that all the games would be streamed on this channel, at least it certainly appeared like this to a significant number of fans.



At first glance, it looks like the schedule of LPL was incorrect with conflicts left unresolved.



The truth however, is that Riot would be utilising two channels to broadcast Champions and LPL games at the same time. This is a perfectly reasonable solution, but it was a solution that needed to be explained in the announcement. There needed to be no confusion about the schedules of Champions or LPL, and there needed to be no confusion about where to watch them.



The Champions games, SK Telecom vs KT Rolster and NaJin vs CJ Entus saw unexpectedly low viewer numbers for what were blockbuster matches.







Having been shunted to the unfamiliar home of the RiotGames2 Twitch channel, many were left unaware that the games were even being broadcast here. While perhaps the LPL has more fans in the West this season with the stars of Korea finding their new home, it is not fair to say this accounts for the entire loss in viewership considering fan favourites SKT featured. Throughout the night, the LPL viewer numbers dropped off and the Champions viewership climbed almost in sync to each other. Fans just didn't know where they could watch the games until they had already started, or ended. It seems safe to say that the OnGameNet channel would have pulled higher viewership than RiotGames2 did, and it would have been in higher quality too. That's a different issue though.



This is, of course, actually rather unfair to Riot. They did announce in due time that there were to be two separate streams for Champions and LPL. Well, around 20 minutes before the LPL started anyway. Riot Magus took to Reddit to respond to criticism in the announcement thread. His comments very much mimicked the original announcement, incomplete, unsatisfactory, and slowly edited over the next hour to provide a few more drips of information. After being down-voted and his comment buried he explained that the broadcasts would take place on two streams, a point he failed to address originally and only responded to when further prompted. I am unaware of this being announced anywhere prior to this comment, but since the most up-voted comments shared this confusion it's safe to say I'm not the only one who was left in the dark.



There were of course various tweets, such as the one from @ognglobal, that would point people in the right direction. However this doesn't do much to inform people who don't follow, or who had already tuned into the RiotGames stream with the expectations that Champions would pick up there after the LPL had finished.



While the original announcement left everyone confused, it doesn't even compare to the state the LPL stream has been left in. The Riot stream of the LPL will no longer feature all of the matches being broadcast live. In fact, they will only be making 8 of the 12 LPL games a week available live. This is completely unacceptable. Riot should not be allowed to step in and stop the production of the LPLen stream if they are unable to offer a satisfactory alternative. VoDs are not a satisfactory alternative. Oceanic games are not a satisfactory alternative. Riot took on the obligation of streaming the LPL games when they decided to produce the LPL stream in-house, they should produce an equal or better product.



The official announcement was updated to include some more information.



The LPL matches would be broadcast alongside Korea's Champions, with coverage of Champions picking up after the first two LPL games. However, this announcement makes little sense when you look at the schedule of the leagues. Day 3 of the LPL doesn't feature Champions following it, because it is not broadcast on that day. Day 1 of LPL has Champions games occurring at the same time as LPL games. There is only ever the mention of the RiotGames stream and it appears that all the games would be streamed on this channel, at least it certainly appeared like this to a significant number of fans.At first glance, it looks like the schedule of LPL was incorrect with conflicts left unresolved.The truth however, is that Riot would be utilising two channels to broadcast Champions and LPL games at the same time. This is a perfectly reasonable solution, but it was a solution that needed to be explained in the announcement. There needed to be no confusion about the schedules of Champions or LPL, and there needed to be no confusion about where to watch them.The Champions games, SK Telecom vs KT Rolster and NaJin vs CJ Entus saw unexpectedly low viewer numbers for what were blockbuster matches.Having been shunted to the unfamiliar home of the RiotGames2 Twitch channel, many were left unaware that the games were even being broadcast here. While perhaps the LPL has more fans in the West this season with the stars of Korea finding their new home, it is not fair to say this accounts for the entire loss in viewership considering fan favourites SKT featured. Throughout the night, the LPL viewer numbers dropped off and the Champions viewership climbed almost in sync to each other. Fans just didn't know where they could watch the games until they had already started, or ended. It seems safe to say that the OnGameNet channel would have pulled higher viewership than RiotGames2 did, and it would have been in higher quality too. That's a different issue though.This is, of course, actually rather unfair to Riot. They did announce in due time that there were to be two separate streams for Champions and LPL. Well, around 20 minutes before the LPL started anyway. Riot Magus took to Reddit to respond to criticism in the announcement thread. His comments very much mimicked the original announcement, incomplete, unsatisfactory, and slowly edited over the next hour to provide a few more drips of information. After being down-voted and his comment buried he explained that the broadcasts would take place on two streams, a point he failed to address originally and only responded to when further prompted. I am unaware of this being announced anywhere prior to this comment, but since the most up-voted comments shared this confusion it's safe to say I'm not the only one who was left in the dark.There were of course various tweets, such as the one from @ognglobal, that would point people in the right direction. However this doesn't do much to inform people who don't follow, or who had already tuned into the RiotGames stream with the expectations that Champions would pick up there after the LPL had finished.While the original announcement left everyone confused, it doesn't even compare to the state the LPL stream has been left in. The Riot stream of the LPL will no longer feature all of the matches being broadcast live. In fact, they will only be making 8 of the 12 LPL games a week available live. This is completely unacceptable. Riot should not be allowed to step in and stop the production of the LPLen stream if they are unable to offer a satisfactory alternative. VoDs are not a satisfactory alternative. Oceanic games are not a satisfactory alternative. Riot took on the obligation of streaming the LPL games when they decided to produce the LPL stream in-house, they should produce an equal or better product.The official announcement was updated to include some more information. [UPDATE] For those Week 1 matches that are aired, the full broadcast-length VODs will be available immediately through YouTube and Twitch auto-recordings. However, individual, match-length VODs of the first week's matches will not be available due to technical restrictions related to spinning up this new broadcast. Unfortunately, this also means that there will be no English-language VODs for the first week's unaired matches. However, providing VODs of English-language LPL broadcasts is a high priority, and we’re working on a solution to resolve these issues as soon as possible.



The Riot LPL stream fails not only to live broadcast all of the games it cannot even provide VoDs for the first week, due to the ever ominous 'technical restrictions'. I can only imagine the technical restriction is that they didn't cast the games, but that is unclear. This leaves 4 LPL games with no English commentary and no VoDs. Even after the 'technical restrictions' of the first week are over, VoDs are not an ideal method to deliver the LPL broadcast. Providing VoDs 24-48 hours after the games, long after the results will be known and very possibly encountered by accident is certainly not the same experience as watching live. Many have already missed out on exciting match-ups such as the Uzi powered OMG going up against Mata and DanDy's new team Vici Gaming. That, or they have been forced to watch the Chinese stream to see these games. However this is not an acceptable replacement. The Chinese stream, which can have problems with lag for many regions and offers a lower quality of broadcast, not to mention the lack of English casting, is not where Riot should be forcing Western fans to go. In fact it's what the LPLen team used to re-stream in order to commentate the games. Used to. This wouldn't have been the case this season, as LPLen could have provided a similar quality of product to the one that Riot is, only they would have been able to cover all of the games. If you want to see an example of the quality the LPLen team could provide, take a look at the LPL Summer Grand Final between EDG and OMG.



The Riot LPL stream fails not only to live broadcast all of the games it cannot even provide VoDs for the first week, due to the ever ominous 'technical restrictions'. I can only imagine the technical restriction is that they didn't cast the games, but that is unclear. This leaves 4 LPL games with no English commentary and no VoDs. Even after the 'technical restrictions' of the first week are over, VoDs are not an ideal method to deliver the LPL broadcast. Providing VoDs 24-48 hours after the games, long after the results will be known and very possibly encountered by accident is certainly not the same experience as watching live. Many have already missed out on exciting match-ups such as the Uzi powered OMG going up against Mata and DanDy's new team Vici Gaming. That, or they have been forced to watch the Chinese stream to see these games. However this is not an acceptable replacement. The Chinese stream, which can have problems with lag for many regions and offers a lower quality of broadcast, not to mention the lack of English casting, is not where Riot should be forcing Western fans to go. In fact it's what the LPLen team used to re-stream in order to commentate the games. Used to. This wouldn't have been the case this season, as LPLen could have provided a similar quality of product to the one that Riot is, only they would have been able to cover all of the games. If you want to see an example of the quality the LPLen team could provide, take a look at the LPL Summer Grand Final between EDG and OMG. .



This is especially true when you consider that the LPLen stream would show you what was happening, rather than the ever so enjoyable 20 minutes of waiting screens. Casting is a personal preference, so we'll leave that aside.



Not only will Riot no longer be offering a live broadcast of all of the LPL games, they have currently no solution to be able to provide this in the future. Magus, in what I can only assume is the final edit of his comments, provided some useful insight into just how poor Riot's planning of the LPL stream was.



This is especially true when you consider that the LPLen stream would show you what was happening, rather than the ever so enjoyable 20 minutes of waiting screens. Casting is a personal preference, so we'll leave that aside.Not only will Riot no longer be offering a live broadcast of all of the LPL games, they have currently no solution to be able to provide this in the future. Magus, in what I can only assume is the final edit of his comments, provided some useful insight into just how poor Riot's planning of the LPL stream was. Having those 4 Bo2s each week being distributed via VoD isn't our end-game goal, and it's understandable that fans who want to watch all 24 hours of LPL each week will be disappointed. We're starting with 16 hours of live content, and long term, we'll be working to figure out how to get the other games delivered live.



Champions / LPL overlap doesn't impact either broadcast. We have multiple channels and will broadcast both simultaneously. We aren't stopping live broadcast of the LPL because Champions is going on, but rather because we don't have the bandwidth yet to do both OPL and LPL simultaneously out of the same studio



Riot are only going to be broadcasting the first two LPL games on Saturday and Sunday, because it conflicts with Oceanic games. However not only does it conflict with the Oceanic games, the studio from which LPL and Oceania is broadcast from lacks the ability to cast both of these at the same time. Riot have previously demonstrated an inability to plan ahead effectively, with problems such as Gambit Gaming being unable to play in London. That has been demonstrated once again here. Riot took over the LPLen broadcast and either did so knowing full well that they would not be able to offer a suitable replacement or did so without even bothering to check.



In what is perhaps going to be one of most mind-boggling decisions of the year, Riot have decided to give priority coverage to the Oceanic region. Let this sink in for a minute. Riot took over the perfectly functional LPL English stream, only to place it lower than Oceania in terms of importance. They took control of it, only to toss it aside like they don't care about it at all. I am going to apologise to the 500 or so viewers who tuned into the RiotGamesOceania stream on Saturday, the Oceanic League scene has done nothing wrong and doesn't deserve to have its stream taken away. However to place the LPL that can get upwards of 50,000 viewers below that of the Oceanic one, it's really hard to put into words how much I fail to understand this decision. In my mind, with the current situation Riot are in – one they should never have been in to begin with, they should please the largest number of people and air the LPL broadcast and provide VoDs of the Oceanic games. China is the second best region in the World in terms of competitiveness, it is almost unjustifiable to give preference to a region that can't even win the International Wildcard. The inability of Riot to give the LPL its own studio or one capable of broadcasting two matches at once is not the fault of Oceanic League fans, but it is a reason that they should suffer until a solution is found.



Magus also offers the defence that they are providing 16 hours of live content, however the LPL English stream is not a new product, and I'm certain that the LPLen team would have been providing a full coverage of the LPL. It certainly is a weird direction for the supposedly community focused company to take, killing off a great example of a community venture only to replace it with a vastly inferior product.



The real problem I have with this decision is not that Riot took down the LPLen stream and didn't work with their team. That is certainly unfortunate, but it's Riot's choice at the end of the day. The problem I have with it is the complete failure to deliver a replacement. There is an important question they have failed to answer, why did they have to do it now? Riot clearly are not in a position where they can manage an LPL broadcast given their current obligations to other Leagues, so why rush it? They could take five or six months to find a new studio, train up the casters and let them become more immersed in the scene and then make the transition between the Spring and Summer LPL split.



Riot announced important details in a buried comment chain on Reddit, failed to adequately plan for the difficulty of running the LPL English broadcast after forcing the old community team out and have completely failed to deliver an acceptable standard of broadcast. It felt like the entire thing was done impromptu, from the updating of official announcements to the constant editing of Magus' Reddit posts, Riot just didn't seem prepared to deal with the situation. The cynic in me says that Riot wanted to do it before the LPLen stream got more popular, which was certainly set to happen this year with the mass influx of Korean players and the improvement in stream quality and overall recognition of Chinese LoL. The OGN production is much too large and has too much of an established fanbase for Riot to assume control over without a large amount of backlash, so maybe they struck early with LPL. Regardless of the reasons for their decisions, they have delivered a low quality product that has let down countless fans of Chinese LoL and stressed out others with their lack of clear information. Riot are only going to be broadcasting the first two LPL games on Saturday and Sunday, because it conflicts with Oceanic games. However not only does it conflict with the Oceanic games, the studio from which LPL and Oceania is broadcast from lacks the ability to cast both of these at the same time. Riot have previously demonstrated an inability to plan ahead effectively, with problems such as Gambit Gaming being unable to play in London. That has been demonstrated once again here. Riot took over the LPLen broadcast and either did so knowing full well that they would not be able to offer a suitable replacement or did so without even bothering to check.In what is perhaps going to be one of most mind-boggling decisions of the year, Riot have decided to give priority coverage to the Oceanic region. Let this sink in for a minute. Riot took over the perfectly functional LPL English stream, only to place it lower than Oceania in terms of importance. They took control of it, only to toss it aside like they don't care about it at all. I am going to apologise to the 500 or so viewers who tuned into the RiotGamesOceania stream on Saturday, the Oceanic League scene has done nothing wrong and doesn't deserve to have its stream taken away. However to place the LPL that can get upwards of 50,000 viewers below that of the Oceanic one, it's really hard to put into words how much I fail to understand this decision. In my mind, with the current situation Riot are in – one they should never have been in to begin with, they should please the largest number of people and air the LPL broadcast and provide VoDs of the Oceanic games. China is the second best region in the World in terms of competitiveness, it is almost unjustifiable to give preference to a region that can't even win the International Wildcard. The inability of Riot to give the LPL its own studio or one capable of broadcasting two matches at once is not the fault of Oceanic League fans, but it is a reason that they should suffer until a solution is found.Magus also offers the defence that they are providing 16 hours of live content, however the LPL English stream is not a new product, and I'm certain that the LPLen team would have been providing a full coverage of the LPL. It certainly is a weird direction for the supposedly community focused company to take, killing off a great example of a community venture only to replace it with a vastly inferior product.The real problem I have with this decision is not that Riot took down the LPLen stream and didn't work with their team. That is certainly unfortunate, but it's Riot's choice at the end of the day. The problem I have with it is the complete failure to deliver a replacement. There is an important question they have failed to answer, why did they have to do it now? Riot clearly are not in a position where they can manage an LPL broadcast given their current obligations to other Leagues, so why rush it? They could take five or six months to find a new studio, train up the casters and let them become more immersed in the scene and then make the transition between the Spring and Summer LPL split.Riot announced important details in a buried comment chain on Reddit, failed to adequately plan for the difficulty of running the LPL English broadcast after forcing the old community team out and have completely failed to deliver an acceptable standard of broadcast. It felt like the entire thing was done impromptu, from the updating of official announcements to the constant editing of Magus' Reddit posts, Riot just didn't seem prepared to deal with the situation. The cynic in me says that Riot wanted to do it before the LPLen stream got more popular, which was certainly set to happen this year with the mass influx of Korean players and the improvement in stream quality and overall recognition of Chinese LoL. The OGN production is much too large and has too much of an established fanbase for Riot to assume control over without a large amount of backlash, so maybe they struck early with LPL. Regardless of the reasons for their decisions, they have delivered a low quality product that has let down countless fans of Chinese LoL and stressed out others with their lack of clear information.



Highest IQ LL User - MSI 2019 AND Worlds 2019 'StarCraft is just a fairy tale told to scare children actually.'