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Hands-on with LG's 240Hz UltraGear gaming monitors: Setting a new bar for OLED refresh rates
After seeing the 240Hz panels on LG’s latest UltraGear gaming monitors it’s hard to go back to slower displays.
Professional cyclists will compete in a virtual Tour de France
The virtual tour will have a side event for amateurs called the Virtual l’Etape du Tour de France. Zwift and ASO, the real-life Tour de France organizer, want the event to have a celebratory atmosphere. Enter Zwift. Will Zwift racing ever supplant the real-life Tour?
Riot's first official ‘Valorant’ esports tournaments begin this week
It’s been just over two months since Riot Games debuted its tactical first-person shooter, Valorant.
'Overwatch' college esports series will award $40,000 in scholarships
There's certainly an active Overwatch college esports scene, but it can be difficult for a player to stand out and turn pro when there are hundreds of schools. Activision Blizzard, Torque and UMG might have a way for serious players to shine. They're launching an Overwatch Collegiate Clash series that will have college competitive teams square off for a chance at both recognition and a total $40,000 in esports scholarships. The eight-week series will have eight teams face each other per week, with a final round pitting the winning teams against each other.
Echo Fox co-owner sues team partners over fraud claims
The tumult at Echo Fox isn't subsiding any time soon. The esports team's co-owner Rick Fox has sued business partners Amit Raizada and Stratton Sclavos over allegations of both fraud as well as defamation stemming from the earlier racism claims. According to Fox, Raizada and Sclavos illegally profited off his name. Raizada supposedly misused Echo Fox's venture capital funds to both reward Sclavos for raising money and give himself both a $350,000 salary and cover the lease of his $20,000 per month Beverly Hills home. They also made it possible to oust general partners through a shareholder vote (albeit a supermajority) instead of a court order, which led to Rick Fox getting the boot in an August vote that will see him depart October 21st.
GAME gets into eSports with the £20 million acquisition of Multiplay
It looks like 2015 could be a big year for competitive gaming in the UK. Just weeks after we found out where the UK's first eSports arena will be located, Britain's biggest video game retailer GAME has confirmed it's getting into the tournament business. The company announced today that it's spent £20 million to acquire Multiplay, a community-driven games company that focuses on live events, gaming services and eSports.
Get your free League of Legends soundtrack now
You know what's awesome? Free stuff. Free stuff is awesome. And League of Legends is notable for giving away free goodies over the years, so we're not surprised to see that Riot's put the game's brand-new soundtrack album up on the site as a free download -- before it's going to be sold elsewhere. So if you want to get 15 generally excellent tracks (we know; we've listened to it), then head on over and snag it now!
Rob Pardo argues that the Olympics should include e-sports
E-sports should totally be a part of the Olympics. Or so said former Blizzard CCO Rob Pardo in a BBC interview. "Video games are well positioned to be a spectator sport," Pardo said. "There's a very good argument for e-sports being in the Olympics. I think the way that you look at e-sports is that it's a very competitive skillset and you look at these professional gamers and the reflexes are lightning quick and they're having to make very quick decisions on the fly." Pardo conceded that championing e-sports in Olympics might come down to the age-old argument of whether a sport must include physical activity or simply skill-based competition.
Riot will pay you cash to find League of Legends bugs
A discovered vulnerability in League of Legends led Riot Games to the conclusion that it not only needed to react to such issues when they arise, but to be more proactive in discovering these weak spots in the game. To wit, the studio has implemented a bug bounty program that will reward players who find vulnerabilities in LoL's code. The studio has been testing out the program with a smaller group and has given $100,000 in rewards so far: "Currently in closed beta, the Riot bug bounty program is only available to a few security professionals who we've already identified. These professionals have helped us squish more than 75 bugs, vulnerabilities, and exploits, including client crash exploits, vision related exploits, and vulnerabilities that could potentially lead to player impersonation on forums."
League of Legends rewards positive behavior
Just how toxic is League of Legends' community? According to Riot Games, it may not be as bad as it once was. The team posted a letter praising "positive behavior" in the community, saying that 95% of players have never received punishment. Furthermore, only 1% of the crowd have caused issues that resulted in lengthy bans or chat restrictions. Riot says that it is trying out new ideas to further combat bad behavior: "We've recently been focused on addressing extreme cases of verbal toxicity, and will soon be testing additional systems that address gameplay toxicity like leavers, AFKs, and intentional feeders." To players who haven't received any punishments in the 2014 season, Riot will be granting four-win IP boosts next week.
League of Legends spotlights Kalista, the Spear of Vengeance
Yesterday, Riot Games formally unveiled the long-rumored Kalista, the Spear of Vengeance, a new champion coming to MOBA League of Legends. Says the studio, Kalista is a marksman who cooperates with her Soul-Bound to deal substantial sustained damage, access her full repertoire of abilities and wither her enemies under her relentless assault. Kalista’s potential is unlocked by solid communication and cooperation with allies rather than raw mechanical skill. While still capable in her own right, Kalista misses out on Soul-Marked's bonus damage and effective use of her ult without direct cooperation from her ally. Riot has a brief unembeddable spotlight clip on the official site; we've included a longer one from YouTuber SkinSpotlights below.
Professional League of Legends streamer makes over $817,000 a year
If you ever tried to make the argument to your parents or loved one that you could be earning a living from doing nothing but playing video games, now you have some solid ammunition to back up your case. OnGamers translated an article that discusses how several professional Chinese League of Legends players are making six-digit salaries a year from streaming. One such player is 22-year-old Wei Han-Dong, who "retired" from playing professionally in order to sign a contract to stream 90 hours of matches a month for $817,863 a year. He maintains that streaming is less stressful than entering in tournaments, in which he was part of a world championship team in 2012. The lengthy article discusses how competitive and costly the world of professional esports and streaming has become, how managers are paying large chunks of money to sign players, and how the industry is rife with negativity and instability.
League of Legends reimagines Sion, the undead juggernaut
A new and terrifying Sion is stomping across lanes in League of Legends lately, thanks to a long-overdue "reimagining" and re-release. Riot Games was pretty harsh in its post-mortem of the old version, saying, "Old Sion had countless problems: He was a mage with an ax, he'd end up with two redundant abilities regardless of how he built, his model had aged horribly, and he had some pretty... interesting voiceover." The team decided to rebuild him to fit his profile as an unstoppable undead warrior. The new Sion is tanky with powerful attacks that can be deployed dupliciously in order to mess with the reflexes of opponents. You can check out Sion's champion spotlight video after the jump.
League of Legends introduces Ranked Restrictions for toxic players
League of Legends is a really popular game, but it also has a pretty noxious community reputation. That's something that's on the forefront of the mind of the Riot Games team, and it's being addressed with the latest patch. Players voted down for negative behavior are already operating under a chat restriction, requiring them to play a certain number of games before they can speak in the game again. Now those players will see another restriction, though: the inability to access ranked play. Rank restricted players will have a certain number of games that they must play before they can return to queueing for ranked matches just like with chat restrictions. Players who are deeply into negative territory and rank restricted at the end of a given competitive season will also be ineligible for receiving special rewards for ranked play, meaning that poor sportsmanship doesn't pay at any level of the game. While there are potential abuses for the system, it's an obvious effort to make the play experience on all levels a more positive one for players.
Get Imagine Dragons' League of Legends song for free
League of Legends has an official song for its 2014 World Championship, and you can get it for free today. The song is "Warriors" by the band Imagine Dragons. "To kick off the start of the action, we set out to craft a war cry to rally behind in a creative collaboration with Imagine Dragons," Riot posted on its site. "Whether you're a solo queue warrior or fighting off the LCS jitters –- every moment counts." The MP3 is available for free on the site, but if you want the full animated music video, all you have to do is hit the jump below.
Riot Games kicks off e-sports documentary
Want to know more about e-sports without all of the "watching e-sports" that it would otherwise entail? That's the purpose behind a new documentary being assembled by Riot Games. Road to Worlds is all about tracking the path of professional League of Legends players as they fight through the championships, culminating in a shot at the top prize at Worlds. The first episode is available past the cut and runs for about 25 minutes, exploring the origins of several competitive teams and how players first broke into the industry. If you want a deeper look at the culture, or if you're already a big fan of e-sports and want to watch more about them, jump on past the break. The remaining portions of the documentary will be posted later this month, on September 12th and 15th.
League of Legends moves beyond its own lore
What are your current thoughts about the storytelling in League of Legends? Yes, it's entirely acceptable to respond to that question with a cocked eyebrow and a confused expression. A new developer blog by Tommy Gnox addresses precisely that, explaining that from the beginning, the narrative side of the game has always focused around creating a justification for how the game works. That's all well and good, but it winds up not creating a great deal of space for any exploration of stories beyond the game itself. Gnox goes on to lay out a new plan for the game's storytelling in the future, explaining that there will no longer be a perfect one-to-one correspondence between the game and the lore. While older elements will remain in place, some of them will be allowed to fall by the wayside in favor of more interesting stories and character perspectives. If you've got an investment in the game's world and characters, check out the full blog for more information.
Riot Games starting programs to help support retired e-sports players
So what do you do when you're too old to play e-sports on a professional level? Do you accept that you had a good run being treated like a rock star for playing a lot of games and move on with your life? Heck no. You need to start worrying about leveraging your brand and your media training. That's the sort of material covered by a new program headed by Riot Games, guiding professional League of Legends players on the path from the start of their career to their expected retirement at around age 27. The accepted retirement age for professional players is due to a decrease in fine motor control and reflexes, which means that as in physical sports, it's impossible to continue playing as you get older. While the symposia Riot is offering don't yet go into detail about what players can do after playing, they are meant to help keep professionals in the spotlight and support them when they can no longer keep up with the events. It's useful training for professional e-sports players looking to move through their career and have some direction for after the game.
League of Legends spotlights Gnar in a new video
So you've heard a lot about the newest League of Legends champion, Gnar. You've read about his abilities. But do you know how to play him? Have you seen him in action? Then perhaps you should watch the newest spotlight video, which sheds some light on how to play the angry little guy -- which is good, since Gnar is currently the only champion whose transformation doesn't lie under the direct control of the player. The video gives an overview of Gnar's abilities in both forms, then runs through a quick guide to handling combat situations with the hoppy little bundle of rage. Essentially, it's all about keeping an eye on when you'll transform and making the most of the situation, hopping in and out as the change takes you and wears off. Take a look at the video just past the break for a more visual demonstration of how to make the most of the character.
Ubisoft analyst examines League of Legends' alleged business model flaws
Despite League of Legends' mind-boggling 67 million players and $624 million in revenue through 2013, it's not doing as well as it should be, at least according to Ubisoft Blue Byte's Teut Weidemann, who has been studying the game first-hand in conjunction with behind-the-scenes data. Weidemann argues that League of Legends' model has three major flaws: It gives too much away for free, it keeps releasing overpowered champions that are nerfed later after purchase, and it has a terrible 3.75% conversion rate from free to paying customers. Why is 3.75% bad? Weidemann explains: "Usually, conversion rates for client-based games is between 15 and 25 percent. World of Tanks has 30 percent. It could afford to have one-third of the customer base and have the same amount of money as League of Legends." He believes the only reason Riot is staying afloat is through the studio's extensive playerbase, and as such smaller games should steer clear of the same model.
