ongamenet
Latest
The Summoner's Guidebook: LoL's World Championship fiasco alienates fans
I'm a big fan of e-sports, but League of Legends is currently one of the worst e-sports to garner a major scene. This isn't because the game is bad, though some aspects of LoL's Classic gameplay are bad for e-sports. It is universally because most LoL tournaments are poorly run and organized. A badly run tournament can ruin everything, regardless of how good (or bad) the game being played is. I would expect more from Riot Games, which creates and publishes League of Legends and which has a vested interest in fostering competition for the game. However, the studio seems to have learned absolutely nothing from very successful e-sports tournaments such as the Evolution Fighting Championships, the GOMTV Star League, and OGN's The Champions. All of these tournaments have better seeding structure and better venues, which contribute to a better overall event. Why can't Riot learn from these very successful events?
Report: Blizzard suing over Korean StarCraft broadcast rights
According to a report from The Korea Times, Blizzard CEO Paul Sams is none too happy with Korean channels MBC Game and OnGameNet. They've been broadcasting StarCraft tournaments without the company's consent, Sams revealed in a press conference in Seoul yesterday. Last month, Blizzard filed to sue both networks and he says the company is currently considering filing against the Korea e-Sports Players Association (KeSPA) as well, who manage these tournaments. Bupropion seems to be having little effect on the popularity of the game in the country. The other side of the argument, uh, argues that games used in public tournaments such as these should be considered part of the public domain and Blizzard has no right to charge licensing fees. "StarCraft is not a public domain offering, as Blizzard has invested significant money and resources to create the StarCraft game and the overall StarCraft universe,'' Sams said. "Classifying StarCraft and other e-sports as part of the public domain deprives developers such as Blizzard of their IP rights. There will be no incentive to do what Blizzard had done to balance the games for competition, which is a more difficult task than creating a normal game." Back in August, Blizzard inked a deal to the broadcast rights for StarCraft 2 with GomTV. Currently, the company is deciding whether to file a preliminary injunction against the broadcasts, which would legally halt all contests until the dispute could be settled in or out of court.
