League of Legends

League of Legends was developed by Riot Games and released in the fall of 2009. League of Legends is better known as LoL in the gaming community. LoL was inspired by the Warcraft III mod called Defense of the Ancients. Dota was created by Icefrog back in 2002. In Dota players choose a character who has access to four different skills and your goal is to destroy the opposing teams base. Ellen Hedin describes Dota, “The six steps of a usual Dota game are block creeps, go lane which means to lasthit and deny, farm in the woods, gank by gathering your team and attack your opponent, more farming and finally push to win” (2008). LoL has the same game play ideals behind it. Lasthits have been removed thus making the game easier for newer players.

As an e-sport League of Legends has done very well. Dota was considered an e-sport before LoL came out. Since many of the Riot staff used to work on Dota it advertised itself to the same Dota hardcore crowd. This allowed LoL to quickly rise up to an e-sports level. Already this year the World Cyber Games has hosted LoL as an official e-sports. Riot games specifically tailors its game to the pro gamer scene. They knew not to release updates for their game while WCG was happening. They know that to be considered an e-sport you cannot release updates that interfere with large tournaments.

League of Legends has a strange business model as well. Riot Games knew that players would be hesitant to spend money on a game so similar to Dota. So Riot released the game for free. Players can download the game and never spend a single penny. But Riot offers points that you can purchase in order to unlock different characters faster. Also you can buy different skins for your favorite characters. With this business model Riot can get many people to try their game. The more popular a game becomes the more likely it will remain an e-sport.

References:

Hedin, Ellen. (2008). Through the looking glass into the world of computer games. Halmstad, Sweden: University of California PressHalmstad University.

League of Legends. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.leagueoflegends.com.