League of Legends Devs Against Political Topics During Tournaments
Riot Games has issued a statement to fans in which it recommends avoiding political topics when playing League of Legends. The team wants to avoid a repetition of the Hong Kong protest scandal that Blizzard Entertainment is currently facing.
This week's most important event in the industry was undoubtedly the Hearthstone Grandmasters affair, where Blizzard Entertainment punished a player who, in an interview after the winning match, supported the protests in Hong Kong. The team at Riot Games wants to avoid similar controversies and has therefore issued an official statement to fans in which they emphasize that during League of Legends eSport games, players and commentators are to focus on competitions rather than political and philosophical topics.
In the statement we can read that "sensitive topics" such as politics and religion are often full of nuances that are difficult to convey in an eSports stream. However, Riot Games did not mention possible penalties for ignoring these recommendations.
The developer stresses that some of its employees and fans are in places that are not peaceful at present (including Hong Kong), and raising such issues during competitions could put these people at risk.
Trying to avoid the situation in which Blizzard Entertainment found itself is not surprising. Riot Games doesn't have a lot of choice here. The team is owned by the Chinese corporation Tencent.
The question is whether Riot Games' appeal to the community will work. It is worth recalling that last week the world championship in League of Legends took place. The situation with Blizzard has upset many players, so it's not hard to imagine that during the LoL competition someone might want to demonstrate their disapproval for the Communist Party of China.
