Riot Games Announces Controversial Changes to LPL English Commentary
In every League of Legends tournament, organizing broadcast sessions alongside companion programs is essential. These broadcasts are crucial for fans to easily follow and fully understand the tournament. Even for major international leagues like LPL and LCK, Riot Games has provided English commentary channels to cater to a global audience, in addition to the Chinese and Korean broadcasts for local fans.
However, in a recent announcement from Riot Games, the company revealed its intention to eliminate the English LPL commentary channel and transition the tournament broadcasts to co-streamers. Riot Games will provide a “Clean Feed” channel for these co-streamers to discuss the matches freely without interference from the official channel. This means that the official English commentary channel for LPL organized by Riot Games will cease operations.
Community Outrage: Fans Criticize Riot Games’ Decision
Following this announcement, Riot Games faced a wave of backlash from the international League of Legends community. Long-time commentators of the English LPL channel, such as HeyMunchables and Mazel, along with well-known figures in the League community like PapaSmithy, expressed their discontent. They argued that Riot Games’ actions are merely cost-cutting measures that do nothing to enhance the viewing experience of LPL.
In recent years, several prominent commentators have spoken out about Riot Games’ perceived discrimination against the LPL region, especially regarding commentary opportunities. Many highly skilled and passionate commentators were not selected by Riot to participate in major tournaments like MSI or Worlds solely because they worked with the LPL channel. Some, like commentators Dagda and Hysterics, had to switch to the LEC to find better opportunities, despite many matches in the LEC having significantly lower quality compared to the LPL.
These discriminatory actions, combined with the recent announcement to abandon the English LPL channel, have led to increased criticism of Riot Games. While it’s understandable that Riot needs to cut costs during challenging times, eliminating the English LPL channel entirely will significantly degrade the viewing experience for fans. Hopefully, Riot Games will find a more suitable solution in the future to avoid this unfortunate situation.
