League of Legends is very old game. I was just a kid when this kid was released and I started playing it as early as Season 2 hit the servers. It was a totally different game back then and apart from the general theme and some basic commands, and a few of the starting champions, that have all been reworked in some way, everything is different.
Introduction
In the 2009. Riot Games Inc. has released the very first beta of the now most popular games in the world, League of Legends. Since then game has been trough many changes from champions, map, items, graphics and many more.
League of Legends is really popular game. One of the most popular in the whole world. There are over 150 million registered users, with over 11 million users each day that play the game. The game hit the instant success after it’s release, both for being free to play and highly addictive game. The fast climb in popularity of League of Legends has brought the developers a huge revenue that exceeds billions of dollars. In 2020. Alone Riot Games profited 1.75 billion dollars from League of Legends.
Being available to play both on Windows and Mac, as well as being free to play League of Legends was deemed to succeed from the very first moment the servers went online. With the player base being mostly men, with 82% game has even brought a female audience. Although it is a minority, with number of players that great, it is estimated that over 27 million ladies play this game, with many of them found fame trough some of the streaming services like Twitch or Youtube. League has also highly influenced the world of cosplay, fan art and many more things that go with the game itself. The fan base is so huge that League has its own universe and tournaments that are some of the most watched things these days, even more than regular sports. The prize of the 2020. World championship was 2.34 million dollars, while fans spent over 138 million hours watching League over Twitch in 2021. Alone.
But, even with the player and fan base being that great, many of the old players have stopped playing for good. I haven’t stopped but I am disappointed with what the game has became and I am here to talk about it.
Why is League of Legends failing?
League of Legends was a totally different game back in time. I know I am repeating myself but for some of you that aren’t too long with the game it is important to know. Back in 2009. And a couple years after that League of Legends was the best game in the world. It has succeeded into making the MOBA genre much more popular and with the possibility to play with other players from different parts of the world at the same time, it has changed the world of gaming for good. Mind you, this was the time when Skype was the most popular telephone and video chat platform in the day, and Facebook hasn’t even introduced the possibilities to call your friends and talk to them. Many of the players would dd their buddies on Skype and they could play and chat at the same time. It was incredible for that time. The phone services are much more expensive and it was the absolute madness to even think about calling someone from the different country. But that’s all on Skype. They were the revolution. Inspired by them many of the todays platforms have introduced the video chatting as we know it, and League has introduced the League Voice so players no longer need the external apps to use while playing the game. But a lot of the players use Discord even with League Voice being available.
So I talked enough about the good side, but now to answer the question, Why is League of Legends failing?
I think the decline of the League of Legends has started after the season 3 that was also the best season in my humble opinion. The reason for the decline, again according to me, is really simple. I think Riot Games miscalculated their game when they released it and they haven’t expected that many players to play it. This led to some anxiety to change the game constantly so it would stay relevant for new players.
Now let’s talk about the problems individually.
Champions
The original League of Legends lineup consisted of only 40 champions, whose kits and looks were highly influenced by the characters from The World of Warcraft. Here is the original lineup of champions:
- Alistar
- Amumu
- Anivia
- Annie
- Ashe
- Blitzcrank
- Cho’Gath
- Corki
- Dr. Mundo
- Evelynn
- Fiddlesticks
- Gangplank
- Heimerdinger
- Janna
- Jax
- Karthus
- Kassadin
- Katarina
- Kayle
- Malphite
- Master Yi
- Morgana
- Nasus
- Nunu
- Rammus
- Ryze
- Shaco
- Singed
- Sion
- Sivir
- Soraka
- Taric
- Teemo
- Tristana
- Tryndamere
- Twisted Fate
- Twitch
- Veigar
- Warwick
- Zilean
Back than champions were a mess. They were unbalanced and all of them were overpowered. The Riot games saw a problem in this and this is where their downfall started. They have felt the need to balance the champions to make them more equal in game. This was just a terrible idea, since that is when the things started going downhill. You see, those champions were unbalanced, but for todays time and if we take todays champions into consideration. If we look at that time, they were just perfect.
Riot decided that they will release new champions in the game, so the game can stay relevant, which to be fair is a great idea and that is something that has helped many of players stay and play it to this day. But the problem is because they wanted to release new, balanced champions. That has never happened to this day. Every single new champion that Riot has released was a mess from the first moment it went live. Because of that stupid balancing. The game went so deep with this balancing and with the player pool this big, they have came to the point of no return when it comes to balancing. They’ve dug their own grave and they have to keep doing that for an enternity.
Community
It is completely understandable that among the 150 million players there will be some, how to put it nicely? Idiots, morons, imbeciles. Yup that’s the best I can do. When I started playing League it was really good in the terms of community. There was always some type of you know competitive insulting and stuff. But the things I can see these days just make me tremble. The amount of hatred and some hard core insults just makes me want to punch a hole into my laptop. The community is so toxic that you really are to learn some quality stuff from GTA San Andres with all the shooting, hookers, drugs and stuff, than from League of Legends.
Smurfs
Another problem, and a big one are the smurfs. If you aren’t familiar with the term, ‘’Smurf’’ is a pretty good player, that is highly ranked on his profile, that earns money to rank up players accounts on higher ranks.
This is a double edged sword and there is absolutely no one that can really benefit from this thing apart from the Smurf himself, that earns money from playing easy games. That’s the only advantage if you can call it that.
But the disadvantages are absolute mental:
- Players that are in the game with smurf, lower ranked players get destroyed by the smurf who is much better player and has so much more skill with the game than the players from the lower ranks. Their game gets absolutely destroyed by someone who just wants to earn some money.
- Players from the higher ranks when the smurf is finished smurfing. These players will get their games destroyed by the player that was just carried like a small child into some higher rank. These players lack the skill to play on the level they will be smurfed, since if they didn’t they probably wouldn’t need any smurfing and they could climb themselves.
- Players whose accounts were smurfed. Again the same thing above. They will just ruin the games from themselves and their teammates, and it is only the matter of time when these players will slowly sink into their original rank.
Ranking system
Yes I have talked about smurfs and the facts that players shouldn’t be smurfed since they lack the skill to play on some higher ranks. But that doesn’t change the fact that the ranking system is awful. Just appaling. The MMR is known to be terrible without a reason and you need to play your eyes of to rank up due to trolls and smurfs.
Trolls
Well, since I mentioned them it really would be a shame to skip them. Trolls are the absolute worst kinds of players. Troll is someone that intentionally loses a game for someone. There are many reasons why players troll, and they can be because they haven’t got the position that they want, their champion was banned, their team isn’t cooperating as much as they would like, they suck and keep getting killed so they keep dying intentionally, or they are just idiots that do it for fun.
Competitive gameplay
Riot is earning a lot of money due to the competitive gameplay. But this kind of greed is ruining the game for us mortals, that like to play a couple of games a day when we have a chance, or even if we play all day we just lack the skill to play competitively. How is this possible? Well it’s pretty simple actually. You see, some minor buffs or nerf for a champion, item or rune in the game for a regular player won’t change a thing. A champion receives a 50 hp buff? No biggie, I don’t even notice it, but pro players that play League for living they abuse even the smallest changes in the game and those kinds of changes can determine what champions will be played or banned in the competitive games. Riot has noticed this and now they are even more reserved when it comes to balancing everything in the game, so much, that the game is slowly becoming impossible for a regular player.
Will League of Legends be here forever?
Probably yes, since I don’t see a single thing that can take away 150 million users from this game. Even with its problems it is still one of the most addictive games in the world, and with all the flaws the players have created the love-hate relationship with the game, especially the old players that love reminiscing about the good ol’ days. The number of players can fluctuate from year to year, especially with new MOBA games being released but I think that almost every player that eventually leaves the League will eventually return.
Conclusion
So, as we can see, the chances that League will wander off into oblivion one day are highly unlikely. I can’t say that I’m not happy because of this, but I would be a lot happier if Riot actually started listening to the community and stop trying to make as much money as they can from the game , and keep ruining it for us who love the game.