LCS Commisioner Chris Greeley announced today that there will be no endorsed or affiliated fantasy LCS products for the 2020 Spring Split, and that we'll receive an update on affiliated products later in the year.
He also shared some unofficial ones that we can use in Spring for anyone who still wants to do fantasy.
Edit: To clarify, that next update is coming later next year, sorry for the confusion.
External link →If Riot had just announced in January 2019: “We’re ending support for fantasy, we encourage third parties to make their own fantasy platform” we would probably have one by now.
Instead, Riot actively sabotages the fantasy community by continuously promising that a first party option is right around the corner, so of course nobody develops one. All of the links provided in the announcement are to daily fantasy/pick-em’s because Riot has continuously promised that they were developing a complete, season long experience.
We said that in May 2019. We have not been promising that Riot was developing a fantasy platform - we said the opposite - that we weren't. What we did say is that we were looking for a partner who was building something that we could work with. In that May update we also said that if we couldn't do something ourselves, we would empower third-parties to (and we did, and they did).
We have not been promising that Riot was developing a fantasy platform - we said the opposite - that we weren't.
You super explicitly did not say that. This is a lie.
“Our goal is still to produce something head and shoulders above the product we shut down last year. We’re pursuing a plan to do that and have something great in your hands for Spring 2020. I know you’ve heard that before (about five months ago…), but we’re going to continue to take some big swings because we really believe that we have an opportunity to deliver something that makes the LCS/LEC viewing experience so much better.”
Why would anyone attempt to develop something when your announcement says that you’re using first party resources to develop something “head and shoulders” above what they could produce???
we would empower third-parties to (and we did, and they did).
Tweeting links to daily fantasy websites on your personal twitter account a month before the season starts is not “empowering” third parties to create replacements for fantasy LCS, Chris. It just isn’t. Unless y’all did something else that you aren’t sharing, you’ve broken your promise.
In the post I linked:
Q: Why doesn’t Riot just make the fantasy game yourself? You’re a game studio.
We tried that, and had to shut that product down six months ago. As it turns out, creating and servicing a Fantasy Product is time and resource consuming when running fantasy isn’t your business. Fantasy isn’t our business. That’s why we’ve spent so much time searching for the right partner on this project.
The reference to the big swing was a partner we were talking to about developing a game (their game, not Riot's game). We would have worked with them to produce the app and they would have owned it and run it. The concept was cool and would have allowed you to do a lot in the app besides fantasy. The project fell apart, which sucked. So we've made sure that our 3rd party ecosystem through our data pipelines were available and have provided support to third-parties where it was needed.
Wait, so you're saying that you expected the entire community and possible developers to start work on a product based on an answer of an FAQ?
Dude, this is mindblowing. This is the worst communication I've ever seen from any community interaction ever.
I normally defend you guys, because I'm also a software developer and I know your struggles. But dude this just straight up failure, legitimately
No, that wasn't the ask - I didn't think someone would scroll through a post, see that and decide to build a product. A lot of folks did see that though and contact us about the opportunity.
We've gone a little bit down a rabbit hole here - I saw something I didn't think was fair, I tried to correct it and that has turned into me defending how we got here. So let me take a half step back here - there is no mission accomplished banner flying over my desk on fantasy. I think the third-parties that have developed products for Spring are awesome and I'm very appreciative of their work (and the work of our data provider and the Riot 3rd Party team who has been working with some of these folks for a long time). I think when you get your hands on some of these products you are going to pretty excited about playing them week over week.
There is still a hole in the offerings around a season long product - I'm not trying to gloss over that. I also think people would be more comfortable if there was some game that was the Official Fantasy Game of the LCS that showed up on broadcast or something similar. I'm not trying to gloss over that either. I don't have more to share now, but I am excited to try out the games that are available in Spring, and am excited about the things I expect to see in summer.
I know "stay tuned" is a sh*tty answer that everyone is tired of, so I'll go with "check out the new stuff and let me know what you think to help us direct our efforts in the future"
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