The co-founder of League of Legends developer Riot Games reckons competitive gaming will become part of the Olympic Games in the future.
“We don’t have our sights set on replacing soccer right now, but we definitely think that esports has a place as a large, important, mainstream competitive activity,” he said.
“I fundamentally believe that e-sports will be an Olympic event in my lifetime.”
Brandon Beck was talking at Gamescom, where he said that other companies should do more to encourage players to become competitive gamers, like Riot Games does with its League of Legends tournaments. They offer prize money to the winning teams.
“It’s important for companies not just to say they’re excited about esports, but to actually make commitments – from a development standpoint and from a financial standpoint,” he added. “These players have to make a massive commitment to become pro-athletes, so there has to be a viable career path for that to grow into anything.
“The innovation going forward in e-sports is all going to be around the quality of broadcasts, the quality of live events, the quality of the leagues themselves.”
His words echo former Fragdoll and Red 5 Studios’ Morgan Romine’s call for the games industry to better support pro gamers.
Thanks, Gamesindustry.biz
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
