In a new type of article – ‘In The Headlines’ – we take a look at the mainstream media’s recent coverage of League of Legends or UK esports.
This week, it’s professional snooker player Neil Robertson who opened up in an interview with Eurosport, and publications from the BBC to the Guardian and gaming sites picked up on the news.
Neil said that staying up playing games like League of Legends and World of Warcraft all night, while trying to raise a child and practice for professional snooker tournaments, got too much.
He said: “Mille [my wife] absolutely hates it. League of Legends is banned in my house. And rightly so. It is just awful.
“If you are a single guy, and work in a normal job, you can get around it. But you can’t win professional snooker matches when you are tired.
“I think it is one of the reasons he had a poor season two or three years ago. We were both playing it non-stop, both glued to our laptops playing League of Legends.”
“In the past, I’ve been staying up and playing it. Then all of a sudden, it’s 6am, the birds are tweeting and I’m thinking: ‘Oh my God, I’ve got to get up in a couple of hours to take my son Alexander to school. Then I’ve got to practice.”
Neil added that Chinese snooker player Ding Junhui also played League a lot.
“Ding used to be hooked on League of Legends too,” he said.
“We used to talk about it. I think it is one of the reasons he had a poor season two or three years ago. We were both playing it non-stop, both glued to our laptops playing League of Legends.”
Neil said he’s now quit games like League of Legends entirely.
“I’ve got quite an addictive personality and I’ve decided to just make a clean break from them. I can’t play them.”
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.
