It’s been a strange and challenging year for all, and like most industries, esports has been affected by the covid pandemic, with many event cancellations and a shift to online.
As is tradition with our end-of-year coverage, we’ve listed our ten most-read articles of 2020, in reverse order.
10. Gamers say they’re playing more but taking less care of personal hygiene during lockdown, survey reports
While much of the UK is in lockdown, a new survey by cybersecurity experts BullGuard and system builder Chillblast has revealed that gamers are (unsurprisingly) playing more.
They’re also washing less during the lockdown, according to the findings.
The research surveyed more than 1,000 gamers aged 16 and over, and found that 1 in 5 admitted to missing showers, 29% didn’t go outside for over three days and 16% said they skipped cleaning their teeth.
9. Finding the courage to speak out about harassment in esports: Opinion & list of UK-focused accusations
Esports News UK editor Dom Sacco offers his take on the disturbing spate of accusations around harassment in the esports and video games industry, and lists some of the accusations and responses so far at the bottom of this article.
8. Late payments, ‘lies’ and licensing gone wrong: What really happened at Munster Rugby Gaming that led to their departure from the League of Legends NLC
Social media platform Twitter shut down the account of someone claiming to have taken the World of Warcraft (WoW) servers offline one weekend.
Players were unable to login to both standard WoW and WoW Classic for parts of Saturday September 7th following a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. Blizzard later confirmed the suspect – seemingly a UK-based Twitter user – was arrested.
7. K/DA The Baddest EP will feature ‘tons of surprises and a wide breadth of artists’ not yet announced, promises Riot Games
K/DA (short for Kill Death Assist), the virtual pop group featuring Ahri, Kai’Sa, Evelynn and Akali from League of Legends, have made their comeback.
Two years after their official ‘Pop/Stars’ debut, K/DA have returned with a new single titled ‘The Baddest’. Check out Esports News UK’s review of K/DA’s All Out EP here.
6. Guild Esports disqualified from Valorant First Strike Europe over bug exploit
The London-based esports organisation backed by David Beckham – Guild Esports – exited a Valorant First Strike Europe qualifier in controversial circumstances.
They were due to play against Ninjas in Pyjamas in the First Strike Europe Playoffs, but picked up a map loss vs G2 due to a bug exploit.
5. Paul Chaloner quits esports following claims made by James Banks
Paul ‘Redeye’ Chaloner, one of the most well-known names in esports, has stepped away from the industry.
Paul has resigned as MD of agency Code Red Esports for personal reasons, after a series of accusations were made towards him by fellow British host and interviewer James Banks, and put out a statement on the matter.
4. Gross Gore reacts to Voyboy rant video on the state of solo queue, reveals ‘genius idea’ that will fix toxicity in League of Legends for good
British former League of Legends streamer Ali ‘Gross Gore’ Larsen has backed the views of American streamer Joedat ‘Voyboy’ Esfahani on toxicity in the game.
3. Riot announces further Wild Rift release plans: LoL mobile game to launch in the UK and Europe on December 10th with regional open beta
Riot Games revealed that the League of Legends mobile game – Wild Rift – will be launching in Europe on Thursday December 10th 2020 (Pacific Time).
The regional open beta will also hit the Middle East and North Africa, Russia & CIS and Turkey on the same day.
Of course, Wild Rift is now out in the UK and Europe.
2. LEC caster Medic has broken the Hades speedrunning world record
When he’s not commentating over top League of Legends plays and jumping up and down beside the LEC desk in excitement, Medic can be found raiding the underworld in world record time.
British League of Legends shoutcaster Aaron ‘Medic’ Chamberlain has set a speedrunning world record in the game Hades.
Medic posted an in-game time of 6 minutes and 29 seconds on Twitter
1. Method implodes in wake of abuse scandal: General manager steps down, players and partners depart, sponsors dry up, founder takes time out to contemplate the org’s future
Method, one of the UK’s biggest and most well-known esports organisations, crumbled to bare bones in a matter of days.
General manager Shanna ‘Darrie’ Roberts resigned, along with other players, as the org found itself in a state of turmoil following disturbing harassment allegations towards Method Josh.
Method have since rebuilt and put together a new raid team.
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.
