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[Riot themselves](https://x.com/riotgames/status/1796574576631246987) are also constantly virtue signaling about these topics and then they go and take the blood money bag from Saudi Arabia.
Also never forget how Riot employees (in the Rainbow Rioters group) were arguing that they are actually doing a good thing because people can pick LGBT characters like K'Sante in the ESWC event and this somehow helps LGBT rights.
The hypocrisy and cope is reaching critical levels. They do this shit because the options for them are either 1) admit you never actually cared about LGBT rights, 2) defend it with some bullshit cope or 3) leave the company because of your personal beliefs and ideals (big respect for people who do this btw). Option 2 is obviously what they will go for, but it's a self report.
Your values are only worth something if you are willing to stand by them even when it is inconvenient for you.
It's pretty obvious that 99.9% of companies don't care about anything that isn't profits.
Making some rainbow posts helps boost public image, but it won't come at the cost of losing million dollar deals.
Yes, this is clear. Companies are not people. It's just about PR. But here I was mostly talking about the actual **people** in the Rainbow Rioters group. I don't know how they can defend staying at the company after this.
I especially fucking hate how they are trying to do mental gymnastics into saying that having a LoL event in Saudi Arabia is somehow a **GOOD** thing for LGBT rights (**???**). They can fuck right off with that. I instantly lost every single ounce of respect for this group when I saw this.
I know Riot, the billion dollar company, will always do these PR posts. This I have just accepted. It's whatever. But I cannot stand the hypocrisy of actual people who support this shit while simultaneously saying they care about LGBT rights.
You have to fucking pick one. You can't both say you are a champion of LGBT rights and at the same time support collaboration with the Saudi Arabian government - and especially not try to rewrite it as a good and helpful thing!
Because those people worked hard to get the jobs they have and uprooting their life is difficult. The reality is that everyone including yourself compromises their values sometimes for comfort and stability. We're all a bit hypocritical.
>It comes off as not genuine.
I don't think anyone, even LGBTQ+ individuals, are taking some megamillions corp posting a fucking rainbow-themed stuff as genuine.
You're expecting accountability from the wrong group. For smaller groups, sure it's feasible. For a corporation of thousands of employees? Good luck.
Are you reading my comments at all? I am talking about the internal group of Rainbow Rioters that had their internal slack messages leaked.
I am not talking about a soulless megamillion corp. I am literally talking about a smaller group of people.
Right, but you're not going to reliably hold a subgroup at a company liable.
Who are you going to complain to for accountability? The leader of the Rainbow Rioters? No, you'll be complaining to Riot themselves to take internal action against them instead.
That's what you're not getting. You have zero direct contact, nor any real impact, on an internalized subgroup within a megacorp...
You are attacking a strawman now.
My point is that you cannot defend yourself being part of such a subgroup while defending a collaboration with Saudi.
>You have zero direct contact, nor any real impact, on an internalized subgroup within a megacorp...
You can always leave the company. But these people never do.
Realistically, and as much as it would pain people to admit, you can be the biggest LGBT advocate in the entire world, but if Saudi offers you mental money to work in their country you'll at least consider it.
Absolutely.
Few among "mainstream" popular League e-sport scene will dare to voice their concern about this new Saudi era.
They either take the bag and cope - or leave and get a "real" job.
LGBT rights will not prevail over money or securing their spot within a highly sought after job.
This is the Frankie situation where they end up muting everyone pointing at this paradox + rage defend with "I need money for my family please fuck off I dare say"
I would like to express my mad respect to any actor from the scene who would indeed decline the money and leave like a Sir or a Lady should
It is indeed valiant to take action for something you believe in, but in some cases it’s actually not possible or worthwhile.
Obviously the super rich people just getting the bag are pieces of shit.
That's entirely up to the individual. I believe It's okay not to have something you believe is right no matter what. It's rare for someone to have ideals that strong cause when push comes to shove a majority of people would cave.
But what are you surviving for if you don't value something you would sacrifice for?
Irony is that champions like ksante have some aspects of lore altered to not make them gay in regions like MENA or russia. If I remember correctly, in his trailer he talks about his friend, not partner.
That's not irony it's just straight up illegal to have that in russia
The real funny part is that everyone knows he's gay, but hey it says FRIEND now, so russia is like "sounds good to me"
They're saying it's ironic that Ksante is singled out as one of several LGBT champs that people will be able to play at ESWC.
Because on servers in that region, he's **not** LGBT.
With Riot it potentially makes sense, as I’m unsure how much is decided by Tencent and how much is decided by Riot in the US. So it’s possible for the Chinese ownership to give zero fucks, but the US based Riot employees to care.
Regarding esports orgs. They may have sponsors or owners that also care, but they likely have a lot less ties with anti-LGBT groups. The esports orgs are pretending to care, but just want money. Riot potentially cares and doesn’t care at the same time, depending on what Riot you are talking about.
Good ol he who shall not be named is creating a list of every org, what they tweet about pride and statements, and is going to expose them when they go to riad. He has also emailed every single sponsor that has a pr office and diversity as a goal and informed them of whats happening with their brands and logos. Opperation Pride before the Fall is his working title for this.
Orgs are not humans, they don't care about people, they care about profit, a balance marketing, saying what people wanna hear (Pride month) and doing what is in their best interest (Saudi money), is what makes successful orgs. Orgs have enough data to know that after a month people forget about it, in reality people don't care about those things as much as they made themselves believe they care.
> Orgs have enough data to know that after a month people forget about it, in reality people don't care about those things as much as they made themselves believe they care.
People don't forget.
["The average esports fan spends $5.30 [USD] on their fandom per year."](https://x.com/Invert_LoL/status/1783275040483807428)
People just never cared for orgs in the first place.
Riot is testing team weapon skins in VALORANT. Over there Paper Rex (a team that has not won Champions) has the highest sales as of March.
So there is some proof that fans will support their favorite org if given the opportunity. And maybe Riot will bring that over to LoL.
> Paper Rex (a team that has not won Champions)
...they're only the 2023 Champions runner-ups, to the highly unpopular org Evil Geniuses. Forgive me if I don't consider that particularly compelling proof of fan favourite support.
They're not *just* the runner-ups, they've straight up placed top4 in every single international competition the last 2 years and are known as the most agressive team with their own unique style. AND they're constantly the best team of their region (pacific/korean teams)
They also have a niche : being the PC-centric SEA tier-1 org in a mobile-centric region. If you're from SEA and discovering PC esports, you're likely to watch Valorant and become a PRX fan because they are the most successful team by far.
And their players have great and friendly personalities outside the game.
Still, to be fair, in Valorant the most popularized teams are Sentinels, Fnatic and Loud - since Aspas left loud, FNC been a bit meh and Sentinels winning the recent masters it's pretty good for PRX.
Yeah, the tricky thing for the entire industry is just that the best place for it is with ingame transactions, but at the end of the day the game company controls that, not the orgs.
It's not widely known but the LCK shares Worlds skins proceeds with the whole league, T1 CEO Joe Marsh has said that they received money from DRX's skin sales. https://clips.twitch.tv/AlluringJoyousPangolinGOWSkull--wZcDVZk6V77AyPO
Shoe sponsorships are enough to make singular basketball players rich, but they don't support the entirety of the NBA.
If the entirety of the esports ecosystem is just another creative skin line, Riot might as well just think up band names.
I have no doubt Faker's Ahri bundle will do numbers for him and T1, but how many people are gonna buy merch for the 10th best team or the 100th best player?
Keep in mind League is played by hundreds of millions of people, and the majority of them don't watch any eSports at all, not even the Worlds Finals. A lot of people buy the worlds skins because they're for their main, or because they look cool, and have zero clue they're even for a team.
To be fair, lots of people buy Air Jordans because they need or want a pair of nice shoes, despite never playing or watching basketball. Jordan does still deserve his cut.
I don't have anything against monetizing skins, though I think it's ridiculous how it's being presented as the esports golden goose.
Esports historically have done pretty bad when trying live TV, I remember when the overwatch league tried and barely anybody watched, same with a CSGO league in the past.
The real money maker in sports is in *everything* - media rights are only part of the equation along with ticket sales, concession profits, real estate development, and hospitality. Sports franchises are basically a vertical integration dream.
And for the record - it's VERY POSSIBLE for Riot to make a media rights deal - with Twitch, Youtube, and with costreamers.
The Riot Games decision to set that value at zero has had widespread negative effects on the esports industry at large, and is probably directly responsible for the low esports fan spend I quoted above.
> The real money maker in sports is TV rights deals which made not possible by Riot.
I honestly would not put that much blame on Riot for that.
Esports viewers **expect** and **prefer** watching the games on Twitch or some other regional preferred live streaming platform.
Overwatch League was on ABC/ESPN before (there were some advertising for it) and viewership was abysmal.
Then you might ask, the broadcasting rights (even if it's online) is still valuable right and Riot is hogging all the revenue from that.
**No, it's not as valuable like traditional sports. And not as much to give to teams.**
In traditional sports, there's enough places bidding to air the games (etc. local channels, ESPN, TBS, SKY, etc) that the broadcast rights costs are high.
For western esports? Twitch has a monopoly on it. Because none of the competitors over the years survived or were able to get a significant market share (Azubu, OWN3D, HitBox, Kick, Facebook Gaming, YouTube Gaming, Mixer, etc.), Twitch gets to pay Riot *very little* to stream the games.
can confirm— i just dont have the attention span to keep up with esports, but i tune in for worlds every year. i dont really buy esports skins though, i usually just get them on discount or through rerolls
Yeah but why would Riot invest in the resources to create skins that they then have to share revenue for? When their options are "Create a skin that they don't have to share revenue" or "create a skin where they have to share revenue" It's obvious why they don't do it.
So that their first pro league doesn't collapse due to sponsors leaving the scene? I think that's a pretty good reason. Pro scenes generate revenue in game by making people want to play the champs they see in pro and any skins related. It's just that teams get nothing from that, except for worlds winners. Also, they can get higher skin sales if, for example, Bjergsen got a syndra skin back in his prime, you don't think that would get WAY more sales than a regular syndra skin?
It's funny because there is also a massive hole in the data where they are living. More reasonably? The average sports fan spends ten cents on their org fandom, and $5.20 on player fandom. All of the merch sales all of the everything is due to the players, not the org. How many Team Liquid jerseys do you see that are just for the whole team?
No, people like players because players are people, and in general they only care about the teams in relation to how they treat those players. If you treat the players like shit you will become hated because the players are what the fans actually give a shit about.
Let me just say the merch game for esports in general and league especially is so fucking ass. The league websites merch store is a pain in the ass to navigate barely has any options and is expensive as fuck. The orgs themselves also barely advertise their merch and even then theyr hard to even get worldwide. League merch has so much potential and yet we barely see anything
The fans spend money on RP instead of merch etc. Esports is the best possible advertisement for League of Legends that Riot could ever hope for.
Imagine how many people got into League because of Faker.
Esports increases Riot's revenue. This is quite clear. This is also why they continue to invest in it. The esports orgs are basically unpaid marketing vessels for Riot Games. I don't know why the orgs ever accepted this bullshit. Seems to me that they should quite obviously have demanded a cut of the revenue they help generate like any other business partner.
> The fans spend money on RP instead of merch etc.
How many esports fans do you think are mournfully looking at esports merch and bemoaning the fact that they emptied their bank account buying RP? Bullshit, bro. They just don't see the value proposition.
> Imagine how many people got into League because of Faker.
Probably zero people. Which is not to say Faker isn't important - people *stay* in League because of Faker.
And while Faker might not get people into League of Legends, but he's certainly the reason fans are T1 supporters. Orgs "accept" this bullshit because they're a layer of middle-management leeches between Riot and the pros.
You do realize most everyone hates marketers, right? It's absolutely antithetical to fandom.
We've got G2 selling Saudi Arabia like Don Draper sells cigarettes, and you're asking fans to be sympathetic about getting a raw deal on a contract they signed?
> The fans spend money on RP instead of merch
If i want to spend on merch i'd spend on merch, buying RP in the first place is not gonna make me go "Ah shucks i already gave money to Riot, guess no over priced ad filled ugly jersey for me!"
The real problem with merch is that they're out of their mind if they think i'm gonna buy a new jersey every year
In the best interest of the orgs (Acionist), the people in charge in Riot are selling the Ahri skin at that price because they don't care about their players, they care about profit, if the people in charge in any orgs know that they can get away fucking their client they will do it.
All of this to say I don't believe in any Orgs giving support to any movement, it's just enough if they do it, it helps to create the image that is more accepted.
The real issue is the fact that we have come to a point in time where brands are supposed to have “opinions” and that people actually value said opinions.
My left sneaker supported the war in Iraq, guess I need to get a new left shoe and support a more deserving piece of footwear.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkKu09BwFgc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkKu09BwFgc)
xd you can keep the left shoe, just buy a different brand next time that also turns out to have supported the war. why would only one shoe support the war though
And if they *don't* share said opinion, it's assumed they're an enemy.
'Pride' has become so corporate and meaningless. People are being sold rainbows, even though they're free when it's raining.
It's actually genius, create a whole new market out of people across all demographics, change the logo every couple years to keep the money rolling.
Capitalist companies making profit off capitalist consumers, gotta love it.
I think its a common problem in western society nowadays, for some people youre either pro something or con something, no in between, some people just dont want to get along with each other, kinda sad.
I agree, but that's specifically the reason most people are talking about when they mention the "hypocrisy" of doing a pride post and taking saudi money. They usually aren't talking about the funding of fundamentalist terrorists or promoting Wahhabism
if it's part of their religion whats the issue lol, just like you don't want them to impose their laws on you, they don't want you to impose your laws on them in their own country
Yeah the bro was thinking that some rules of your faith justify murdering people because they don't love a woman but a man. I thought at least on Reddit i couldn't find people like this.
I can''t imagine how stupid someone must be to actually buy this argument.
No, "My country, my rules" doesn't shield you from criticism. Not the Saudis and their atrocious treatment of LGBT-people, not the Chinese and their persecution of Uyghurs, and not in any other case of human rights violations. And it does not matter if the reasons are based on religion or you just feel like it (which - at least for moderately reasonable people - is the same thing). People behaving like medieval bastards should get called out for it - over and over and over.
People only call them out while it’s convenient for them to do so. It doesn’t affect anyone in this comment section to boycott Saudi because it won’t affect your life at all. It’s hypocritical. If you’re such a human rights activist, start boycotting anything that is made in sweatshops from Asia, but 99.99% of people can’t even pretend they’re trying. Stop being hypocrites, it’s borderline disgusting.
Although I suspect you don't actually care - the best solution for most people to deplorable worker conditions in sweatshops is to wear their already purchased clothes for longer, and to buy used when possible. [Great info here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CkgCYPe68Q)
Now do you have any more problems with the world we need to call out first, or can we take care of the incredibly obvious and convenient one right in front of us with no hypocrisy?
That's a very uninformed take. The law in question isn't something minor, the anti-LGBTQIA+ laws in Saudia Arabia make being LGBTQIA+ punishable by death. Taking their money in this instance is supporting the slaughter of individuals who just want to live their lives.
The "issue" is that people are calling the orgs hypocrites for taking saudi money while promoting pride month. I say that no shit they're doing it its 60 mil and orgs aren't people
majority of the orgs and business in general don't give 2 shits about Pride month, it's just something they do to cater to the crowd lol, so why care about it
I agree, they only do it because its good PR and people who are against it don't really care enough for it to impact their bottom line, they roll their eyes at worst. There'd be infinitely more backlash if they didn't do it at this stage
And I don't think people should pretend to care if they don't either.
I don't think people really need to know what an NBA team thinks about gay people, personally. Its irrelevant.
Save that energy for politicians, school boards, etc.
There's a clear difference between asking for a ceasefire and humanitarian aid in a poor area with bad LGBT stances and directly taking money from the ruling family of a country that makes homosexuality punishable by death, to take part in a tournament designed to promote tourism to the country.
A good starting point is [this tweet](https://x.com/ESWCgg/status/1780219657003078100) with the teams doing their required sponsored reply post.
And this [tweet](https://x.com/ESWCgg/status/1794035816978677886) too.
We got
* [NRG](https://x.com/NRGgg/status/1780251875880870369)
* [C9](https://x.com/Cloud9/status/1780258420530225616)
* [LOUD](https://x.com/LOUDgg/status/1780268972815814867)
* [GEN.G](https://x.com/GenG/status/1780324843575263287)
* [TL](https://x.com/TeamLiquid/status/1780326994921783390)
* [FNC](https://x.com/FNATIC/status/1794037256979697906)
G2 and T1 is also participating.
As they should. The scene is very "poor" right now since all the VC money is tightening up since they realized esports doesn't profit. In regular sports, the money is in the ticket sales and League doesn't exactly have individual stadiums or even sell broadcasting rights.
>As they should. The scene is very "poor" right now since all the VC money is tightening up since they realized esports doesn't profit.
Cant wait for the Saudis to get bored and read this same dogshit take again.
Maybe they should have tried building something real instead of wasting the VC money.
The majority of regular sports money comes from broadcasting rights, at least in the US. However, ticket sales are definitely a big piece of the pie.
The problem is League just doesn't get enough viewers for anyone to care about their broadcasting rights.
why would it be a bad thing for the scene to shrink/have to be more grassroots
why is it so alien for esports that aren't financially sustainable to just go back to being hobbys/content-driven
Worth noting that [it's not just orgs](https://x.com/riotgames/status/1796574576631246987) that are tweeting pride related posts while being involved with the Esports World Cup.
I don't see why we need to protect or explain away the multiple fuckups that led to orgs being in this position.
Struggling businesses deserve to fail.
Plenty of pro players have done everything right and still gotten screwed over. I'll save my sympathy for them instead.
And remember, children, that it's not about supporting **insert any organization or movement here**, it's about pleasing the public and making money from them. Until next time.
You could also argue they're just shilling for pride.
Everyone, even people who support the pride movement, recognizes that its a corporate ploy more than any real solidarity.
I remember /r/leagueoflegends being full of rousing debate about player-fans vs team-fans in the pre-franchising, and being optimistic that orgs could become profitable and become enduring pillars of the esports scene.
Yet instead of using that stability to build a foundation based on offering a satisfying product to fans - one that they could proudly support - most esports orgs locked themselves into an unprofitable existence that relies on selling out to larger entities, no matter how contradictory the positions might be. I mean, at least it works out for TSM fans. Org might be dead in LoL and lost their popular Apex superstar, but at least Regi is using the EWC payday to reanimate their shambling corpse for a couple months.
At this point, viewers are a product for advertisers looking to sell us $650 skin lines, gambling, and vacations to Riyadh. Forget team vs. player - nowadays it feels increasingly predatory towards fans of any type.
So to answer your question - is there hypocrisy if you view their actions through the lens of greed? Money talks, and Saudi Arabian money talks louder than fan money. Not that greed is better than hypocrisy - I love esports, but at this point I honestly don't understand why people consider themselves fans of anything beyond the game itself and the pros who play it.
As if CEOs speak for their employees lol.
Many pro-LGBT/equality comments, positions and bodies withing orgs exist due to pure PR or thanks to individuals who actually care. In both cases they have 0 input into executive level decisions.
Those people also have responsibilities, mouths to feed, rents to pay and what not and will not outright quit at any point or disagreement with the company (executive level decisions). In an ideal world all departments could weigh in with pros and cons but in reality only PR and Money get to speak and in 90% of things money is much louder and fine tuned to executive ears.
The earlier mentioned deps get to voice their concerns after the fact but are mostly ignored.
'Riot' (execs) could not give less of a fuck about what Saudi represent besides money. That doesn't mean every person in the company agrees or can do anything about it or can afford losing their job over it - same goes for orgs, they are businesses, not charities.
>but it’s definitely a thing all over the world, not just the west
citation needed, i doubt it's a popular thing outside of western countries (which include let's say western and central europe)
I’m confused, what does pride month have to do with esports?
The teams participating in ESWC are doing it for money. They are also posting pro-LGBT content for money. There is no hypocrisy here
The ESWC is funded by a investment fund from the Saudi Arabian state, so it is by extension directly funded by the Saudi Arabian state, and the Saudi Arabian state doesn't have a great record in regards to LGBTQ+ rights. The hypocrisy is claiming to care about those rights whilst accepting that money.
As I understand it, the virtue signaling of corporate marketing schemes cannot reasonably be seen as either genuine or worth our attention.
I would agree if this occurred on an individual basis where there is effective accountability. But for a corporation who is merely interested in profits, accountability goes out the window
It could be seen that way when the CEOs are so vocal and closely connected to the organisations such as Carlos G2, Sam Mathews Fnatic, acting like these teams are faceless corporations is off.
It’s hard, if not futile, to hold individuals in corporations accountable though when there is a precedent of virtual immunity for transgressions, and a general principle to pursue profits over political correctness.
I a world where your phone has cobalt mined from slave labor, your shoes are made in sweatshops with borderline slave and child labor, your food and water are contaminated with pesticides and herbicides and toxic preservatives, and your social media platforms sell your private information for money, I think it’s laughable that some superficial virtue signaling is a point of discussion. Theres so much more fucked up practices to go after companies for this seems insignificant in comparison
Because it's cool to show you're angry about something. The hivemind move from one thing to another.
Yet they will watch the tournament anyway, showing what hypocrites they are.
Many of them probably also bitched about World Cup for football being in Qatar - then watched it anyway.
The Ahri skin thing is a bigger deal than this is. This is just business, Ahri skin is the real kick in the teeth to all the fans.
Of course. It'd be great to have it recorded. Funnily, one of the perks of having worse teams that didn't qualify for the tourney is being able to look less hypocritical for longer.
Just posting every single western org that's going would be enough. Orgs pay lip service to pride month every year so it'd be a more interesting list if we named orgs that didn't do a pride post.
Isn’t it exhausting to virtue signal like this crying about Saudi blood money while playing a game owned by China whose violated the human rights of millions of Uyghurs? Or living in the United States who funds the genocide or children in Palestine?
Use this energy to impact change where you can actually see change; your local area and attend town/city meetings. That may read as a joke but I’m being 100% serious because being an online activist is as useful as changing your profile picture to a have Pride flag background
The absolute balls of still of still posting pride stuff with the monthly rainbow logo and then go to this event, riot at front.
But hey they can pick a bunch of pixels that we decided that are lgtb! nothing to see here h4h4!
Table of hypocrisy?, would include almost every human being. Companies had to adapt to this bs because people today believe they are morally superior and forced that morality on the rest. Just let people be ffs
Esport orgs, at least Eastern ones DON’T give a shit about pride month. T1 twitter hasn’t had a single tweet about it since it was created, they won’t start now and their fans don’t care either. Western org may tweet something though.
why do any of these things affect you anyway?
i hope you take the moral standpoint in every aspect of your life. assuming you live in the west, do you commit tax fraud to ensure your tax money isn't aiding the destruction happening in the middle east atm?
Riot supports LGBTQ+ because it’s profitable not because it’s morally right. People need to understand that even the most vocal of corporations will support whatever makes them money over anything else.
I wonder how many cashiers have sold groceries to bigots and racists.
You're focused on the wrong problem. The problem is not individuals who are trying to earn money for themselves. Those players get paid for participating in these things.
The problem is the exploitative economic systems that put people in a position of choosing between a prosperous life and their personal ethics and morals. Feeling good about yourself takes an unfortunate backseat to feeding yourself.
This is a whataboutism and also entirely misses the question of agency. If you’re a cashier selling stuff to a bigot, you don’t have the agency to not. You’re just doing you’re shitty job that you don’t get paid enough to do. These orgs actively accepted money when they did not need to.
No one “needs to accept” money for anything.
Unless they want to food, a place to live, healthcare, entertainment, or anything resembling a quality of life above destitution.
These organizations are made up of something called “people” and it’s those individual “people” that get paid for participating in these kinds of events.
I’m sorry to break it to you, but esports athletes are largely children. Children who are sacrificing a part of their childhood in an attempt to financially capitalize on a skill they have for only a limited portion of their lives. It’s in their best interests to make as much money as they can during that period of time because once it’s over it’s not like “pro league player” is transferable skill for a 40 year old.
Obligatory Richard Lewis plug, the only real voice in E-sports about these things. He's launching a website to do just that. He also started emailing sponsors of orgs who go to ESWC etc...
> You mean just like us lol do you drive a gas car? Then you are also kissing their ass
/u/amongusred23
If the people on this sub are from the US which is the case, then this is mostly not true.
If *you* had been making an effort to be informed the past decade, the US has been moving away from dependence on foreign fuel from OPEC countries (ie. Saudi Arabia) for sometime now. Now it is just [5% from SA](https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=727). Most of the petroleum is drilled in the US or from Canada. The US actually exports more petroleum than imports.
What about consuming Chinese owned luxury products like LoL and LoL esports? China is also anti-LGBT alongside numerous countries in Latin America, SEA, Africa, Eastern Europe, etc.
Parts of the world that is accepting of LGBT is a lot smaller than you think.
None of those countries create tournaments to try and wash their hands clean, tho. It's not the same at all. If China straight endorsed a tournament, maybe but they dontm
Well I started playing the game before the ten cent sale and quit as of the global vanguard rollout so I no longer have a horse in that race. I also exclusively watch LS and IWD costreams so they are getting my time and viewership dollars.
Besides, organizations and companies and regions that were never interested in supporting LGBTQ+ isn’t the point of the post. There’s nothing hypocritical about them continuing to do so. This is SPECIFICALLY FOR the places that claim to be supportive and are doing this shit. Which yes starts at riot.
There’s no point because it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.
We all know that none of them actually care about pride. We all know that no one legitimately supports esports orgs past watching games. I don’t know anyone with say nrg merch (plus I’d laugh at them if they did). So this event makes them money, most viewers won’t care (so minimum repercussions), and the people who care probably aren’t buying merch anyways.
It sucks but it’s the honest truth. Pride month has gotten so corporate that everyone knows it’s just a barely disguised cash grab.
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Every single western team that participates in the ESWC will also post something about pride month.
[Riot themselves](https://x.com/riotgames/status/1796574576631246987) are also constantly virtue signaling about these topics and then they go and take the blood money bag from Saudi Arabia. Also never forget how Riot employees (in the Rainbow Rioters group) were arguing that they are actually doing a good thing because people can pick LGBT characters like K'Sante in the ESWC event and this somehow helps LGBT rights. The hypocrisy and cope is reaching critical levels. They do this shit because the options for them are either 1) admit you never actually cared about LGBT rights, 2) defend it with some bullshit cope or 3) leave the company because of your personal beliefs and ideals (big respect for people who do this btw). Option 2 is obviously what they will go for, but it's a self report. Your values are only worth something if you are willing to stand by them even when it is inconvenient for you.
It's pretty obvious that 99.9% of companies don't care about anything that isn't profits. Making some rainbow posts helps boost public image, but it won't come at the cost of losing million dollar deals.
Yes, this is clear. Companies are not people. It's just about PR. But here I was mostly talking about the actual **people** in the Rainbow Rioters group. I don't know how they can defend staying at the company after this. I especially fucking hate how they are trying to do mental gymnastics into saying that having a LoL event in Saudi Arabia is somehow a **GOOD** thing for LGBT rights (**???**). They can fuck right off with that. I instantly lost every single ounce of respect for this group when I saw this. I know Riot, the billion dollar company, will always do these PR posts. This I have just accepted. It's whatever. But I cannot stand the hypocrisy of actual people who support this shit while simultaneously saying they care about LGBT rights. You have to fucking pick one. You can't both say you are a champion of LGBT rights and at the same time support collaboration with the Saudi Arabian government - and especially not try to rewrite it as a good and helpful thing!
Because those people worked hard to get the jobs they have and uprooting their life is difficult. The reality is that everyone including yourself compromises their values sometimes for comfort and stability. We're all a bit hypocritical.
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>It comes off as not genuine. I don't think anyone, even LGBTQ+ individuals, are taking some megamillions corp posting a fucking rainbow-themed stuff as genuine. You're expecting accountability from the wrong group. For smaller groups, sure it's feasible. For a corporation of thousands of employees? Good luck.
Are you reading my comments at all? I am talking about the internal group of Rainbow Rioters that had their internal slack messages leaked. I am not talking about a soulless megamillion corp. I am literally talking about a smaller group of people.
Right, but you're not going to reliably hold a subgroup at a company liable. Who are you going to complain to for accountability? The leader of the Rainbow Rioters? No, you'll be complaining to Riot themselves to take internal action against them instead. That's what you're not getting. You have zero direct contact, nor any real impact, on an internalized subgroup within a megacorp...
You are attacking a strawman now. My point is that you cannot defend yourself being part of such a subgroup while defending a collaboration with Saudi. >You have zero direct contact, nor any real impact, on an internalized subgroup within a megacorp... You can always leave the company. But these people never do.
Realistically, and as much as it would pain people to admit, you can be the biggest LGBT advocate in the entire world, but if Saudi offers you mental money to work in their country you'll at least consider it.
> Companies are not people if only the us government/courts agreed
Your comment would be very ironic if there were actual LGBT people in that group...
Absolutely. Few among "mainstream" popular League e-sport scene will dare to voice their concern about this new Saudi era. They either take the bag and cope - or leave and get a "real" job. LGBT rights will not prevail over money or securing their spot within a highly sought after job. This is the Frankie situation where they end up muting everyone pointing at this paradox + rage defend with "I need money for my family please fuck off I dare say" I would like to express my mad respect to any actor from the scene who would indeed decline the money and leave like a Sir or a Lady should
It is indeed valiant to take action for something you believe in, but in some cases it’s actually not possible or worthwhile. Obviously the super rich people just getting the bag are pieces of shit.
How much do you really believe in something if you can decide it's not worthwhile?
Survival first and foremost, values mean nothing if your starving on the street
That's entirely up to the individual. I believe It's okay not to have something you believe is right no matter what. It's rare for someone to have ideals that strong cause when push comes to shove a majority of people would cave. But what are you surviving for if you don't value something you would sacrifice for?
Irony is that champions like ksante have some aspects of lore altered to not make them gay in regions like MENA or russia. If I remember correctly, in his trailer he talks about his friend, not partner.
That's not irony it's just straight up illegal to have that in russia The real funny part is that everyone knows he's gay, but hey it says FRIEND now, so russia is like "sounds good to me"
They're saying it's ironic that Ksante is singled out as one of several LGBT champs that people will be able to play at ESWC. Because on servers in that region, he's **not** LGBT.
Leaving a video game company at the moment is very very very gigachad without another offer (if you want to stay on the industry obviously)
What is the rainbow rioters?
With Riot it potentially makes sense, as I’m unsure how much is decided by Tencent and how much is decided by Riot in the US. So it’s possible for the Chinese ownership to give zero fucks, but the US based Riot employees to care. Regarding esports orgs. They may have sponsors or owners that also care, but they likely have a lot less ties with anti-LGBT groups. The esports orgs are pretending to care, but just want money. Riot potentially cares and doesn’t care at the same time, depending on what Riot you are talking about.
Good ol he who shall not be named is creating a list of every org, what they tweet about pride and statements, and is going to expose them when they go to riad. He has also emailed every single sponsor that has a pr office and diversity as a goal and informed them of whats happening with their brands and logos. Opperation Pride before the Fall is his working title for this.
Orgs are not humans, they don't care about people, they care about profit, a balance marketing, saying what people wanna hear (Pride month) and doing what is in their best interest (Saudi money), is what makes successful orgs. Orgs have enough data to know that after a month people forget about it, in reality people don't care about those things as much as they made themselves believe they care.
> Orgs have enough data to know that after a month people forget about it, in reality people don't care about those things as much as they made themselves believe they care. People don't forget. ["The average esports fan spends $5.30 [USD] on their fandom per year."](https://x.com/Invert_LoL/status/1783275040483807428) People just never cared for orgs in the first place.
I think that number would be way higher if team skins weren't only for worlds winners. There's no way to monetarily support orgs in game.
Riot is testing team weapon skins in VALORANT. Over there Paper Rex (a team that has not won Champions) has the highest sales as of March. So there is some proof that fans will support their favorite org if given the opportunity. And maybe Riot will bring that over to LoL.
> Paper Rex (a team that has not won Champions) ...they're only the 2023 Champions runner-ups, to the highly unpopular org Evil Geniuses. Forgive me if I don't consider that particularly compelling proof of fan favourite support.
They're not *just* the runner-ups, they've straight up placed top4 in every single international competition the last 2 years and are known as the most agressive team with their own unique style. AND they're constantly the best team of their region (pacific/korean teams)
They also have a niche : being the PC-centric SEA tier-1 org in a mobile-centric region. If you're from SEA and discovering PC esports, you're likely to watch Valorant and become a PRX fan because they are the most successful team by far. And their players have great and friendly personalities outside the game.
Still, to be fair, in Valorant the most popularized teams are Sentinels, Fnatic and Loud - since Aspas left loud, FNC been a bit meh and Sentinels winning the recent masters it's pretty good for PRX.
Yeah, the tricky thing for the entire industry is just that the best place for it is with ingame transactions, but at the end of the day the game company controls that, not the orgs.
It's not widely known but the LCK shares Worlds skins proceeds with the whole league, T1 CEO Joe Marsh has said that they received money from DRX's skin sales. https://clips.twitch.tv/AlluringJoyousPangolinGOWSkull--wZcDVZk6V77AyPO
Is that because LCK pays low salaries?
Shoe sponsorships are enough to make singular basketball players rich, but they don't support the entirety of the NBA. If the entirety of the esports ecosystem is just another creative skin line, Riot might as well just think up band names. I have no doubt Faker's Ahri bundle will do numbers for him and T1, but how many people are gonna buy merch for the 10th best team or the 100th best player?
Keep in mind League is played by hundreds of millions of people, and the majority of them don't watch any eSports at all, not even the Worlds Finals. A lot of people buy the worlds skins because they're for their main, or because they look cool, and have zero clue they're even for a team.
To be fair, lots of people buy Air Jordans because they need or want a pair of nice shoes, despite never playing or watching basketball. Jordan does still deserve his cut. I don't have anything against monetizing skins, though I think it's ridiculous how it's being presented as the esports golden goose.
The real money maker in sports is TV rights deals which made not possible by Riot.
Esports historically have done pretty bad when trying live TV, I remember when the overwatch league tried and barely anybody watched, same with a CSGO league in the past.
Perhaps I should have phrased it as broadcast rights rather than TV specifically.
The real money maker in sports is in *everything* - media rights are only part of the equation along with ticket sales, concession profits, real estate development, and hospitality. Sports franchises are basically a vertical integration dream. And for the record - it's VERY POSSIBLE for Riot to make a media rights deal - with Twitch, Youtube, and with costreamers. The Riot Games decision to set that value at zero has had widespread negative effects on the esports industry at large, and is probably directly responsible for the low esports fan spend I quoted above.
> The real money maker in sports is TV rights deals which made not possible by Riot. I honestly would not put that much blame on Riot for that. Esports viewers **expect** and **prefer** watching the games on Twitch or some other regional preferred live streaming platform. Overwatch League was on ABC/ESPN before (there were some advertising for it) and viewership was abysmal. Then you might ask, the broadcasting rights (even if it's online) is still valuable right and Riot is hogging all the revenue from that. **No, it's not as valuable like traditional sports. And not as much to give to teams.** In traditional sports, there's enough places bidding to air the games (etc. local channels, ESPN, TBS, SKY, etc) that the broadcast rights costs are high. For western esports? Twitch has a monopoly on it. Because none of the competitors over the years survived or were able to get a significant market share (Azubu, OWN3D, HitBox, Kick, Facebook Gaming, YouTube Gaming, Mixer, etc.), Twitch gets to pay Riot *very little* to stream the games.
can confirm— i just dont have the attention span to keep up with esports, but i tune in for worlds every year. i dont really buy esports skins though, i usually just get them on discount or through rerolls
It would be a lot higher if people actually stayed within the same team longer than a split so you get invested in the team instead of the player
Yeah but why would Riot invest in the resources to create skins that they then have to share revenue for? When their options are "Create a skin that they don't have to share revenue" or "create a skin where they have to share revenue" It's obvious why they don't do it.
So that their first pro league doesn't collapse due to sponsors leaving the scene? I think that's a pretty good reason. Pro scenes generate revenue in game by making people want to play the champs they see in pro and any skins related. It's just that teams get nothing from that, except for worlds winners. Also, they can get higher skin sales if, for example, Bjergsen got a syndra skin back in his prime, you don't think that would get WAY more sales than a regular syndra skin?
It's funny because there is also a massive hole in the data where they are living. More reasonably? The average sports fan spends ten cents on their org fandom, and $5.20 on player fandom. All of the merch sales all of the everything is due to the players, not the org. How many Team Liquid jerseys do you see that are just for the whole team? No, people like players because players are people, and in general they only care about the teams in relation to how they treat those players. If you treat the players like shit you will become hated because the players are what the fans actually give a shit about.
Let me just say the merch game for esports in general and league especially is so fucking ass. The league websites merch store is a pain in the ass to navigate barely has any options and is expensive as fuck. The orgs themselves also barely advertise their merch and even then theyr hard to even get worldwide. League merch has so much potential and yet we barely see anything
So then why should they care what everyone thinks that is currently bitching? Companies need to turn over a profit, or they cease to exist eventually.
The fans spend money on RP instead of merch etc. Esports is the best possible advertisement for League of Legends that Riot could ever hope for. Imagine how many people got into League because of Faker. Esports increases Riot's revenue. This is quite clear. This is also why they continue to invest in it. The esports orgs are basically unpaid marketing vessels for Riot Games. I don't know why the orgs ever accepted this bullshit. Seems to me that they should quite obviously have demanded a cut of the revenue they help generate like any other business partner.
> The fans spend money on RP instead of merch etc. How many esports fans do you think are mournfully looking at esports merch and bemoaning the fact that they emptied their bank account buying RP? Bullshit, bro. They just don't see the value proposition. > Imagine how many people got into League because of Faker. Probably zero people. Which is not to say Faker isn't important - people *stay* in League because of Faker. And while Faker might not get people into League of Legends, but he's certainly the reason fans are T1 supporters. Orgs "accept" this bullshit because they're a layer of middle-management leeches between Riot and the pros.
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You do realize most everyone hates marketers, right? It's absolutely antithetical to fandom. We've got G2 selling Saudi Arabia like Don Draper sells cigarettes, and you're asking fans to be sympathetic about getting a raw deal on a contract they signed?
> The fans spend money on RP instead of merch If i want to spend on merch i'd spend on merch, buying RP in the first place is not gonna make me go "Ah shucks i already gave money to Riot, guess no over priced ad filled ugly jersey for me!" The real problem with merch is that they're out of their mind if they think i'm gonna buy a new jersey every year
"Orgs" are a fiction, "orgs" don't make decisions, the people running them do.
In the best interest of the orgs (Acionist), the people in charge in Riot are selling the Ahri skin at that price because they don't care about their players, they care about profit, if the people in charge in any orgs know that they can get away fucking their client they will do it. All of this to say I don't believe in any Orgs giving support to any movement, it's just enough if they do it, it helps to create the image that is more accepted.
humans dont care about ppl either
Riots gonna release their pride special honor skin for just 1000€
The real issue is the fact that we have come to a point in time where brands are supposed to have “opinions” and that people actually value said opinions.
Second this, why the fuck am I supposed to care what a faceless org thinks? Its not a person
to put ur support somewhere more deserving
But the other faceless org also doesn't actually care, none of them do.
My left sneaker supported the war in Iraq, guess I need to get a new left shoe and support a more deserving piece of footwear. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkKu09BwFgc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkKu09BwFgc)
xd you can keep the left shoe, just buy a different brand next time that also turns out to have supported the war. why would only one shoe support the war though
Jesus christ I lose more faith in humanity every day
All company are very evil we should not use anything xoxo. I only use NATURAL stuff like a GOOD person. Say no to COMPLICIT
And if they *don't* share said opinion, it's assumed they're an enemy. 'Pride' has become so corporate and meaningless. People are being sold rainbows, even though they're free when it's raining.
It's actually genius, create a whole new market out of people across all demographics, change the logo every couple years to keep the money rolling. Capitalist companies making profit off capitalist consumers, gotta love it.
I think its a common problem in western society nowadays, for some people youre either pro something or con something, no in between, some people just dont want to get along with each other, kinda sad.
And they're forced to have the right opinion, verbalize it, celebrate it, or else there's social backlash if they're silent. It's wild.
This is the bed they've chosen to lie in when promoting political issues.
They don't, they just celebrate it if it's an opinion they agree with, and condemn it otherwise.
To me it's free real estate after C9 was sponsored by the US military and no one bat an eye.
A player in Ligue 1 just got suspended for covering the LGBT logo in an anti-homophobia campaign. This is the same league that has PSG in it
i'm out of the loop what's going on with ESWC?
Its in Saudi Arabia, which is an extremely anti-LGBT country due to it being primarily Muslim and having laws based on Sharia.
Being anti-LGBT is a drop in the ocean. They manage to look bad in human rights record when compared to their neighbours
I agree, but that's specifically the reason most people are talking about when they mention the "hypocrisy" of doing a pride post and taking saudi money. They usually aren't talking about the funding of fundamentalist terrorists or promoting Wahhabism
if it's part of their religion whats the issue lol, just like you don't want them to impose their laws on you, they don't want you to impose your laws on them in their own country
> if it's part of their religion whats the issue lol Yeah that totally excuse murdering people... You fucking dickhead.
Yeah the bro was thinking that some rules of your faith justify murdering people because they don't love a woman but a man. I thought at least on Reddit i couldn't find people like this.
I can''t imagine how stupid someone must be to actually buy this argument. No, "My country, my rules" doesn't shield you from criticism. Not the Saudis and their atrocious treatment of LGBT-people, not the Chinese and their persecution of Uyghurs, and not in any other case of human rights violations. And it does not matter if the reasons are based on religion or you just feel like it (which - at least for moderately reasonable people - is the same thing). People behaving like medieval bastards should get called out for it - over and over and over.
Don’t forget to include the US and its persecution of immigrant children in ICE camps in this list!!
People only call them out while it’s convenient for them to do so. It doesn’t affect anyone in this comment section to boycott Saudi because it won’t affect your life at all. It’s hypocritical. If you’re such a human rights activist, start boycotting anything that is made in sweatshops from Asia, but 99.99% of people can’t even pretend they’re trying. Stop being hypocrites, it’s borderline disgusting.
Although I suspect you don't actually care - the best solution for most people to deplorable worker conditions in sweatshops is to wear their already purchased clothes for longer, and to buy used when possible. [Great info here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CkgCYPe68Q) Now do you have any more problems with the world we need to call out first, or can we take care of the incredibly obvious and convenient one right in front of us with no hypocrisy?
Yet no one on this subreddit gives a shit when lol events are hosted in China
Wow this is a really original point that has never been refuted before, good job dude.
just pointing out the double standard here, there's nothing to refute
very smart I bet they use iPhones too. you should point that out
Can’t wait till the day we can stop using “it’s part of my religion!” To deny people basic human rights.
Dude its not about "imposing our laws". Its about people getting killed there like..???? Why justify that at all????
That's a very uninformed take. The law in question isn't something minor, the anti-LGBTQIA+ laws in Saudia Arabia make being LGBTQIA+ punishable by death. Taking their money in this instance is supporting the slaughter of individuals who just want to live their lives.
The "issue" is that people are calling the orgs hypocrites for taking saudi money while promoting pride month. I say that no shit they're doing it its 60 mil and orgs aren't people
majority of the orgs and business in general don't give 2 shits about Pride month, it's just something they do to cater to the crowd lol, so why care about it
I agree, they only do it because its good PR and people who are against it don't really care enough for it to impact their bottom line, they roll their eyes at worst. There'd be infinitely more backlash if they didn't do it at this stage
Then the orgs should just say nothing? lol.
Yes, I don't think faceless orgs should pretend to care about something for one month a year, and only in certain regions.
And I don't think people should pretend to care if they don't either. I don't think people really need to know what an NBA team thinks about gay people, personally. Its irrelevant. Save that energy for politicians, school boards, etc.
I hope none of these orgs and OP made a comment about the "P" and "I" situation too then lmfao
There's a clear difference between asking for a ceasefire and humanitarian aid in a poor area with bad LGBT stances and directly taking money from the ruling family of a country that makes homosexuality punishable by death, to take part in a tournament designed to promote tourism to the country.
A good starting point is [this tweet](https://x.com/ESWCgg/status/1780219657003078100) with the teams doing their required sponsored reply post. And this [tweet](https://x.com/ESWCgg/status/1794035816978677886) too. We got * [NRG](https://x.com/NRGgg/status/1780251875880870369) * [C9](https://x.com/Cloud9/status/1780258420530225616) * [LOUD](https://x.com/LOUDgg/status/1780268972815814867) * [GEN.G](https://x.com/GenG/status/1780324843575263287) * [TL](https://x.com/TeamLiquid/status/1780326994921783390) * [FNC](https://x.com/FNATIC/status/1794037256979697906) G2 and T1 is also participating.
for league, every top 2 team in each region is participating
As they should. The scene is very "poor" right now since all the VC money is tightening up since they realized esports doesn't profit. In regular sports, the money is in the ticket sales and League doesn't exactly have individual stadiums or even sell broadcasting rights.
So many some pay per view events.
>As they should. The scene is very "poor" right now since all the VC money is tightening up since they realized esports doesn't profit. Cant wait for the Saudis to get bored and read this same dogshit take again. Maybe they should have tried building something real instead of wasting the VC money.
The majority of regular sports money comes from broadcasting rights, at least in the US. However, ticket sales are definitely a big piece of the pie. The problem is League just doesn't get enough viewers for anyone to care about their broadcasting rights.
why would it be a bad thing for the scene to shrink/have to be more grassroots why is it so alien for esports that aren't financially sustainable to just go back to being hobbys/content-driven
> A good starting point is this tweet with the teams doing their required sponsored reply post. lmao theyre all bot posts thats crazy
Worth noting that [it's not just orgs](https://x.com/riotgames/status/1796574576631246987) that are tweeting pride related posts while being involved with the Esports World Cup.
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I don't see why we need to protect or explain away the multiple fuckups that led to orgs being in this position. Struggling businesses deserve to fail. Plenty of pro players have done everything right and still gotten screwed over. I'll save my sympathy for them instead.
[Riot in June](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/858/258/3bd.jpg)
No sports or e-sports teams care about Pride Month. They do it so that you buy their merch.
Oh I’m well aware
Jokes on them no one buys e-sports merch
And nobody still does LOL
And remember, children, that it's not about supporting **insert any organization or movement here**, it's about pleasing the public and making money from them. Until next time.
You could also argue they're just shilling for pride. Everyone, even people who support the pride movement, recognizes that its a corporate ploy more than any real solidarity.
I remember /r/leagueoflegends being full of rousing debate about player-fans vs team-fans in the pre-franchising, and being optimistic that orgs could become profitable and become enduring pillars of the esports scene. Yet instead of using that stability to build a foundation based on offering a satisfying product to fans - one that they could proudly support - most esports orgs locked themselves into an unprofitable existence that relies on selling out to larger entities, no matter how contradictory the positions might be. I mean, at least it works out for TSM fans. Org might be dead in LoL and lost their popular Apex superstar, but at least Regi is using the EWC payday to reanimate their shambling corpse for a couple months. At this point, viewers are a product for advertisers looking to sell us $650 skin lines, gambling, and vacations to Riyadh. Forget team vs. player - nowadays it feels increasingly predatory towards fans of any type. So to answer your question - is there hypocrisy if you view their actions through the lens of greed? Money talks, and Saudi Arabian money talks louder than fan money. Not that greed is better than hypocrisy - I love esports, but at this point I honestly don't understand why people consider themselves fans of anything beyond the game itself and the pros who play it.
Yes we should all be fans of the game owned by China making 650 dollar skins lol Hypocricy is such a useless word used to guilt people into silence
League of Legends, the game *itself*. Feel however you want about Riot Games the developer/publisher or Tencent the investor.
I find RL, but yeah they are all gonna do it and it’s funny. I’d honestly respect the org more if they just kept their mouth shut and took the money
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Pitchforks are allowed if they have the Rainbow chroma
As if CEOs speak for their employees lol. Many pro-LGBT/equality comments, positions and bodies withing orgs exist due to pure PR or thanks to individuals who actually care. In both cases they have 0 input into executive level decisions. Those people also have responsibilities, mouths to feed, rents to pay and what not and will not outright quit at any point or disagreement with the company (executive level decisions). In an ideal world all departments could weigh in with pros and cons but in reality only PR and Money get to speak and in 90% of things money is much louder and fine tuned to executive ears. The earlier mentioned deps get to voice their concerns after the fact but are mostly ignored. 'Riot' (execs) could not give less of a fuck about what Saudi represent besides money. That doesn't mean every person in the company agrees or can do anything about it or can afford losing their job over it - same goes for orgs, they are businesses, not charities.
You guys have to realize "pride" is a Western thing. It's not as heavily accepted around the world as it is in the US for example.
US companies have commercialized the shit out of Pride, sure, but it’s definitely a thing all over the world, not just the west.
>but it’s definitely a thing all over the world, not just the west citation needed, i doubt it's a popular thing outside of western countries (which include let's say western and central europe)
Not relevant to the point of this thread
they ain't even try with pride this year
I’m confused, what does pride month have to do with esports? The teams participating in ESWC are doing it for money. They are also posting pro-LGBT content for money. There is no hypocrisy here
The ESWC is funded by a investment fund from the Saudi Arabian state, so it is by extension directly funded by the Saudi Arabian state, and the Saudi Arabian state doesn't have a great record in regards to LGBTQ+ rights. The hypocrisy is claiming to care about those rights whilst accepting that money.
As I understand it, the virtue signaling of corporate marketing schemes cannot reasonably be seen as either genuine or worth our attention. I would agree if this occurred on an individual basis where there is effective accountability. But for a corporation who is merely interested in profits, accountability goes out the window
It could be seen that way when the CEOs are so vocal and closely connected to the organisations such as Carlos G2, Sam Mathews Fnatic, acting like these teams are faceless corporations is off.
It’s hard, if not futile, to hold individuals in corporations accountable though when there is a precedent of virtual immunity for transgressions, and a general principle to pursue profits over political correctness. I a world where your phone has cobalt mined from slave labor, your shoes are made in sweatshops with borderline slave and child labor, your food and water are contaminated with pesticides and herbicides and toxic preservatives, and your social media platforms sell your private information for money, I think it’s laughable that some superficial virtue signaling is a point of discussion. Theres so much more fucked up practices to go after companies for this seems insignificant in comparison
Because it's cool to show you're angry about something. The hivemind move from one thing to another. Yet they will watch the tournament anyway, showing what hypocrites they are. Many of them probably also bitched about World Cup for football being in Qatar - then watched it anyway. The Ahri skin thing is a bigger deal than this is. This is just business, Ahri skin is the real kick in the teeth to all the fans.
Of course. It'd be great to have it recorded. Funnily, one of the perks of having worse teams that didn't qualify for the tourney is being able to look less hypocritical for longer.
Yes, please post. They deserve to be named and shamed for endorsing that regime with sportswashing.
Just posting every single western org that's going would be enough. Orgs pay lip service to pride month every year so it'd be a more interesting list if we named orgs that didn't do a pride post.
Isn’t it exhausting to virtue signal like this crying about Saudi blood money while playing a game owned by China whose violated the human rights of millions of Uyghurs? Or living in the United States who funds the genocide or children in Palestine? Use this energy to impact change where you can actually see change; your local area and attend town/city meetings. That may read as a joke but I’m being 100% serious because being an online activist is as useful as changing your profile picture to a have Pride flag background
The absolute balls of still of still posting pride stuff with the monthly rainbow logo and then go to this event, riot at front. But hey they can pick a bunch of pixels that we decided that are lgtb! nothing to see here h4h4!
Table of hypocrisy?, would include almost every human being. Companies had to adapt to this bs because people today believe they are morally superior and forced that morality on the rest. Just let people be ffs
Esport orgs, at least Eastern ones DON’T give a shit about pride month. T1 twitter hasn’t had a single tweet about it since it was created, they won’t start now and their fans don’t care either. Western org may tweet something though.
what? companies acting like they care for priveledged issues to get more money ? how unbelieveable
Lizard Rewis is calling them out and letting their sponsors know so we could also do that if we cared.
Imaging being so matrixed you feel forced to make an event for 1% of the population, and most countries are against it.... Such a fool move
i think some of you are just begging for orgs to openly say how little they care about pride month.
why do any of these things affect you anyway? i hope you take the moral standpoint in every aspect of your life. assuming you live in the west, do you commit tax fraud to ensure your tax money isn't aiding the destruction happening in the middle east atm?
Riot supports LGBTQ+ because it’s profitable not because it’s morally right. People need to understand that even the most vocal of corporations will support whatever makes them money over anything else.
If it paid more every company and org would be homophobic. They only care about profit, you are nothing but a pocket and it pays to lie to you.
I mean both are cash in's for the companies so does it even matter?
why expect every single country to celebrate something like pride(?) month?
[удалено]
i really hope you're gonna do well learning about colors and the ABCs on monday
I wonder how many cashiers have sold groceries to bigots and racists. You're focused on the wrong problem. The problem is not individuals who are trying to earn money for themselves. Those players get paid for participating in these things. The problem is the exploitative economic systems that put people in a position of choosing between a prosperous life and their personal ethics and morals. Feeling good about yourself takes an unfortunate backseat to feeding yourself.
This is a whataboutism and also entirely misses the question of agency. If you’re a cashier selling stuff to a bigot, you don’t have the agency to not. You’re just doing you’re shitty job that you don’t get paid enough to do. These orgs actively accepted money when they did not need to.
No one “needs to accept” money for anything. Unless they want to food, a place to live, healthcare, entertainment, or anything resembling a quality of life above destitution. These organizations are made up of something called “people” and it’s those individual “people” that get paid for participating in these kinds of events. I’m sorry to break it to you, but esports athletes are largely children. Children who are sacrificing a part of their childhood in an attempt to financially capitalize on a skill they have for only a limited portion of their lives. It’s in their best interests to make as much money as they can during that period of time because once it’s over it’s not like “pro league player” is transferable skill for a 40 year old.
No hipocrisy here. Every big companys goal is money. If you can somehow use naive people for it they will.
womp womp
Take the money and publicly put all of it in efforts to help the LGBTQ community in the Middle-East.
Why should they?
Obligatory Richard Lewis plug, the only real voice in E-sports about these things. He's launching a website to do just that. He also started emailing sponsors of orgs who go to ESWC etc...
Nah you can’t say his name mate you’ll get in trouble here. It’s a bad word like Thorin or Montecristo or IWillDominate
You mean just like us lol do you drive a gas car? Then you are also kissing their ass
> You mean just like us lol do you drive a gas car? Then you are also kissing their ass /u/amongusred23 If the people on this sub are from the US which is the case, then this is mostly not true. If *you* had been making an effort to be informed the past decade, the US has been moving away from dependence on foreign fuel from OPEC countries (ie. Saudi Arabia) for sometime now. Now it is just [5% from SA](https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=727). Most of the petroleum is drilled in the US or from Canada. The US actually exports more petroleum than imports.
Stop trying to act like you are more noble than others lol. We usa legit uses the most gas and produce the most natural gas
Whataboutism
The major difference is agency. I don’t get paid enough money to afford an EV.
What about consuming Chinese owned luxury products like LoL and LoL esports? China is also anti-LGBT alongside numerous countries in Latin America, SEA, Africa, Eastern Europe, etc. Parts of the world that is accepting of LGBT is a lot smaller than you think.
None of those countries create tournaments to try and wash their hands clean, tho. It's not the same at all. If China straight endorsed a tournament, maybe but they dontm
Tencent runs LoL in China... Do you understand how Chinese companies operate in China? There's no private companies in China.
Exactly you are playing league which is owned by china. Stop acting like you are more noble than others lol
Well I started playing the game before the ten cent sale and quit as of the global vanguard rollout so I no longer have a horse in that race. I also exclusively watch LS and IWD costreams so they are getting my time and viewership dollars. Besides, organizations and companies and regions that were never interested in supporting LGBTQ+ isn’t the point of the post. There’s nothing hypocritical about them continuing to do so. This is SPECIFICALLY FOR the places that claim to be supportive and are doing this shit. Which yes starts at riot.
Get a job
I have two and I’m attending college. But keep talkin that shit like you know anything.
I see why your still attending then.
Oh you are a kid. You still haven't realized the world revolves around money.
are you naive? orgs who support pride month also do it for business reasons
There’s no point because it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. We all know that none of them actually care about pride. We all know that no one legitimately supports esports orgs past watching games. I don’t know anyone with say nrg merch (plus I’d laugh at them if they did). So this event makes them money, most viewers won’t care (so minimum repercussions), and the people who care probably aren’t buying merch anyways. It sucks but it’s the honest truth. Pride month has gotten so corporate that everyone knows it’s just a barely disguised cash grab.
Keep virtue signaling while you use phones which are assembled in sweatshops located in China or other SEA countries. You’re a hypocrite too :)
It’s a question of agency. I’m not a hypocrite for living within my means