Author: Clark Scally|Yuca Kosugi
Technology has evolved computer screens into virtual arenas allowing players around the world to team up and battle against each other. Some Occidental students are engaged in this culture of gaming, and students team up with friends to play MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) games. A few even took initiative and competed at a collegiate tournament for “League of Legends” (“League”).
Students at Occidental, such as economics major Ethan Eisenbarth (junior) and his friends, are a part of the growing community of gamers worldwide who play “League.” Released by Riot Games in Santa Monica, “League” is one of the rising games in the industry. The game has 32 million monthly active players in more than 145 countries. More people use “League” than Instagram on a daily basis with “League” logging 12 million daily active visitors compared to Instagram’s 7.5 million.
Eisenbarth initially played “StarCraft” but his roommate, chemistry major Tian Zhu (junior), introduced him to “League.” The two often team up with their friends Walker Miner (junior), also a chemistry major, physics major Chris Steele (junior) and Steele’s friends in Colorado.
“We just play whenever we’re online,” Eisenbarth said. “It’s very nonchalant.”
Similar to Eisenbarth and his friends, players often team up to play together in 5-versus-5 or 3-versus-3 matches. Players can either form teams with people they know or random players. The objective of “League” is to destroy the opponent’s home base by assigning roles and coordinating with teammates.
“You go in with a specific strategy in mind, but that can all change based on what the enemy team does,” Steele said.
The team aspect of “League” is one of the reasons that the game has reached its popularity since its release in October 2009. “League” is also completely free to play, though players can choose to spend money on optional in-game micro-transactions. The game is often compared with “StarCraft,” which is also a MOBA game but is mostly played one-on-one.
“’StarCraft’ in my opinion is a lot more difficult of a game to play and to understand,” Eisenbarth said. “’League of Legends’ appeals more to viewership.”
English and Comparative Literary Studies major Kosmas Stocking (senior) agrees that “StarCraft” is much more tedious and competitive than “League.” Stocking pursued “StarCraft” semi-professionally by competing in tournaments and organized a “League of Legends” team at Occidental. According to him, “StarCraft” requires more mechanical skill level but lacks the teamwork component.
By accommodating both competitive players like Stocking and casual players like Eisenbarth, Riot Games is developing the culture of eSports as a way to bolster “League” within the gaming industry. Riot Games salaries the top eight teams in the world and hosts one of the largest pool prize tournaments with “League.”
The gaming company hosts the League of Legends’ Championship Series where top teams around the world compete to win $1 million. The Taipei Assassins defeated the Azubu Frost from South Korea at the Galen Center at the University of Southern California last October. The Season Two World Finals tickets sold out in three days for the 10-thousand-seat arena. The third season for Riot’s championship series began February 2013.
Azubu, a German game media company, created an NCAA-equivalent collegiate tournament for “StarCraft” and “League of Legends” called the Collegiate StarLeague (CSL). Although it is not NCAA-sanctioned, CSL has a number of eligibility requirements to make sure that members of each team are current full-time students at accredited universities and are not on academic probation. There must be a minimum of five players per team with additional members allowed for substitutes. CSL holds leagues in three regions, North America, Europe and Asia, and the winners go on to compete with each other for a final world championship.
Last season, Texas A&M; won the first Azubu Collegiate League of Legends Grand Championships held Feb. 17 at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. The team won $40,000 after beating the top teams from the European and Asian regions.
Occidental students have competed in these collegiate leagues for both “StarCraft” and “League of Legends.” In Fall 2010, Stocking organized the StarCraft club and the Occidental CSL StarCraft team.
“I thought it’d be cool to establish a gaming community at Oxy for people who were more hardcore about their gaming,” Stocking said.
He then noticed that there was a bigger pool of people who played “League of Legends” and switched over to creating a team to compete in IvyLoL last year before CSL for “League” was launched. IvyLoL is another collegiate tournament for “League,” similar to CSL. He abandoned the club aspect during the change because he figured that everything he wanted to do could be done outside of a club, such as entering tournaments.
The group competed at the first season of CSL League of Legends this past fall. Stocking’s team posted a record of 2-4 that season with both the wins resulting from the opposition not showing up and forfeiting. Scheduling mistakes caused the Occidental team to miss and forfeit matches as well. The members last fall were Stocking, Jeff LeBlow (senior), Luke Ehlert (junior), Sean Sasaki (senior), Jose Gamez (senior) and Nicholas Hung (sophomore).
“The individual skill level of the players was too low, and people were unwilling to dedicate themselves to learning their roles,” Stocking said. The highest ranked member was LeBlow who was a platinum with the rest being gold and silver ranks.
Stocking observed that students at Occidental are mostly casual gamers instead of hardcore ones. Hardcore gamers, he explains, often play competitively on a semi-professional level which involves putting in hours to the point where it is no longer fun.
“There’s a culture there that doesn’t quite exist at Oxy, and I tried to go about changing it, but it was just too hard to do on my own,” Stocking said. “It was just too much entropy to fight.”
The plan for the group was to practice twice a week playing three games each time on top of the two competitions that were scheduled. In reality, the group was often only able to practice two games a week along with the two competitions. The practices consisted of working on teamwork and specific strategies.
“[It was] the combination of it not being an on-campus group and the fact that [Stocking] stopped doing it because people weren’t very dedicated,” Gamez said.
Gamez expressed that the time commitment Stocking expected was too much for him and other members, which resulted in most of the members discontinuing competing in the tournaments.
“I think with my defacto resignation, the rest of the league came down,” Stocking said. “It was far too difficult to organize a consistent practice schedule. And the players here aren’t as dedicated as other schools. It was very difficult for us to win.”
With that, the Occidental College League of Legends team dissolved, and there are no more groups competing in collegiate tournaments this term.
“In the end, there were other things that I wanted to do, and I felt frustrated that I couldn’t get these things off the ground,” Stocking said, also citing graduation and comps as being an increasing priority. In fact, he rarely plays video games anymore.
Although this particular group no longer competes, the collegiate leagues are open to anyone interested and registration for the Spring 2013 CSL League of Legends began March 16.
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