ABANDONING LCS: Evil Geniuses and Golden Guardians leave LoL - The Four Horsemen S2E14 (feat. Danan)
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- čas přidán 3. 08. 2024
- Evil Geniuses and Golden Guardians have suddenly left the LCS, League of Legends' North American professional league, leaving only 8 team remaining out of the original 10 franchise slots. Former GM of Golden Guardians and long-time esports manager Danan Flander joins the Horsemen to discuss how we arrived at this moment and what it means in the broader context of the ongoing "esports winter." Is the LCS in a doom spiral or will this help boost interest in the league with fewer bottom-tier matches? The hosts discuss the disparate goals of EG and GGS that led to the same conclusion to leave, but with wildly different reasoning behind the decision.
The Four Horsemen is the premier esports industry show that reacts to important news and critical conversations across all major titles. Esports veterans Duncan "Thorin" Shields, Richard Lewis, and Christopher "MonteCristo" Mykles use their decades of experience to shed light and debate on key esports topics as they emerge. Each episode they are joined by an expert guest to help further provide insider information on the topic at hand.
This episode was filmed on November 27th, 2023.
Watch The Four Horsemen on Spotify with video:
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Come join the Insight on Esports Discord for in-depth discussion across esports: / discord
0:00:00 - Intro and episode context
0:05:59 - Golden Guardians
0:31:18 - Problems with Riot's franchise model and business practices
1:05:42 - Is LCS downsizing a good thing?
1:42:26 - How will this affect other organizations?
1:52:28 - What does this mean for the esports industry?
2:27:08 - Closing thoughts
#lolpodcast
#esports
#esportspodcast - Hry
The intro is great! Well done to whoever made it!
Richard + Thorin on the same podcast has me like a starving peasant being given a feast these days. BTN spoiled me.
So true 😂
I concur
I got too excited when I misread the guest's name and thought it was Deman
WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT.... 2 LCS TEAMS IN BIG BIG TROUBLE
@@Rayon811 CAN U BELIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVE IT?
@@Tragantar1310 I DO. NOT. BELIEEEEVE IT.
I do not believe
John Needham's passion being likened to a Gnar's charging rage bar culminating into transcendence is absolutely fantastic
i enjoyed that one
It is still so MIND BOGGLING to me how these guys were doing God's work into researching all the shady stuff EG (and others) were doing behind the scenes and so many people of League community (especially reddit) still hated on them! But now look what happened... susprise surprise! Nobody wanted to have ANYTHING to do with the shady org (not even Riot LMAO) and now they got catapulted out of the league. GOOD RIDDANCE!
Indeed bro
Dude I got 16k upvotes by mostly commenting "cum" or "mmm cock", I don't think anyone should care what an average redditor thinks and that is what manifests as hate.
danan is clearly one of the best lfn guests
Based guest, great speaker, he really deserves a top spot on the shortlist for LFN content on related subjects
Excellent episode. Great guest. Incredible analogies from Thorin lmao
The point Thorin makes about the conversation being always around the system , is very simptomatic of American corporative communication. As part of my ongoing master studies , I am reading several books on process management, and they all emphasize how important it is to analyze the processes , without making anyone buthurt , taking the onus from the individuals and puting it in the process itslef because " it improves communication" . While I can see the advantages to that sort of communication , and I am very inclined in communicating that way like that myself in some situations, harsh truths must not be avoided. Yet, we see that all the time in American culture, be it in the corporative world , media ,etc. Accountability has become inexistent , and comfort is overemphasized. Thus this leads into complacency on one hand , and lack of self-awareness on the other. You would think people would have the maturity to be self critical but it seems that is something that is lacking profoundly in this space
Lmao you are going to college to learn to be stupid but you think you are getting knowledge. Congratulations and good luck with the debt.
"Master studies"
Mate, you need to go back and take a high school English class to fiz this fucking grammar; before you continue this master study.
I can say as someone who was in the space years before franchising and saw a lot of this coming that you are spot on. There is a lot of tone policing and corporate-speak that essentially boils down to a passive aggressive + conflict avoidant environment and if you have the audacity to go against that culture, you will be pariah'd.
The entire economic situation for esports is a result of this culture. It will really shock people in the next decade or so when stories come out more, but there were always voices of concern with the way contracts were forming, who people were doing business with outside of the industry to bring money in, and the overall operations of both Riot and esports orgs. If you voiced that concern and acted on it at all, your career was jeapordized.
This is somewhat expected in the corporate landscape in general especially concerning business.
But when this culture also enabled numerous cases of abuse, whether that be sexual misconduct, abuse/neglect of mental health of players/staff, and other actions directly leading to the harm of people, that crosses a line.
A culture of fear that leads to people keeping quiet over some genuinely horrible things won't last forever.
this isnt exclusive to american business. The primary issue with why most companies choose to operate elsewhere is specifically based on the amount of government control, and more specifically, sanctions in the country that limit what a business can do from a management perspective. This leads to upper management consisting of essentially puppets for lack of a better term
That intro was incredible
Brilliant intro, only bit that would've made it better is seeing someone like Richard Lewis writing the statements on a chalkboard and pinning the pictures onto a wall like a movie detective.
I'm a simple woman, I see Richard... I click instantly (lmao that opening is amazing)
glad you brought danan on the show for this, his perspective was interesting
1:47:00 Thorin casually dissing on French not washing themselves, pure gold
The worst part is that if you told me 2 teams left LCS, I could've guessed atleast 5 teams that might've left. I'm not confident that these 8 teams will stay in LCS themselves.
Watched live. Excellent episode love the guest!
The biggest problem with franchising was that people werent buying into teams in the early days, they bought into players. With franchising players bounce around from team to team and you dont really get this chance to see a team grow. They should have left things the way they were with relegations because it gave regular players a chance to compete for an LCS slot. Some of the best teams ever from the LCS history came from the challenger scene. Franchising was doomed to begin with and any team that got out early was smart.
I was a TSM fan because I really liked Dyrus and Turtle, then Bjergsen later on. I wasn't so attached to the org that I even knew what kind of other shit was going on outside of those guys streaming and playing on stage. I have never given a red cent to an org but have subbed at times to different players at different tiers. I think I'm probably in the majority of League of Legends fans that way.
Doesn't matter what game you cover or if I watch it/keep up with it. Just love the industry insight and analysis. Easily my favourite podcast you guys do.
Instant thumbs up for the names on the file folders right off the jump. Love it. Good editors guys!
Okay I had to edit this, the whole intro is so dope!
Based on Monte’s comments about having warm coats for the esports winter, it would be awesome to have an animated short with Monte, Thorin, and Richard traipsing about a winter wasteland (à la GoT/the revenant), finding the animal corpses of EG, GG, etc., skinning them, and fashioning their coats from them.
Oh lord, skinning TSM as well?
@@nguyentri3608tsm wouldnt be worthy of that they died too long ago, just a rotting corpse to avoid
The intro is incredible!
That intro was better than anything Hollywood has put in the last year.
Fantastic episode guys kept me sane during work! I honestly think at the digital goods thing you should be able to type a code like 'LEC', 'LCK', 'LCS' (or even esports) to allow some revenue of the RP to just go to certain leagues. That way the argument for developing individual team skins/ banners/ profile pics isn't there for it being time consuming or affecting the quality of the good itself. I think that way the earnest is on the fans. Looking forward to the EG files. I would love IP rights to change for broadcasting and allowing more touranments. Keep up the amazing work.
i see 4horsemen, i watch.
thank you all.
Man I love the intro you guys just consistently improve its awesome to see
Thorin needs to get the longer pop filter for the SM7B and put it on his MV7 for that peaking & plosives
This definitely goes down in the books as an all-time important content piece. People should seriously give this a watch.
Honestly I forgot how the summoning procces worked so I just wrote some comments under Monti's Tweets that I want this but that was probably wrong 😅 love that I got it anyways ❤
1:03:29 Riot won't listen when you tell them the wheel exists
thank you Thoorin for the intro. that made my day. :)
ps. you should have never trusted me, I mean us...
i'm so ready for the EG files series
1:08:00 hate to say it but Travis Gafford has been saying it would be better as an 8 team league for quite awhile...
That intro is fire
started like a true crime documentary, love it
Just dawned on me how much theses guys are like the two Muppets on the balcony.
I’m still a big believer that scheduling the broadcast for LCS is a huge issue. I want to watch a specific team play, and with the broadcast just being a set timeframe for each team to play I can never know when to tune in unless it’s the first match of the day.
Don't they post the schedule on lolesports?
@@LikeACrouton they do, but aside from the first game it’s never at the specific time stated since all the matches are played in sequential order no matter how long or short a match is. Since it’s one long stream the match times are never consistent.
At this point, esports is like a phoenix (insert clever worlds song 2019 one-liner). It must die so it can live.
That new Golden State Warriors Arena was very pricey....
I would love Riot to make custom skins for teams and pro players. This is something I would spend money.
I have not purchased a skin since 2015-2016.
But if Riot made individual skins for the teams and players during the season and half the money goes to the team I would fully support and purchase.
I made a conscious decision to stop giving Riot money years back because they weren't putting money back into the game to fix champions or game play elements. Riot was just creating a bigger art department and more skins every year.
Riot claims to have reinvented the wheel...
Dont watch LoL but I just love these guys.
I didn't watch CS until very recently, but I'd still watch the CS 4 horsemen episodes. It's fun to find out about the dumb shit in other esports
2:34:30 THREE HORSEMEN!? This is an outrage! I demand that you bring back Chobra, even if he just sits there in the fourth box, saying nothing.
39:11 they did branded emotes at the beginning of last year (i think)- im curious to know how those sales went- obviously if it were a success they wouldve kept doing it but what do i know
Licorice not being on a team has to be one of the most criminal things this coming split.
Was Thorin talking about Danan when he was saying "I am so sick of the use of phrases like "positive energy" and "I don't get Americans Richard,..."?
I was watching thinking that Danan (well everyone) looks super uncomfortable here because its not really clear if he's shitting directly on the guest or not.
Remember the days before the LCS. It was wonderful.
Why don’t you guys upload on Spotify anymore? Love the content but kills my phone battery when I have to leave YT open
We do - open.spotify.com/episode/3eKZxJYZ3oXBOO3NZyWCA0?si=d549ed53addc40de
OWL being exclusive to CZcams contributed to its downfall imo
I thought the dirt on Danans shirt was dirt on my screen for a second.
Imagine how great this show would be if Thorin would ACTUALLY let someone finish a sentence....like, sir let people finish a thought before injecting yourself in
5 out of 10 teams wanted out of NA LCS according to Richard 29:30 . And we're expecting these guys to beat the best that Korea, China and EU has to offer. Lmfao
Apart from EG and Golden Guardians, I think the other three were DIG, Immortals and maybe 100 thieves.
Bro sneaked in EU like they weren't a wildcard region at worlds this year kek.
@@Gurpreet-sv5zg EU has outperformed NA historically, just like how JDG losing to T1 doesn't mean JDG weren't the best team coming into the tournament.
@@teemotime4032 EU has out performed NA historically as a whole relative to the competition. In terms of NA vs EU it's two wildcards that are even footing. With NA getting out of quarter we going with the more recent performance.
@@Gurpreet-sv5zg Recent performance: Series won against the other at worlds: NA 1 (NRG) - EU 2 (BDS, FNC). Maps won vs korean/chinese teams: NA 0 - EU 4.
1:15:00 soooo time for league of legends 2?
thanks for the content
Anyone gonna check that Danny isn't still locked up in EG's basement, still shooting promo videos for Riot with Nas?
Ahhh Thoorin I just got off my freeze pipe and after that banger of and intro you crack me up because its soooo truee. I ain't doin shit my guy! this is going to be a banger. I'm keen.
I think Travis may have been right for once, which is rare, but for the past few years he has been saying the LCS should go to 8 teams for all the reason why monte said this is a good idea and basically the same reasons travis recently gave for this being a good thing.
God I'd love a tournament league system instead of the current splits, give me more international competition and it will let the best western teams improve.
I'm gonna need Monte to coin "we're your short on esports" 😂
I think that NA not competing internationally kinda killed it for me. Why do I watch esports? To see the best players play and to have conversations about it with people. Whats the point of watching the LCS? None of the players are good, if the game is good i can just watch the co streamer highlights bc its more engaging. Pretty sure i watched more LEC bc format was better and had more tension than infinite regular season game hell.
I wish Thorin went the Richard route and went for the "How's your LCS TODAY dickhead", that would've been awesome!
I seen 100 Valorants ads to 0 League of Legends Ads. Im js
League is a game that supposed to die like 10 years ago, esport let League grow, but franchise made league way bigger than it supposed to be, it will only die sooner because of it
The teams don't do a good job of creating idols of the players. They need to bridge other sources like models, sports players and actors do.
1:39:55 1:54:35
Its so stupid that they dont just make ward skins for the teams. Would be so easy
They cant do it since even with a full text to speach ai voice it would be too easy to accidentally share identifying information and get in legal trouble, but how awsome would it be to have the fourth horseman be a pale rider talking about the death of eg with the disembodied voice of its resentful former employees.
The real ones
I have to say in hindsight that riot was right and riot tried to do whats best for esport. The only thing it could have achieve tho is to slow down the transition as twitch in itself grow big enough to offer its own path to become a successful streamer. I would say that even tho esport use twitch as a platform it is competing against it as well for the viewers of course. It all breaks down to that now and e sports really needs now an edge like gambling to gain grounds again. Even that might be in vain now. When riot said you are nothing without us that was true in the beginning because esport did serve as a head jump. But that is basically all gone now. Twitch is just able to offer way much more. It works locally to your country you are your own boss, you can do it part time etc. Riot knew that it wont be able to out grow the natural process of the streaming platform the only thing that it can do i to slow down the transition lol. If you can think without the bias that riot is bad you might actually agree. Esports and game streaming as a service is competing with each other and esport needs to offer more then what your favorite streamer can offer. It also need to offer more in terms of job prospects and future offering to not have jumped over in the process. And it looks bleak for esports. I think that is the esport winter in the core. We might be at a point where coming from the esports as a newcomer might held you back actually. As to if you were to concentrate on your own stream, brand. There is possibly also a denial in the scene about this. Also i have to say that the old ways esports used to be is not going to work out anymore. Esports needs money the competition needs to be big it needs to offer also a lot more for the players and also the staff aswell and gambling is probably the last thing that can make a difference thats because of the venue, ad surface. But even then it might be late.
Nice!
yes content creators, make your content.
The doomer boomers
anything except korea and china in just dead there is just not interesting anymore there is no m5 like teams anymore and dont forget lol is very old now its need lol2.
Truly i watch t1 games in the majority (or lpl lck games)
the developer must be involved on esport so they can provide solutions to in gam problems but not in the organization of the tournaments its good to have an income from the tournaments so they can have a team to support turnaneds with tools and on the spot truble shooting if some bug occur .
What is dead may never die e sports deLinda est
Dont hate on mobile games though shit can be mad fun and social
So I think I know how well this comment will go down. But about Thorins point on nobody saying they wanted 8 LCS teams before the news, Travis Gafford did suggest that 8 teams would be better for the LCS a few months ago…
A few months ago, after news was out about a lot of teams wanting to leave, and after multiple teams had already left. Including TSM. You'd have to have called for it years ago for it to matter imo.
How do you make digital goods that people will buy though? it makes sense in Valorant where there are only x amount of weapons so it's easy to make skins for that set amount, you can't make skins for lol teams there are soo many champions and they aren't slowing down so that's completely unrealistic, still can't fathom how it's been a decade plus and no other developer has even thought about trying to challenge Riot with a game that's just definitively better for modern standards.
Would have gotten a CLG Tristan skin. :C
You just make the skins for popular champions, same way they've always sold skins. I don't imagine anyone's calling for a team skin for every champion.
want to revive the interest in the league, bring out skins for a singular key moment in the league, stixxay on-hit tristana, doublelift penta on jinx. Have the skins making money purely for that team. Split the money between the player and the team. If the player leaves the Org, the Org gets the full revenue. If the team leaves the league any revenue is split between the entire league
There is so much more than just champions. There are wards, there is the map, monsters, UI, voices, dances.
First
What if, for the digital goods, the teams would need to hire the people themselves for the development of the goods and working in cooperation with riot
@@forestcaine they could work like contractors, being basically riot employees, just that the league teams would need to pay their salary instead of riot, that way, riot doesn't lose anything, because their own employees still work on riot's own ingame goods
Monte and thorin 🤡
SR is awful now. I tried to play a draft game the other day and got matched with someone playing their first game. I quit and won’t go back.