Riot Games reaches agreement with LoL players that went on strike last week

18 June 2023

Excellent news for the fans of League of Legends and esports in general all over the world: the League of Legends Championship Series Summer Split 2023 will be taking place as planned. While a player strike resulted in the postponement of the initial starting date by two weeks, from June 1st to June 14th 2023, the League Championship Series Players Association (LCSPA) and developer Riot Games have announced an agreement. This means that the LCS Summer Split 2023 will not be cancelled, which was a possibility that loomed over the proceedings had no agreement been reached between the parties.

What happened exactly?

A quick recap for those who are not aware of what happened in the League of Legends community last week. After Riot Games announced a host of changes to the game, none of which were discussed with other stakeholders first, according to the LCSPA, the members of that same LCSPA decided to vote on a walk-out. This resulted in an overwhelming vote in favor, which in turn became the first major player strike in League of Legends and indeed esports history.

The core of the matter revolved around Riot announcing that it would allow organizations to stop fielding amateur teams in the North American Challengers League (NACL) during the summer season. In recent years, various big organizations had been pressuring the developer to provide more financial support for so-called academy rosters, with some of them spending more than $ 1 million a year to create and maintain. As this fundamental change to the (North American) ecosystem came without prior communication or discussion, the LCSPA voted in favor of a strike.

Summer Split cancellation avoided

As a result of the strike, Riot decided to postpone the start of the 2023 Summer Split by two weeks in order to have time to come to an agreement with the LCSPA. At the same time, they announced that the worst scenario was also possible, namely a cancellation of the entire Summer Split 2023 in case an agreement could not be reached. This would have had far-reaching consequences, seeing as it would automatically disqualify LCS players from the annual and much-anticipated end-of-season Worlds competition, the World Championship for League of Legends. Fortunately for everyone involved, it did not go that far.

“The LCSPA, Riot, and the LCS teams have come to an agreement to resume the 2023 LCS Summer Split on June 14th”, the LCS wrote on its own Twitter account on June 9th, 2023, “Concessions were made by Riot and teams to ensure a more sustainable NACL future and a more equitable voice for players in their workplace […] Today’s announcement proves the importance of giving players a meaningful seat at the table. While the agreements fall short of our initially stated goals, Riot has agreed to a series of important changes and committed to meaningful collaboration with the LCSPA before making future decision”.