With League of Legends, Riot Games has been faced with a difficult task for years: How do you turn introverted computer games into real stars that millions of fans are interested in? With a video before the LoL Worlds 2024, you are breaking new ground and relying uninhibitedly on emotion – with complete success.
This has always been Riot Games’ problem:
League of Legends has always been marketed through its players, i.e. the stars and heroes of e-sports. Because you can only really follow the actual game in the necessary depth as an expert.
But only a few e-athletes are suitable to be a typical star. Only a few have an extroverted personality, like to appear in videos or give pithy interviews. These are more people from Europe and North America like trash talk master Doublelift, but they don’t play a big role internationally.
The real stars of LoL are South Koreans and Chinese. Players like Faker, Chovy or knight. But they are usually very introverted, quiet people who show little emotion and only appear reserved in interviews.
LoL – Hall of Legends: Faker Trailer
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Riot Games portrayed top players as silent heroes
That was the solution for years: In the past, Riot Games has often not let players like Faker speak for themselves, instead letting others rave about them and show the influence Faker has on others.
He was staged epically and silently, as a superhuman hero whose gameplay represents him in the game.
Riot Games’ most important marketing tool is the trailers for Anthems from the Worlds, in which players don’t speak at all, but are shown as stylized superheroes fighting a battle.
Riot Games relies shamelessly on emotions
What did Riot Games do differently this year? Immediately before the Worlds final on November 2nd. LoL released the video “Make them beliebe: T1 vs. BLG”. This stages the rivalry between the two final teams for over 7 minutes.
In the main part of the video, one of the players sits in an empty cinema and hears an emotional message from relatives from their home country wishing them well.
Supporter Keria is greeted enthusiastically as “uncle” by two children, while Faker listens with emotion as his father speaks to him.
An emotional sound, the world theme in a piano version, further enhances the effect of the passages.
What impact does the video have? The impact of the trailer can be seen on LoL’s German caster, Tolkin. Even a tough top laner with nerves of steel.
But he says the trailer moves him like no other because it humanizes players like Faker, whom he has admired since he was 14. Even though he has seen the trailer several times, he still gets emotional every time.
What affects him most is when the father speaks to Faker and shows in every interview how much he cares about his son.
You can also catch the fans in the comments on YouTube:
You can also see from the reactions in the video that the trailer is a real hit because it doesn’t care about coolness and epic staging and plays uninhibitedly with the sentimentality and nostalgia that LoL now triggers: Faker becomes world champion in LoL for the 5th time, decides the finale with a strong ultimate