Proving Their Worth

It takes a heck of a lot of effort on the part of many individuals to make an eSports event a success. From the behind-the-scenes workers to booth employees to the players themselves, large-scale fan turnout and high quality production value is the gratifying end result to many hours of preparation and practice.

While established tournaments such as IEM, MLG, or IPL have all hosted events worthy of mainstream attention (after all, that is their job), there have been few individual video-game companies willing to shell out the manpower to host their very own invitational. In the world of League of Legends, Riot Games, like their Starcraft compatriots over at Activision-Blizzard, finally decided to take matters into their own hands on June 4th with the premiere of a pre-recorded, in-house production effort: the Riot World Invitational.

You would understand if you saw it.

Putting five of Riot's very best against five of the top professional LoL players in the world, the first Riot World Invitational did not disappoint. Often Riot is criticized for not being able to “bear the brunt” of it's own game, relying on using tournament organizations to create competitive eSports events outside of its end-of-season championships. But it was apparent, starting from the flashy entrance shots reminiscent of various Korean-produced Starcraft tournaments all the way to the large-scale stage in Las Vegas itself, Riot has the ability to produce a top-level event without the backing of another tournament organization.

Surely Riot was looking for a wow-factor, to show (and give the community a taste of) what may be to come with the Season Two Championships. Riot even acquired several brand-name sponsors for the event, further highlighting their capabilities as an increasingly established video-game company.

While the games themselves were entertaining (though slightly one-sided) and cast by the famous duo of David “Phreak” Turley and Rivington “Rivington” Bisland III, Riot proved themselves to the community and created much anticipation as to what the Season Two Championships have in store both in terms of production value and player competition. All in all, the Riot World Invitational was a well-produced, entertaining event that was a joy to watch and served its purpose in showing the capabilities Riot Games can bring to the eSports table.

For those who missed it, a VoD is linked below for your enjoyment.