{"id":16479,"date":"2024-11-07T08:38:41","date_gmt":"2024-11-07T07:38:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2024\/11\/07\/at-the-league-of-legends-finals-i-saw-unmatched-gaming-talent-and-joy-on-20000-faces\/"},"modified":"2024-11-07T08:38:41","modified_gmt":"2024-11-07T07:38:41","slug":"at-the-league-of-legends-finals-i-saw-unmatched-gaming-talent-and-joy-on-20000-faces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2024\/11\/07\/at-the-league-of-legends-finals-i-saw-unmatched-gaming-talent-and-joy-on-20000-faces\/","title":{"rendered":"At the League of Legends finals, I saw unmatched gaming talent \u2013 and joy on 20,000 faces"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The industry may be struggling, but being surrounded by 20,000 fans in the O2 arena reminded me that gaming isn\u2019t just a business \u2013 it represents culture and community<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2022 <a href=\"https:\/\/viewer.gutools.co.uk\/info\/ng-interactive\/2021\/nov\/24\/sign-up-for-pushing-buttons-keza-macdonalds-weekly-look-at-the-world-of-gaming\">Don\u2019t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Given the deluge of bad news emanating from the games industry over the past 10 months, it was somewhat reassuring this weekend to sit in a crowd of 20,000 happy, passionate fans, watching the biggest event in the esports calendar: the League of Legends world championship finals. The event, at the O2 arena in London, was the culmination of a globetrotting five-week competition to discover the best team in the world. Never having attended before \u2013 mostly because the final is usually held in Asia, where the best players tend to come from \u2013 I wasn\u2019t really sure what to expect. Would I be able to follow what was happening? Would I care? It turns out the answers to those questions were \u201csort of\u201d and \u201chell, yes\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>For the uninitiated, League of Legends is a multiplayer online battle arena game (Moba for short) in which two teams of five players choose warriors from a selection of 170, and then battle to control a fantasy-themed map before destroying the other\u2019s home base. The arena is divided into three lanes with an area known as the jungle in the middle, and each of the team members patrols their own specific section \u2013 like any traditional team sport. Adding complexity is the fact that all the champion characters have their own skills, weapons and magical attacks, and throughout the game, they also have to defeat monsters and dragons to earn experience points that make them more powerful. It\u2019s both a deep strategy game and a bewildering riot of stomping warriors, galloping horsemen and levitating wizards.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/games\/2024\/nov\/06\/at-the-league-of-legends-finals-i-saw-unmatched-gaming-talent-and-joy-on-20000-faces\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><br \/>\n<img src=\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/325c6637d13c8f8754f012d5d43c9c71c95e243b\/0_0_7028_4219\/master\/7028.jpg?width=140&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=5ca726b2efd93e1741b97510a89f1611\" title=\"At the League of Legends finals, I saw unmatched gaming talent \u2013 and joy on 20,000 faces\" \/>The industry may be struggling, but being surrounded by 20,000 fans in the O2 arena reminded me that gaming isn\u2019t just a business \u2013 it represents culture and community<br \/>\n\u2022 Don\u2019t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up here<br \/>\nGiven the deluge of bad news emanating from the games industry over the past 10 months, it was somewhat reassuring this weekend to sit in a crowd of 20,000 happy, passionate fans, watching the biggest event in the esports calendar: the League of Legends world championship finals. The event, at the O2 arena in London, was the culmination of a globetrotting five-week competition to discover the best team in the world. Never having attended before \u2013 mostly because the final is usually held in Asia, where the best players tend to come from \u2013 I wasn\u2019t really sure what to expect. Would I be able to follow what was happening? Would I care? It turns out the answers to those questions were \u201csort of\u201d and \u201chell, yes\u201d.<br \/>\nFor the uninitiated, League of Legends is a multiplayer online battle arena game (Moba for short) in which two teams of five players choose warriors from a selection of 170, and then battle to control a fantasy-themed map before destroying the other\u2019s home base. The arena is divided into three lanes with an area known as the jungle in the middle, and each of the team members patrols their own specific section \u2013 like any traditional team sport. Adding complexity is the fact that all the champion characters have their own skills, weapons and magical attacks, and throughout the game, they also have to defeat monsters and dragons to earn experience points that make them more powerful. It\u2019s both a deep strategy game and a bewildering riot of stomping warriors, galloping horsemen and levitating wizards. Continue reading&#8230;Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The industry may be struggling, but being surrounded by 20,000 fans in the O2 arena reminded me that gaming isn\u2019t just a business \u2013 it represents culture and community \u2022 Don\u2019t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up here Given the deluge of bad news emanating from the games industry over the past &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2024\/11\/07\/at-the-league-of-legends-finals-i-saw-unmatched-gaming-talent-and-joy-on-20000-faces\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">At the League of Legends finals, I saw unmatched gaming talent \u2013 and joy on 20,000 faces<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":16480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16479"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}