High school League of Legends tournament organizers have been given more leeway to put together competitions following a community update from Riot Scholastic Association of America on Wednesday. This update ends the exclusive partnership that Riot Games held with PlayVS, a for-profit high school esports platform, in delivering sanctioned high school League of Legends competitions.
The community guidelines for high school esports tournaments have been updated on the Riot Developer website. Previously, League of Legends tournaments not run through PlayVS could only go for two weeks and were not allowed to use the words “season,” “varsity” or “championship” in the event description. Now the only restriction in place is that competitions can only involve schools from the same state or province.
“Effective immediately, we have updated the NA League of Legends Community Guidelines in order to give organizers more room to run bigger competitions over more time in more places,” the statement reads.
https://twitter.com/playvs/status/1534636935850827776
Following the announcement, PlayVS put out a statement on Twitter that Riot made this decision following a discussion about the shared vision for high school League of Legends. PlayVS also highlighted that Riot Games is an active investor in the company.
“We remain excited about the future of the title and will continue to invest in our community that plays it,” PlayVS said.
In March, Upcomer reported that PlayVS had pushed other — often non-profit — high school esports organizers out of the space. To compete on the PlayVS platform, students or the school were also presented with a $64 fee for each student.
Although PlayVS was not mentioned in the community update, the statement said the changes to their approach come in response to “feedback from across the scholastic esports community.”
“Going forward, our priority with high school esports is to create more opportunities for schools and players to decide how, when, and where they want to compete,” the statement reads. “By actively listening to their needs, Riot and the RSAA will find ways to support them where it matters most.”
Riot stated that the long term goal is to support official League of Legends championships via third party organizers.
With the changes to the high school ecosystem came some collegiate shifts as well. The new college-specific event guidelines are as follows:
- Competitions must start and finish within 45 days
- Competitions may not be sponsored or sanctioned by an esports governing body
- No more than 32 schools may participate in a given competition
