Riot’s lack of transparency put to the test with LCS death penalties
By: Frank Fields
Tags: League of Legends, Gaming, Esports

Even if you were paying attention to the League of Legends scene this past week (MSI has been great!), you may have missed the biggest announcement in the history of the LCS. Riot Games announced a competitive ruling that Renegades, Team Dragon Knights, and Team Impulse are banned from League of Legends competitive play.

This ruling is reverberating throughout the scene, with many speculating what will happen going forward, particularly to prolific caster Christopher “Montecristo” Mykkles, who was also individually banned from being an owner for a full year.

One thing I want you to keep in mind as you read this column is this: Just because one person is wrong, doesn’t mean the other person is right.

Having said that, I have a lot of thoughts on the issue.

It’s not always so simple

Although I was a member of the Riot Games esports team for three years, my stances and opinions about issues in the League of Legends community are not identical to those of my former employer. In my time I have agreed and disagreed with a plethora of different issues that have emerged in the League scene. Like many fans, I do think that Riot is overly restrictive on their tournament scene, but I also think that in general they handle things very well. There were very few competitive rulings or policy changes I disagreed with, but there were some, many of which struck me as over-reaches.

There is a phrase that goes “disagree and commit.” Internally, there is a time to question execution and vision, but once a final decision is made, you go all out and support it — you have to, or the company doesn’t work. I don’t want to digress too much, but I want to make it clear that there were many issues I fought for internally in Riot. Some changed, some didn’t. But I was never one to silently follow, nor will I ever be. I fought the good fight, and then put my heart fully into whatever the final decision was, whether it was my vision or someone else’s.

During my time at Riot, I came to know a lot of the accusations and evidence against Chris Badawi (most all of which were later made public by LCS team owners). At the time of Badawi’s initial ruling, Riot had a mountain of evidence for all sorts of incidents. However, they only utilized the most concrete instance for the initial ruling. I believe that if Riot had released the full body of evidence available, and used that, the community would have roasted Badawi and fully supported the ban.

And being presented with the evidence, I do not believe Chris Badawi has honest intentions.

Renegades qualifying for the LCS with Chris “Doombang” Badawi centered

Many of the accusations against Badawi were given publicity when Travis Gafford and Gamespot released a series of statements and articles by other LCS team owners about their dealings with Badawi. Chris Badawi allegedly engaged in collusion, poaching, tampering, and bribery.

That should not be taken lightly.

I also believe that Montecristo is generally innocent of Badawi’s misconduct. I do not believe that Monte understood the full extent of Badawi’s misdealings, and generally believed his business partner to have good intentions.

I feel like I know Monte decently well, but I don’t know exactly how close we are. Over the years we’ve been somewhere between good acquaintances and friends. Despite him being very publicly critical of my work, and sometimes me personally, in person we’ve always gotten along. When we meet up we get dinner, talk shop about the scene and about life. He’s always been cordial, he’s even done me favors. Suffice it to say, despite our differences of opinion about League of Legends, I believe him to be an ethical and measured person.

Given my personal experience with Monte, and at Riot, things just aren’t adding up, and the muddle in the mixture is Chris Badawi.

“Never trust the ones with the most to gain.”

In these situations, I look at the potential motivations by the parties involved. What does each stand to gain and lose by the actions they take?

Chris Badawi has constantly played the conspiracy theory card — everyone is out to ‘get him.’ But what motivation would people really have in wanting to oust him?

Let’s look at it from Riot’s point of view.

Riot Games would very much like to franchise teams, but right now, there just aren’t enough great owners in the LCS. Even after this ruling, there are still a number of sketchy owners in the LCS, but despite that, some great ones have entered the scene in the last three years: Jack Etienne of Cloud9, Victor Goossens and Steve Arhancet of Team Liquid, Noah Whinston of Immortals, and Rick Fox of Echo Fox among others. Riot wants more owners like this. Their continued presence levels up the professionalism of the league, as well as brings stability and financing.

Team Liquid founder and co-owner Victor “Nazgul” Goossens

Badawi seems to underestimate how often these owners have disagreements with Riot Games, and assumes that the reason Riot likes owners like this is that they are willing to take the pile of shit that Riot shovels onto them; that there is some unspoken old boys club that he isn’t a part of. This is not the reality of the situation.

NDA prevents me from citing specific instances, but suffice it to say, that all owners have disagreements with specific issues Riot takes stances on, just as every Rioter has issues with Riot’s stances. Disagreements are generally solved internally, but no owner is 100% satisfied with the Riot Games esports department. There are just too many conflicting interests for everyone to be aligned, but they try to solve as many issues as possible.

If Badawi was the type of owner that Riot Games wanted, then they wouldn’t have banned him from the LCS. Look at Rick Fox for a counter-example. He was welcomed in with open arms, so was Noah Whinston. And let’s put aside the notion that other organizations aren’t player focused. Team Liquid was among the first organizations to actually make its players employees instead of independent contractors — a step which many organizations have yet to replicate. Riot Games loves this.

LCS owners and Riot Games senior leadership

Now, let’s look at it from the other owners point of view. Without knowing the personal relationships between the owners, as a third party observing their business relationships, all of the marquee NA LCS owners are cordial to one another. They have business amicable dealings, including trades and buyouts, that are handled professionally, and they work to level up the LCS.

As a former owner myself, I wanted to learn from others who had success in the scene. For me, it was people like Alex Garfield and Scott “SirScoots” Smith

SirScoots on stage at an ESL ONE event

If Badawi was the type of owner that other owners wanted, then they wouldn’t be working to oust him from the LCS. They’d be desperately trying to work with him.

Finally, let’s look at it from Chris Badawi’s point of view. There are two things to examine here: What would he do if he was telling the truth, and everyone was out to get him, and what would he do if everyone else was telling the truth?

If Badawi was the owner he said he was, he probably would have done some of the things Ember co-owner Bao Lam was doing: making his salaries public, talking about his training facilities and methods, discussing player conditions. He would be working with Riot to level up player treatment, contacting other owners to share information and methods.

People, especially his peers, would love him for what he was doing.

Now think about what you would do if you were not as gold-hearted as people believed. If you were trying to ascend through shady dealings. How would you justify that to the public? How would you spin your less-than-pure intentions?

Ah, yes…

Innocent until investigated

Now having done my best to paint what I believe is a realistic portrayal of Chris Badawi, let me take a look at the unfortunate circumstances that has Christopher Mykkles out of team ownership.

I believe that Monte thinks Chris Badawi is a good owner, and a good person. I believe that Monte thinks Riot is gunning for Badawi. I also believe that Monte thinks Riot is gunning for Monte. I can’t really clarify the dynamic that exists between Riot and Monte, because it’s quite complicated. A lot of people at Riot like him, a lot hate him, and Riot Games isn’t some hive mind. There are a lot of different people with a lot of different opinions. And many different people are responsible with different interactions with him.

But I’ll say this: Riot Games ousting Montecristo from the LCS without presenting a single bit of evidence is unjust. If I was Monte, I would probably consult counsel and seriously consider legal action for millions in lost revenue.

Many people in the community have picked up on the fact that in the League of Legends microcosm, Riot Games is judge, jury, and executioner. They write rules, operate the league, and adjudicate, all without any appeals process, or presentation of evidence.

While Riot does have a vitally important obligation to protect informants, there is a world where they can do that and still present evidence. Even though League of Legends is Riot’s domain, they still have to obey the law of the land. If Monte pursues legal action, Riot is going to have to release the evidence they’ve compiled. “Take our word for it,” does not fly in the real world, and honestly I’m surprised it’s worked as long as it has even in the League of Legends world.

I’m not sure how there is a universe where a company can make a ruling like this with literal no transparency or appeal process — it strikes me as ludicrous. As a member of Riot, I hated that we didn’t release evidence to the public. Which is why I thought the appeals process for players like Jensen was so great — it presented a yet-unmatched level of clarity about why decisions were being made.

Whether this ruling turns out to be correct or not, costing people millions of dollars without recourse or due process is not acceptable for an industry leader.

While I have no idea whether the allegations that Riot has made against Badawi this time are true (and given that the bans will likely stand, I really hope that they are accurate, or someone is getting screwed over), I hope that this is the beginning of actual transparency, not the calculated “transparency” that has been sold thus far.

I’m upset that Badawi managed to fool the community as long as he did. I’m upset that Riot hasn’t been as forthcoming with the community as it should be. I’m upset that people I like and care about are caught up in this.

This situation is as bad as it could possibly be.

Are Montecristo and Chris Badawi guilty of wrong doing? I don’t know.

But I hope we find out.

This article is an editorial, and as such should not be taken as fact, but simply this author’s opinion.