The Twitch streamer IWillDominate wanted to play the MOBA League of Legends for 24 hours. However, he was banned by Riot Games after 17 hours. He reacted by simply giving up. Later he said it was an experiment. The ban sparks a discussion about account buying.
This was the plan: The player Christian “IWillDominate” Rivera wanted to stream League of Legends for 24 hours live on Twitch: a marathon stream.
“I give up, I just give up”
This was the ban from LoL: In the middle of the stream, after 17 hours, IWillDominate had just finished a match and was back in the selection screen when he saw the message that his LoL account had been banned by Riot Games. He could no longer play LoL.
The Team Liquid streamer then reacted dejectedly. At the time, he was visibly tired, IWillDominate was hanging in the ropes. He only said: “I give up, I just give up.”
The clip has now over 300,000 views.
The streamer wanted to see if Riot Games actually cares
What was he banned for? IWillDominate played the 24-hour stream with a “bought account” that was already level 30. With it, he could play ranked right away.
This is against the rules of LoL, which prohibit account trading.
However, IWillDominate says that most content creators would create an account and then pay others to level it to 30, as hardly anyone has the time to level an account.
According to him, the account purchase was an experiment to find out if Riot even cares when people violate the rules.
IWillDominate complained that Riot Games does nothing against trolls who sabotage him in his games by feeding or intentionally committing suicide.
Stress with LoL founder
Here is the background: IWillDominate recently had a confrontation with one of the founders of Riot Games on Twitter. He provoked Marc “Tryndamere” Merrill with a comment that “bad people” work at his company. He was likely alluding to the sexism debate at Riot Games.
Merrill then replied that IWillDominate’s career is based on the free game they made. Merrill later deleted the tweet.
Why buy level 30 accounts in LoL? It’s about ranking. If you use your own account, you play in a certain, probably high league in ranked LoL – if you have a “new account fresh to 30”, you go against beginners in ranked.
However, to play ranked, you cannot just create a new account like in other games, but you first have to get it to level 30 – this takes some time in League of Legends.
Debate about account buying
Why is this interesting for many? On reddit, people are actively discussing the incident. It has several layers:
- on one hand, some suspect that LoL has a grudge against him after the confrontation with Marc Merrill
- on the other hand, Riot Games’ behavior regarding “account purchases” seems arbitrary – some LoL accounts get banned quickly, others later or not at all
- some also demand that Riot Games should sell level 30 boosts and thus put an end to the black market – it is common for players to buy “fresh level 30” accounts to start over in ranked
Besides IWillDominate, another well-known LoL player, TF Blade has also been caught. This Twitch streamer was also banned by Riot recently, though for a different reason:
