For years, Riot Games has faced a challenging task with League of Legends: How do you turn introverted gamers into real stars that millions of fans care about? With a video ahead of the LoL Worlds 2024, they are taking a new approach and boldly embracing emotion – with great success.
This has always been Riot Games’ problem:
League of Legends has always marketed itself through its players, the stars and heroes of e-sports. The actual game can only be truly followed in depth by experts.
However, only a few e-sports athletes qualify to be typical stars. Only a few have extroverted personalities, enjoy appearing in videos, or give memorable interviews. These are more likely people from Europe and North America like trash-talking master Doublelift, who play a minor role internationally.
The true stars of LoL are South Koreans and Chinese. Players like Faker, Chovy, or knight. However, these are often very introverted, quiet individuals who show little emotion and are rather reserved in interviews.
Riot Games stages top players as silent heroes
This has been the solution for years: In the past, Riot Games often didn’t let players like Faker speak for themselves, but rather had others rave about them and showed the influence Faker has on others.
He was epic and silently staged as a superhuman hero, whose gameplay in the game speaks for him.
The most important marketing tool of Riot Games is the trailers for the anthems of the Worlds, in which players do not speak at all but are shown as stylized superheroes engaged in battle.
Riot Games shamelessly embraces emotions
What has Riot Games done differently this year? Just before the Worlds final on November 2, LoL released the video “Make them believe: T1 vs. BLG“. This 7-minute production showcases the rivalry between the two finalist teams.
In the main part of the video, each player sits in an empty cinema and listens to an emotional message from relatives back home, wishing them well.
For example, supporter Keria is enthusiastically greeted as “Uncle” by two children, while Faker listens with emotion as his father speaks to him.
An emotional sound, the World theme in a piano version, further enhances the impact of these moments.
What impact does the video have? The effects of the trailer can be seen in the German caster for LoL, Tolkin. Even a tough top-laner with nerves of steel.
He says the trailer moves him like no other, as it humanizes players like Faker, whom he has admired since he was 14. Even after watching the trailer multiple times, it still catches him emotionally every time.
What hits him the most is when the father speaks to Faker, showing in every interview how much he cares about his son.
Even in the comments on YouTube, you can see the fans are fully affected:
Hey, this was supposed to be a hype trailer, why are you making me cry?
I came here ready for war, but no armor can protect me from the emotional damage.
Wow, is it just me or is the teaser much more human than last year? […] The trailer with the families makes the players feel more like competitors and humans rather than characters in a game. In the end, you still give us hype.
From the reactions in the video, it’s clear that the trailer hits hard because it completely disregards coolness and epic staging, shamelessly playing with the sentimentality and nostalgia that LoL has now triggered: Faker becomes a world champion in LoL for the 5th time, winning the final with a powerful ultimate
