Overview
The League Championship Series (LCS) is a North American esports league centered around the competitive video game League of Legends created by Riot Games. Amidst the LCS's staggering development however —being the third most watched sports league in North America only behind the NBA and NFL—, it has seen a steady decline in viewership in recent years.
This proposed intervention for the LCS therefore strives to provide an elevated watching experience—that connects fans to the game and players— to encourage interaction as a means to increase viewership and engagement. Click me to see the intervention.
Problem Space and Research
Serving as Riot Games first league in 2013, the LCS had established itself as a premier and storied competitive space that had grown the eSports scene garnering many fans.
In recent years however, fan sentiment has shifted with many expressing their discontent with the league's "boring product" with viewership staggering as a result: From 2017 to 2022 the average viewership dropped from 150,254 viewers in 2017 to 123,144 in 2022 (Esports Charts). The President of E-Sports at Riot Games acknowledged this viewership drop indicating it was a goal to address this decline.
“
Riot has invested over 250 million dollars in the LCS, we wouldn’t just walk away from that investment... [it's] the number 2 league from a revenue perspective.... the unfortunate part is that it's number 4 or number 5 in viewership.... we have some work to do to make the LCS better”
– John Needham, President of Riot Esports (2023)
Through secondary research, it became evident that this drop in viewership can be attributed to a lack of interest in the current teams within the LCS through a survey conducted by eSports journalist Travis Gafford (2021). These findings highlight that similarly to traditional sports, narratives and attachment to teams and players play a crucial role in sustaining fan engagement with the sport.
Framing the Approach
Jumping off these insights, further research was conducted within the space of fandoms in order to better understand how individuals interact within the space directly in the LCS and other entities. A big challenge within the team came in breaking down what was meant by "fandom" and how it could be measured as without this clarified, we knew whatever we created wouldn't have any staying power.
Through looking at parallel spaces (i.e sports, eSports, music, KPop, etc), definitions were established for the questions of "What is fandom/why do people join fandoms", "How do people interact with fandoms" (i.e support the space) and "How can we faciliate the growth of fandoms".
Follow-up primary research via an initial Sprint with 5 current and former LCS viewers revealed consistent findings as the importance of narratives, connecting others over moments and —something not originally revealed— self-improvement were highlighted; without these elements, disengagement is developed.
This all served to inform our framing of "How might we encourage disengaged fans to interact with LCS gameplay and support key teams and players throughout the watching experience?"
Introducing a Revamped Lol Esports
Connecting users with Riot's premier watching platform, this intervention lies within the existing Lol Esports website. Through this newly imagined space, opportunities are created for LCS viewers to join in on community discourse as well as gain insights on players and teams around the league as a means to create a more immersive and holistic fandom experience.
Within our intervention, I helped create the UI and interactions for the watching area as well as motion graphics and additional editing and scripting for the user scenario video.
Learning from Pro View
Allows viewers to customize their watch experience by choosing a player view, giving them the ability to focus on specific aspects of the game that interest them.
Key Insight:
4/5 Interviewees stated that improving their own gameplay was a motivator for watching LCS
Buzz Board Discourse
Invites fans to engage in discussion by providing them with a platform to interact with each other via social media thoughts and comments from around the community in a meaningful way.
Key Insight:
3/5 Sprint Participants stated they enjoyed reading and participating in chat discourse and discussions in real-time
Predict + Reward
Immerses users in an interactive and personalized experience that rewards participation and investment in the game.
Key Insight:
"The predictions are so engaging I would be invested to continue watching to see if I was right."
Sprint (Round 2) Participant
The Interactive Map
Allows users to easily view key moments of the match they just watched, providing a recap of the most exciting and important moments.
Key Insight:
5/5 Sprint Participants expressed excitement to see post game offerings as a form of tailored content for gameplay and players
Player Highlights + BTS Tab
Provides users with an opportunity to learn more about their favourite players and teams on a personal level, creating a deeper connection and attachment to them beyond just their performance in the game.
Extending into the Physical Space
As an exploration of scalability and flexibility, physical assets were created for the predictions feature. These assets aimed to act as a bridge between the online and in-person watching experience of the LCS.
The Key Values
With this new revamped watch experience, this intervention provides the following values for (disengaged) LCS fans and Riot Games.
The Process: Working with Motion
Utilizing the existing LCS and Lol Esports brand, a big consideration I had was in seeing how we could showcase the breakthrough energy of the league. Elements of the interface are thus infused with expressive typography and dynamic (bouncy) microanimations, to create a lively watch experience that matches the tone of what Riot has created.
The Process: Working with Users
Due to the extended length of the project, our team was fortunate enough to be able to work through several iterations through two rounds of user testing. From these sessions, the scope and layout of the final solution underwent various adjustments; these are a few key ones.
My Final Thoughts
There is a lot to say with this entire journey... trust me there is. I'll try to keep it short though. Coming into this directed studies, I didn't think I'd have a chance to dive into this client which had previously just been a passion project pipe dream; getting people onboard even was not easy. Having a chance to apply what I had learned from previous experience design projects into this however, was everything I could have asked for.
Being able to work on a project at this length was not only fun but further showed me the value that comes in the details. The end was successful, but it only was possible from from the extensive background research, deep dive into Riot + the LCS as a company and the multiple user testing sessions. While not every project will have this luxury of time as even this one had to drop things due to constraints, I know that —incoming cheese alert— as long as there is an idea to start.... with the right framing and approach, anything is possible.
As a final send-off, thanks again to the entire team + everyone that helped along the way and for putting up with any eSports-related jokes I had.