This a bit late, but I wanted to react to the recent release of Riot Games' official music album, which features eight tunes centered around the universe and lore of their unique game, League of Legends. Riot's music passion didn't start with this album, as they normally create unique tunes for each new champion or event, and even co-created an “eSports anthem” with the popular band, Imagine Dragons, for the Season 4 World Championship. Nevertheless, Smite & Ignite is truly a unique product and it's the first “album” made by Riot Games. If you consider this, in addition to their short animated movies, the growing in-depth writing of the lore of the game's universe, and the production of endless drawings for each champion, you can say that League of Legends contains several different art forms: cinema, literature, visual arts and so on.
Can a Videogame be Considered a Form of Art ?
Taking the words of one of the biggest figures in the videogames industry, Hideo Kojima, famous creator of the Metal Gear Solid series, videogames are a type of service and not a form of art. Game designers, since they seem inspired by countless artistic pieces, can be considered “museum curators,” arranging those pieces in a way that displays their artistry. But one can say that the line is really thin, and some other games designers and people in the videogame industry often consider videogames as a “greater” art - since they gather several forms of art in one piece. One art to gather them all, and in the darkness (of an attic), join them.
This debate, of course, comes along with the technological prowess of our current gaming devices which allow the display of stunning realistic graphics, long and intricate stories, and the face recognition which translate human emotions on a whole new level. Beyond Two Souls, of the famous Quantic Dream studios, was so presented in the Tribeca Movie Festival last year as a piece of art alongside several “real” movies.
Personally, I believe Kojima is the one on point: the main goal of a videogame is definitely entertainment. With the economical landscape, you have to appeal to the masses if you want to make some revenue out of your work, potentially restricting the artistic desires of the game designers. We play videogames for various reasons, but the one that is always here is: we want to entertain ourselves. You could put all the artistic views you want in a game, but if the gameplay sucks, it will not live on as a masterpiece.
League of Legends cannot be considered a piece of “art,” but it has reached a level of deliverable entertainment possibly never reached before by any other cultural product. With the combination of several arts, the entertainment and the cultural “potential” of the sports world, League of Legends might become something which children will learn about in history books someday.
League of Legends, the Legacy
I might be getting ahead of myself with that previous statement, but it is also true that we've never experienced something similar before. Of course, eSports and videogames have existed for decades, but never have we seen a game reach the level where LoL stands right now. Even if you consider all of its franchises, Starcraft - maybe the most popular eSports game before LoL - has not reached Riot. Yes, Starcraft is truly a pure and very successful videogame with astounding storytelling, a strong universe and powerful cinematics (Blizzard's cinematics are on a whole other level and I don't think any other game developer reached it.) But as amazing as Starcraft is, they've never reached the popularity of League of Legends, at least in our Western regions. League of Legends' global viewership reached the level of traditional sports first, with spectators outnumbering the NBA finals and other extremely popular sporting events.
Moreover, eSports is the first and will probably stay the only sport which will be shared on approximately the same level of passion throughout the world. Of course, we're seeing disparities in the games watched depending on the countries, but League of Legends draws in viewers from almost every region of the world.
If you consider this from the “artistic” viewpoint, League of Legends has the potential to reach more people than anything or anyone before. Videogames are worldwide, eSports are worldwide, and League of Legends tops the scores in both those fields in terms of active players and viewership. It is also a game that is designed as a “durable” thing and not a “one-time” story like many “artistic” videogames. So, potentially, its music, drawings and short animated movies (one can dream of an extended movie of the Shurima past,) can reach hundreds of million of people and try to touch their inner sense of “art.” I've rarely seen a single product or person get on this level.
When I consider cultural phenomenon, which billions of people might know or have heard of, there's truly just a few things that stay on my mind: Michael Jackson, Star Wars, Mario, Banksy... and you can be sure that such pieces of culture will go down in history. Can League of Legends do so?
History is being made here, kid.
As we all know, history is written by the winners, and as successful as League of Legends might be today, you can't avoid the possibility of the product drowning in the mud with the course of the years. It's really hard nowadays for a cultural phenomenon to stay away from the potentially insane amounts of money that can be made. The Lord of the Rings franchise might have gone too far, for example, in the minds of many. If Peter Jackson stopped with the first trilogy, it would 100% have gone down in history as a “masterpiece.” The Hobbit trilogy, though, will never do that, and for a lot of people, it stands as a stain on the glory of the first movies.
Nevertheless, those things happen every time. You can see how people tried to make money after Michael Jackson's death, surfing on his popularity and drawing his legacy into the mud. But for such a phenomenon, it will not matter: Michael Jackson is one of the greatest musical artist of the modern times and will probably be remembered as such for ages.
Can League of Legends reach that point? I believe so. They might not produce real art, but they surely can produce massive entertainment and offer a cultural content close to the most popular traditional sports in the world. Moreover, they share a worldwide popularity that almost only videogames can reach. They were the pioneers of “mainstream” eSports and will be going down into history as much as the first eSports games and tournaments like the period described in the wonderful Smash Bros documentary when a bunch of high school geeks created the basis of what is today one of the most popular eSports scenes.
It's weird to think about kids learning about League of Legends in school and it will surely not happen anytime soon. By going down into history, you have to wither first and I don't think Riot is ready to let its franchise die this soon. But do you believe too that it has the potential? Or do you simply believe it will be overwritten by the global eSports phenomenon? I always will want to show my future kids what I played when I was little (Zelda, Smash, ChronoTrigger, Warcraft, etc.) I always thought it would be fun to see them come back to me and talk about videogames they learned about during their school days.
