The human origin of League of Legends

Through this 78-minute documentary directed and produced by Leslie Iwerks, she explores the history of the community that has made League of Legends one of the most-played PC games in history and one of the fastest growing sports in the world. Told by the fans who lived it, the players who popularized it, and the visionaries who made it, Iwerks captures the highs and lows of making a global phenomenon.

Fans, experts and creators give voice to the story of a game that has meant the world of video games at a professional level. During the feature film, human stories are told about the players’ own experiences. How this game changed their lives, how they made friends and how they made their life out of it. Connecting millions of people around the world, League of Legends offers an experience with limitless possibilities.

With more than 100 million players each month, League of Legends was created by Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill. Two friends who met at a summer course and who today have become two of the richest and most influential people in the entire gaming community. In the first person, Brnadon Beck and Marc Merrill narrate the process of creation, inspiration, development and success. And how many times difficulties assailed them on their way.

Brandon and Marc wanted to make a game that wasn’t just 30 hours long, but that you could play unlimited and compete repeatedly. In this way they founded the online platform Riot Games in 2006. For those who are completely unaware of the development of this game, League of legends is a 5 vs 5 game that is played from 20 to 45 minutes. You must cooperate with the other teams to destroy your enemies’ base before they destroy yours.

An idea that was not clear to them that it was going to be a success, but that today we see that it has gone around the world. Starting from this base, the documentary thus deals with the origins that led League of Legends to the podium of role-playing games. How its creators managed to create a whole culture of professional e-sports with it and how today video games are considered just another professional sport. Told in the first person, we see how many of those players who started playing this game for fun have turned their hobby into a commercial and acclaimed profession. League of Legends tournaments are broadcast live and have audiences of 40,000 people. Today they are already large, crowded events just as attractive as the NFL championships.

League of Legends is a team sport. It takes dedication, practice, patience, preparation, stamina, and there are moments of impressive play, moments of glory, and moments of defeat. The documentary does one thing very well, and that is to expose every aspect of the video game in a human way.

 

Through personal and heartfelt experiences, the documentary gives voice to the thoughts of its creators and its audience, and that makes you connect with each experience even without being a fan. It puts you in the shoes of its players and its developers, and you can feel every tense moment in the development of the platform and the game. And you fully understand what its creators felt in those moments.

In the same way, the documentary contributes a very critical part against the bad behaviour of the users. The rules must be respected, and the entire Riot and League of Legends community must be respected and I think it is an essential part of this type of game that also, and on many occasions, perpetuates the classic roles of sexism and machismo. It is without a doubt something that this documentary needed and that makes it almost perfect.

Despite all the information provided, and despite the good journey that can be seen in relation to the trajectory of the creators and the game itself, the documentary has a slow pace that often disorients you. Likewise, I think that they have focused on too many occasions on telling the trajectory of the League of Legends championships themselves with countless details.

Except for these comments, the documentary is good and fulfils the function of telling a story very well. A story that is also told through personal and first-person experiences. What I consider to be the best approach to presenting a story to the world.

 

-Basic info: Director: Leslie Iwerks | Producer: Leslie Iwerks, Michael E. Tang, Ashley Rios-Vazquez | Plataforms: Netfix, YouTube | Release date: October 26, 2009 | Duration: 77 minutes

-Pictures source: taken from the web https://letterboxd.com/film/league-of-legends-origins/ and the official documentary avalaible in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8QqG8BGRHk

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