League of Legends Worlds 2024 final to be held at London’s O2 Arena – insightdaily.in

One of the world’s biggest esports will hold its 2024 grand final at the O2 Arena in London.

League of Legends is a multiplayer online battle arena (moba) game that pits two teams of five against each other.

Launched in 2009, its World Championships – known as Worlds – have grown into Superbowl-style arena events.

This year’s finals were held in South Korea and finish this weekend.

Fans will have to wait until next November for the championship clash in London, which will be the game’s second big event in the UK in recent years.

League of Legends’ global esports boss Naz Aletaha tells BBC Newsbeat she was “blown away” by the response to its three-week the mid-season invitational event at the capital’s Copper Box arena in May.

The game’s top players tend to come from Asia, with South Korean and Chinese teams dominating this year’s Worlds.

But Naz says she has no worries about Western fans getting on board with its flagship event when it comes to London.

“Actually, we have a very large player base in Europe,” she says.

“We’re pretty confident that our fans are going to show up and show out.”

Naz admits that, like the rest of the games industry, 2023 has been a tough year for esports – which has seen high-profile team closures and bleak predictions for the future.

But she feels League of Legends is “in a position of strength”.

“What I’m happy to see is that it seems like the economy is starting to turn a corner, we’re seeing sponsors come back to teams, we’re still seeing our fans engaged by the tens of millions around the world.

“So we know that esports is here to stay.”

But esports does need to keep growing to survive, and finding new players can be hard given multiplayer gaming’s reputation for toxicity, particularly for females and people of colour.

She says Riot Games, the company that makes League of Legends, has launched programmes to boost access and representation across esports.

She’s worked there for almost 12 years and says she’s seen “really encouraging” progress across the company and the wider industry.

Much has been written about Naz herself, and the fact she’s a woman of colour in a prominent gaming job.

“I’m personally a big believer in that adage of, if you can see her, you can be her,” she says.

And Naz says she hopes new generations of players, developers and behind-the-scenes workers won’t be put off joining the games industry.

“My message would be that we want you to join our ranks,” she says.

“The industry and the output of the industry will only get better with more diverse perspectives and more diverse inputs.

“I selfishly think that we stand to gain by you joining us. So I hope that they’re encouraged, I hope they see it as a really viable career path.”