Riot Games reverses course on LCS player streaming policy - players are now "free to stream any games they want"

This article was originally published on GameSpot's sister site onGamers.com, which was dedicated to esports coverage.

Earlier this week, onGamers obtained information revealing that under the 2014 season contracts, professional players in the LCS would be restricted from streaming up to 27 different video game titles.

In a statement posted to the League of Legends subreddit, Whalen Rozelle, Director of Esports at Riot Games, announced an update to their streaming policy. Under the new rules, LCS teams and players cannot accept sponsorship from other developers and publishers to promote their games, but are free to stream any game that they wish. The full statement is available below:

Hey everyone,

There’s been a ton of discussion around our LCS team contracts, which stipulated active LCS players couldn’t stream a variety of other games.

First, background on why we did this: there’ve been instances of other game studios trying to buy access to League fans by using (or trying to use) LCS teams/players to promote their competing games on stream.

The way we chose to deal with this was clearly an overreach. It hit our goal of preventing companies from advertising through LCS players, but it also encroached on pros’ ability to have fun and entertain viewers during long Challenger queues – and we realize that’s not cool.

After reading all of your comments and having a LOT of internal debate over the last 24 hours, we’re going to be changing the LCS team requirement to something that more closely matches our intent. While under contract to the LCS, teams and players can’t accept sponsorship from other game companies to promote other titles. Besides that, they are free to stream any games they want.

I'll be hanging around to answer questions if you guys have any. Thanks for helping us make a better decision on this.