Berlin / Los Angeles (dpa) – A video by League of Legends player Mads “Broxah” Brock-Pedersen has sparked a debate about criticism of professional players. The community discusses when the line between criticism and insult is crossed.
In about a quarter of an hour long, the long-time Fnatic player expressed his dissatisfaction with comments from the community. The criticism of him after his move to Team Liquid assumed unfamiliar proportions for him, which he also judged to be largely unjustified. Such exaggerated comments would especially damage young players mentally, according to Broxah.
After the video was released, which was viewed tens of thousands of times, other players reacted as well. Jérémy “Eika” Valdenaire, formerly at Immortals, agreed to Broxah’s comments. “Maybe you don’t like me as a player, that’s your right, but trying everything you can to insult me is not okay,” he wrote on Twitter. “Criticism is good and necessary. But to blindly focus on one player because it is currently in trend? Less likely.”
Paul “sOAZ” Boyer, former Broxah team-mate at Fnatic, noted that players’ position on the scene has weakened and that their market value is dependent on public opinion. “The more money there is, the less power we have. It’s big business now and we’re supposed to just play the game,” he wrote on Twitter.
On social media, criticism of the video was directed towards Christian “IWDominate” Rivera, who hosts a popular online talk show about the LoL scene. However, the former professional player rejected the criticism of himself. “I will never be dishonest in my analysis just because people insult me or call me toxic,” he wrote on Twitter.
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