Riot Games is considering banning G2A from sponsoring League of Legends professional teams, leaving the game key reseller in limbo.
G2A has run into trouble with the game developer thanks to a listing on its site promoting services from a third party that sells League accounts and offers elo boosting services, both of which are direct violations of the Riot Games terms of service and the League Championship Series rulebook.
At Riot’s request, teams that G2A sponsors, including Cloud9, Counter Logic Gaming, H2K, and paiN Gaming have removed G2A’s logos from their merchandise at the 2015 League of Legends World Championships.
G2A has told the teams that, if it fails to settles it disputes with Riot, it will drop sponsorship across the board.
That would make G2A the second key reseller this year to pull back from big sponsorship deals. Competitor Kinguin recently dropped sponsorship from Fnatic, Team SoloMid, Nihilum, Enemy, and more after what it called a corporate restructuring. It also sold its Counter-Strike: Global Offensive squad to Gamers2, though it later inked an exclusive sponsorship deal with the organization.
G2A’s future, is of course, still uncertain, and it’s not clear when Riot will make its decision.
Update 2:30pm CT, Oct. 6: A Riot staffer has confirmed this report in a comment on Reddit. J. “Riot Sargonas” Eckert said the company was formally banned on Sept. 18 and that Riot has “no plans to reconsider the decision at this time.”
Eckert added:
This was NOT a decision we made lightly, and came after many weeks of back and fourth conversations with G2A to find a resolution, which we were not able to reach an agreement on. We do not at all enjoy affecting the income of the teams, but the LCS rules include guidelines specifically against this sort of thing. We did however keep teams in the loop during the process in an attempt to avoid any surprises.
Photo via Riot Games/Flickr | Remix by Jacob Wolf
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