Over the past few years, useful websites such as Oracle’s Elixir and Leaguepedia have helped both esports writers and pro teams by providing stats from League of Legends games. But recently, there were reports that Riot Games was thinking of removing online match history.
That doesn’t seem to be the case, however. Riot provided some information to Oracle’s Elixir creator Tim Sevenhuysen today, who said the access control system (ACS) won’t be turned off immediately. Instead, another system will be introduced that’s “easier to use.” No other information has been given just yet, but Sevenhuysen said he hopes there will be plenty of chances for consultation around the new system’s development.
If Riot’s ACS was removed, as the community initially feared, it’d mean that all stats-based League esports sites would effectively become defunct. These specific resources have been invaluable to multiple parties across the League esports scene, from teams to journalists.
These sites, for example, give raw data for analysts and coaches to develop strategies around in their matchups. Data such as KDA, champions picked, gold graphs, and more have all been incredibly useful for preparation and scrims.
Additionally, journalists and writers have been using these data sites for their own written and video work over the past few years, helping them create analytic content that’s further bolstered by the data that’s been compiled by such resources.
Even casters and analysts have needed these third-party resources to research and become informed on the players they’re speaking about so they can bring context to certain champion picks or situations on the broadcast.
Ultimately, these sites have been incredible places of reference for everyone in esports and for people who wish to get into the esports side of League. Losing this much data would deal a great blow to the scene, but it sounds like Riot will work to create a similar system to maintain this information going forward.
Dot Esports has reached out to Riot for comment.
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