On November 2, 2024, roughly 14,500 people flocked to London’s O2 Arena to watch the annual League of Legends World Championship final. Linkin Park performed, with major sponsors like Red Bull and Mercedes present as well. A peak of 6.9 million viewers spectated online, making the event the most-watched esports match in history.
However, behind the facade of screaming fans and multi-million dollar prize pools, much of the esports industry still relies on freelance labor overseen by a complex web of regulatory bodies which lack top-down guidance. Abusive contracts and worker exploitation run rampant. US regulators bear the responsibility to finally tame the “wild west” that is the esports industry through policies supporting player unionization and limiting the power of game developers in influencing player labor issues.
The first esports tournaments emerged in the 1980s. Since then, the proliferation of the internet and the growing popularity of gaming cafes in the late 1990s and early 2000s, coupled with the rise of Twitch and other streaming platforms in the 2010s, has brought esports to the mainstream. By 2019, the industry accumulated over $1 billion in revenue, with the esports market projected to be worth $1.9 billion by 2030. In addition, the growing popularity of esports has helped drive billions in revenue for game developers and a healthy return on investment for sponsors. Yet as game corporations and investors profit, many players who form the backbone of the industry face poor working conditions and constant exploitation.
Exploitation begins with the contracts that players are often pressured to sign at the onset of their careers. Some are given just a few hours to review and sign offers, and contracts often stipulate large pay cuts if a player is benched. Players are also typically young and “inexperienced and uneducated” in contract negotiation, which hampers their ability to recognize unfair clauses and advocate for better terms. Compensation can also be low: One League of Legends analyst received only $2,000 in monthly salary despite working almost full time, while VALORANT players in the North American Challengers League are often paid minimum wage or less.
Esports players often work unreasonably long hours under intense pressure from employers. League of Legends Champion Series players train upwards of 12 to 14 hours a day, six days a week, and may be required to stream 40 to 60 hours a month on top of practice. In the pursuit of success, players are expected to “give up everything” outside of gameplay—such as their personal lives and sleep—to improve. These extreme training regiments and workloads have caused burnout and injuries, including potentially career-ending ones, to become common symptoms among players. It is no surprise, then, that esports careers are often quite short, even compared to other pro athletes. The average player in Overwatch, for example, retires at 23, three years earlier than the average NFL retiree. Many players also fail to plan for their eventual retirement, which makes the transition away from esports especially difficult.
Unlike traditional sports, where no organization owns the actual sport itself, esports game titles are fully controlled by their developers. As a result, players have little say over how esports run. For instance, in 2013, a leaked Riot Games contract banned professional League of Legends players from streaming certain games deemed competitors to League of Legends in its team contracts. Though the decision was later reversed due to community backlash, the presence of the provision in the first place is indicative of the unilateral power that developers have over players. Other provisions of the leaked contract which were not reversed are still skewed in Riot’s favor, including a clause that allows Riot to use a player’s publicity indefinitely and for free.
These issues are compounded by the fact that most US esports players are classified as independent contractors rather than employees, so they lack the collective bargaining rights granted by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). As such, in the status quo, esports workers’ rights advocacy funnels through player associations, which attempt to manage relations between players and developers. So far, these associations have found limited success. The League Championship Series Players Association (LCSPA), which represents professional League of Legends players in North America, secured additional funding for amateur League of Legends teams after a walkout in 2023. Yet, player associations are far from perfect. For one, they can be highly influenced by game developers: The LCSPA, as an example, was funded by Riot until 2020, which empowered Riot with financial control over LCSPA activities. Moreover, for independent contractors, actions such as boycotts are actually illegal under antitrust law, meaning that player associations could potentially face retaliatory lawsuits from developers for attempting to negotiate for improved conditions.
Thus, it is clear that player associations are not enough to protect players’ rights. To rectify the abuse of esports players, US regulators must require that game developers classify players as employees, rather than independent contractors. Employee status sets the stage for the formal organization of esports labor unions and guarantees players the standard workplace protections guaranteed by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FSLA), like minimum wage and overtime pay. In doing so, the United States has the potential to not only improve working conditions for US gamers, but also to (because of the popularity of US-developed esports games) “set the tone” for industry conditions in countries throughout the rest of the world. The esports industry thrives on the skill and dedication of its players—it is high time their rights caught up with the profits they generate.