In response to community objections, Riot has reconsidered their stream exclusivity contract. Players may now stream whatever games they like between games as long as they do not accept sponsorship from other gaming companies to promote their content.
Two days ago, OnGamers released a leaked portion of the LCS Season Four contract. This portion of the contract listed several games players would not be able to feature on stream while broadcasting League of Legends solo queue. This list confused many fans with its inconsistencies and its encroachment on player freedoms.
Today, Riot changed their stance after taking note of community outcry. They first explained their reasoning, stating that other gaming companies attempted to contract League of Legends players to promote their own games. Then, they amended the terms of the contract, acknowledging the restriction to player freedoms that their previous terms implied.
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.
—RiotMagus, 2013
This change will allow players to keep their downtime freedoms and the entertainment value of their stream and also solve the underlying problem with Riot's competitors. Responses to this update have been positive, with many community members taking Riot's quick change of tune as evidence that the company is concerned with what LCS viewerbase thinks.
The contract still isn't final, so future changes may occur, but for now Riot has settled on this compromise.
