Surrounded by criticism.
Recently, Riot games announced a partnership with the Saudi Arabian city Neom. They were to sponsor the Oracle Lens during the League of Legends European Championship, alongside Kia, Alienware and KitKat. The announcement read:
NEOM is a new community that will be the home and workplace for more than a million citizens from around the world who want to be part of building a new model for sustainable living, working, and prospering in Saudi Arabia. It will include towns and cities, ports and enterprise zones, research centers, sports and entertainment venues, and tourist destinations all designed to play a leading role in global development – and will be championing the development of esports across the world.
NEOM has their sights set on the future – and to help future-proof the LEC stage, they’ll be sponsoring the Oracle Lens during live broadcasts which helps players predict the next moves a team will make. Starting from Summer Week 7, NEOM joins Kia, Alienware, and KitKat, completing the lineup of our main partners for this season.
Needless to say, people didn’t like that. The critics sited everything imaginable against it; the city’s ties to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (implicated in the killing of Washington Post’s Jamal Khashoggi), Saudi Arabia’s less-than-stellar human rights track record, and the implications the city’s construction holds for one of the nation’s indigenous tribes.
It’s also important to note that the move didn’t just draw ire from consumers, but also from employees at Riot Games. Notably, they drew some sharp criticism from League of Legends lead game designer Mark Yetter on Twitter:
And he was far from the only one involved in some official capacity to voice dissent:
This did, however, all have an effect. since then, Riot has backed out of the deal. Per a statement made to The Verge, Riot’s Alberto Guerrero said:
As a company and as a league, we know that it’s important to recognize when we make mistakes and quickly work to correct them. After further reflection, while we remain steadfastly committed to all of our players and fans worldwide including those living in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East, the LEC has ended its partnership with Neom, effective immediately.
Riot director of esports for the EMEA region, Alberto Guerrero
In an effort to expand our esports ecosystem, we moved too quickly to cement this partnership and caused rifts in the very community we seek to grow. While we missed our own expectations in this instance, we’re committed to reexamining our internal structures to ensure this doesn’t happen again.
Source: Gamespot
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