The 2015 League of Legend Worlds started the first half of Group Stages earlier this month, and avid fans have probably noticed that G2A logos are missing in action.
G2A, a popular video game key selling website, has been sponsoring LoL pro-gaming teams for the past years of Worlds. Its disappearance this year cannot go unnoticed.
Apparently, a dispute between LoL developer Riot and G2A started when Riot found out that the game key reseller has put up a listing on its website that promotes the sale of high level LoL accounts and "elo boosting services," which is something disruptive to the Match-Making Ratings (MMR) of the game. The acts are also against the game's terms of service and the eSports rulebook, according to Eurogamer.
Rumors started circulating that G2A was banned from the 2015 Worlds championship.
A post on Reddit by Riot's developer relations manager J. Eckert confirmed the issue, saying that the game developer has banned G2A since Sept. 18, 2015.
"This was NOT a decision we made lightly, and came after many weeks of back and forth 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," Eckert said, The Daily Dot reported.
Some of the teams that agreed to remove G2A logos from their merchandises are paiN Gaming, H2K, Counter Logic Gaming and the team to make the first pentakill of the season, Cloud9.
This is the second key reseller to drop sponsorship from Worlds. Kinguin also decided to let go of its sponsorship earlier this year, but not because of a dispute with Riot, rather because the company was undergoing a corporate restructuring that affected the sponsorship of the event, PC Gamer reported.
