The LCK Spring 2024 was recently under several DDoS attacks that led to disruptions in proceedings and even forced the organizers to pre-record matches for broadcasting purposes. The latest season of the highest League of Legends competition in South Korea is seeing ten teams duke it out to become the country's champion, but their battles have gone beyond just competing against each other.
Disruptions at this League of Legends event began on February 25, during the DRX versus Dplus and BRION Blade versus Afreeca Freecs clashes. The last two matches of the first phase of the Group Stage witnessed prolonged technical pauses that impacted players and fans, both online and at the venue — LoL Park in Seoul.
The players in action got disconnected between games and even reported a sudden increase in ping. This led to matches getting postponed and the pros having to play online from their accommodations, with the matches getting broadcasted through pre-recordings.
As per a post from noted esports journalist Jake Lucky, the situation was so bad that 'players in matches paused for nearly seven hours.' As a result, some matches, which usually last between 90 minutes to two hours, went on for as long as six to seven hours, leading to incredibly frustrating experiences for the players, fans, and organizers.
How did the DDoS attacks affect the viewership?
In short, quite a bit. The League of Legends Champions Korea is one of the best-performing regional tournaments for Riot Games when it comes to pulling in viewers, especially thanks to the presence of T1 and Faker, arguably the game’s most famous and followed team and player globally.
With so many games going to VOD live-streaming instead of getting broadcast live, audience numbers plummeted. This saw February 29, which was Week 6, Day 2 of the Group Stage, see the lowest average concurrent viewership count in the split so far.
Thursday was by far the worst day at this League of Legends competition in terms of viewership. It saw lower peak and average concurrent viewership figures than any other day so far, with the watch time only slightly higher because of the increased airtime for the day.
Fans were not invested in watching pre-recorded games, even if they involved their favorite teams and pros, and it might have been worse for those in attendance live at the arena. It also meant that the organizers had to assure ticket holders that they would be fully refunded for the affected matches and that ticket sales would be halted until further notice.
One positive is that prominent teams like T1 — the defending world champion no less — and Gen.G Esports have performed to expectations so far. The two sides have contested the Grand Final in the last four splits, so their progress into the latter stages should help restore order to proceedings and recapture the interest of fans who may have been put off by forces out of the league's control.
Readers must also note that the two splits from 2023 took turns creating records as the most popular tournaments in league history. The LCK Spring 2023 was first, hitting 1.46M Peak Viewers before the LCK Summer 2023 topped that by notching 1.52M PV thanks to Fakers' return after a break that saved his side from a slump that had seen them fall to fifth in the league table after nine weeks of Group Stage matches.
Riot Games will surely find a fix to the situation soon enough, but this is another warning to the esports world about the potential hazards of conducting large-scale tournaments that could be targets of such sabotage attempts. For now, fans can continue to catch the action on Twitch and YouTube, apart from TikTok and regional streaming services like Chzzk and Afreeca TV.
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