Fnatic’s former coach “I don’t think League of Legends will be here in 20 years”

Former Fnatic’s League of Legends head coach Luis “Deilor” Sevilla believes League of Legends will not be around in 20 years’ time, according to a statement made in the newly published Fnatic book “How to be a Professional Gamer”.

“Deilor” compared League to other popular eSports games that have risen and fallen in popularity in the past, like StarCraft which saw a closure of its biggest league in the world a week ago.

“I honestly don’t think that League of Legends will be here in 20 years,” Deilor said. “The whole eSports scene will continue to expand but the games won’t remain the same. You look at a game like StarCraft II, which was huge not so long ago, but is now fairly small. Counter-Strike and Dota are still popular, but in their newer versions.”

Deilor added: “I guess a League of Legends 2 is the next step to take, to keep the game popular. But I don’t know if Riot would do that, given that this game is being patched all the time anyway. If the game is still around in 20 years, that would be awesome, but I think it’s part and parcel of the evolution of technology – which gaming is always such a servant to – that it won’t be.”

Fnatic chief gaming officer Patrik “cArn” Sättermon added that League of Legends has ‘probably’ hit its peak in terms of popularity, but that it still has many years of success ahead of it.

There are about five new games in development at Riot Games according to reports so it might be working on a replacement to be released in the future. If you compare League of Legends to another monumental smash hit PC game, World of Warcraft, that title peaked at around 12 million paying subscribers in 2010. It fell to near 5m in 2015, but reports suggest it’s now at 10m right now.