It's been an amazing year for Riot Games and its two most popular titles, League of Legends and VALORANT.
The Game Awards 2023 have been concluded and it featured some of the biggest games that have released this year go on to nab numerous awards with the likes of Baldur's Gate 3 and Alan Wake 2 leading the charge. Known for celebrating the best and brightest in the video game industry, The Game Awards also pay homage to the esports business with its own set of nominations. And to nobody's surprise, it was Riot Games' two most prolific titles, League of Legends and VALORANT that walked away with all the awards.
This year has been another successful year for Riot with the League of Legends World Championship breaking record viewership numbers. Even the VALORANT Champions Tour had a great start to its first year as a franchise league alongside the VCT Championship that garnered plenty of eyeballs as well. Riot won all five categories it got nominated for, which were:
The Game Awards 2023 — Nominations
- Best Esports Game: VALORANT
- Best Esports Athlete: Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok (League of Legends)
- Best Esports Team: JD Gaming
- Best Esports Coach: Christine “potter” Chi (Evil Geniuses – VALORANT)
- Best Esports Event: 2023 League of Legends World Championship
While this year was amazing for esports with numerous large-scale events and tournaments, Riot always has a knack of being able to upstage its competitors by putting on a unique show every time it comes to town. Worlds has already been known to be the go-to when it comes to visuals, stage design, and the overall production value of the tournament and this year was no different, setting record numbers in the process. Even the storylines surrounding professional League of Legends this year was phenomenal with JD Gaming's near-Golden Road run that was stopped by none other than the four-time Summoner's Cup winner, Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok and T1.
As for Evil Geniuses' VALORANT squad and its coach Christine “potter” Chi, they put up a hell of a run in the VCT this year. Despite the ongoing drama surround EG, potter was able to steer the ship and its players, who managed to go from having the lowest chance to lift the world title to being the most-hated team at the VCT world championship, to eventually winning it all. This was the VCT's first year as a franchise league and its work with numerous content creators have made VALORANT a huge success in the first-person shooter esports scene.
Best Esports Game — VALORANT
VALORANT has been one of the most popular FPS hero shooters to date, even after the release of the much-anticipated Counter-Strike 2. Already in its third year, VALORANT is still capable of drawing large numbers of players to the game daily with regular updates made as well as meta changes. According to activeplayer.io, the game has garnered an average of 22 to 25 million monthly players. It was also able to maintain a consistent daily active players with about 1.5 million in each month for this year. The last 30 days alone saw an influx of active daily players hit up to five million.
Best Esports Athlete — Faker
This year has been one to remember for both T1, but even more so for its legendary midlaner, Faker. In a year that saw T1 lose to Gen.G twice in the LCK Spring and Summer Split grand finals, he was still able to lead his team to the ultimate glory: the Summoner's Cup. This all culminated from last year, which saw Faker go down to DRX to lose only his second Worlds grand final. And while T1 started this season brightly, they would end up falling to Gen.G during the LCK Spring Split finals as well as finishing third at the Mid-Season Invitational.
He would soon be sidelined due to an arm injury that saw T1 drop further down the pecking order during the Summer Split. However, his timely return back to the first team was enough to aid T1 to another second-place finish but it also meant losing to Gen.G once again. But despite failing to win any regional silverware this season, Faker was able to lead Team Korea to a gold medal at the 2022 Asian Games. Just a month later, he led T1 on an unbelievable run that saw them take out every LPL team at Worlds 2023, including in the grand finals to lift his and the organisation's fourth Summoner's Cup.
Best Esports Team — JD Gaming
While they did ultimately fall short at Worlds 2023, nobody can take away JD Gaming's accomplishments this season. This included dominating China that saw JDG become the undisputed champions of the LPL as well as the reigning MSI titleholders. In the first eight months of the season, JDG was undoubtedly the best team in professional League of Legends and they showed just why with back-to-back LPL titles and an MSI trophy, which also happened to be its first-ever international accomplishment. Unfortunately, JDG's Golden Road run was abruptly cut short by Faker and T1. While they will join an exclusive list of teams that had their Golden Road run dreams dashed, JDG's journey will go down in the history books as one of the most dominant in the game over the last few years.
Best Esports Coach — Christine “potter” Chi (Evil Geniuses)
There have been plenty of jokes and talk surrounding Evil Geniuses since the VCT off-season began. From being subjected to significant pay cuts to potentially having the entire squad disbanded, it's easy to see how they truly are evil without much genius going about. But however one may want to view the organisation and how it handles itself in the esports scene, you cannot overlook how significant Christine “potter” Chi was to EG's VALORANT roster. She managed to take a relatively unknown roster at the start of the 2023 season from the bottom of the barrel to VCT world champions in a single season.
EG had a disappointing showing at the VCT LOCK//IN at the beginning of the year, which was soon followed up with a third-place finish at the VCT Americas League. However, it was on the international stage that EG was able to shine and potter led the charge from the coaching booth as she would rally with the team on numerous occasions to see the team get a respectable second-place at VCT Masters Tokyo. EG would then go on to win it all at the VCT World Championship as EG came from the loser's bracket once more to defeat Paper Rex in a rematch.
Best Esports Event — 2023 League of Legends World Championship
This year's Worlds was arguably one of the most entertaining to date and it backed itself up with the numbers. Worlds 2023 garnered a peak viewership of 6,402,760 during the grand finals, which included various live streams in several languages. This year's edition of Worlds also overtook last year's numbers by a whole 1.3 million. And seeing as Worlds 2023 was held in South Korea this year, it further fuelled the various storylines that surrounded the tournament.
From Faker winning his fourth world title in front of a hometown crowd to JDG's Golden Road and replicating the 2018 Worlds of a Chinese team winning in Korea, Worlds 2023 had it all and a little more. The people of LoL Esports knew just how to tap into the Gen-Z market by bringing in one of the biggest K-pop artists to perform during the grand finals. Worlds 2023 also had to go up against some fantastic competition like The International Dota 2 Championships 2023 as well as VALORANT Champions 2023 as well as the Blast.TV Major Paris 2023, but it prevailed in the end.
