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As eSports continues to grow there are more personalities beginning to take center stage. Rachel Quirico is one of the well-known personalities in eSports who has hosted events for North American Star League and Dreamhack, two popular eSports events for StarCraft II, as well as events such as E3 and PAX two of the largest video game events in North America.Read more...

Relying on your teammates can be a drag in a multiplayer game, and League of Legends is no exception. Wouldn't it be great if you could just...handle everything in a match yourself?Read more...

In this two-part interview I sit down with CEO of Major League Gaming Sundance DiGiovanni and we talk about next-gen consoles, the future of Call of Duty in the eSports scene, and much more.Read more...

To the average spectator, League of Legends doesn't look too complex, and it's easy to jump to the conclusion that — even on a pro level — this is a casual game. This video from Youtuber gbay99 explains how wrong that conclusion is, explaining all the subtle things pro-level players do that just might help improve your game. Read more...

There are many unlikely combinations in this world. Chicken and waffles. Sparkles and vampires. Also, this parody by Rawb09 of Coolio's song, Gangsta's Paradise and League of Legends. Read more...

Damn. You can't watch this video by Kshaway without thinking that any minute now, the singular minion that survives its wave will die. It's just one minion! Surely someone will destroy it?Read more...

Last month, Luke brought us this little nugget of gold from the interwebs called 300 Heroes—a shameless League of Legends clone that offers users a chance to play as "over 300" different heroes from various intellectual properties. Despite the fact that it's such a terrible case of copyright infringement and possible theft, the game is incredibly entertaining and possibly my favourite LOL clone.Read more...

There's something about the way iluWinter mimics League of Legends champions here. It's not just that she tries for both the male and female voices—which not all of the compilation videos of this sort do—but that you can tell she's having a lot of fun. Enough fun that you can forgive the voices which don't hit the mark.Read more...

Justin Carter, the 19-year-old who was imprisoned earlier this year for a Facebook comment interpreted as a terrorist threat, will file a motion for dismissal on August 12, his lawyer says.Read more...

Not satisfied with playing League of Legends as an arena battle game, some fans have decided to turn the multiplayer smash into a 2D fighting game.Read more...

xChinnNin takes the gameplay mechanics of Pokémon and blends them with some intense MOBA action to form what looks to be a nerve-wracking nightmare. Read more...

Pro gamers may now travel to the United States on the same visas given to professional athletes, thanks to a long lobbying effort by Riot Games, the makers of the eSports staple League of Legends. Riot told GameSpot about the effort in a video interview published yesterday. "It was a lengthy process," said Nick Allen, the eSports manager for Riot. "We had a lot of people fighting for this." Allen called the decision "groundbreaking for eSports; now we can start looking at international players when they come over. It's a much easier process because they're actually recognized by the government. This is a huge thing." In the video, Allen goes into further detail about Riot going back and forth with the government, ultimately providing evidence that pro gaming was a sport. So there it is: professional gaming is a sport, according to the U.S. government, the same way the U.S. Supreme Court said video games are works of art. Next time someone scoffs at you, you may trot this out and watch someone stammer and twitch. US government recognizes League of Legends players as pro athletes [GameSpot] To contact the author of this post, write to owen@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @owengood.

As a US citizen, it’s my honor-bound duty to hate the US government more than just about anyone, but this is still a pretty monumental occasion. No, an eagle-blood-signed document proclaiming League of Legends pros athletes doesn’t make it official in the eyes of culture that absolutely loves its arbitrary labels, but it does grant players some pretty cool rights.

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There may not be eSports stadiums popping up in American cities just yet, but competitive gaming has gotten one step closer to official recognition. Specifically, the US government has begun issuing visas to international League of Legends players, designating them "professional athletes."

Speaking to GameSpot, Riot Games eSports manager Nick Allen discussed the new development. "The United States government recognizes League of Legends pro players as professional athletes, and awards visas to essentially work in the United States under that title," he said, calling the visas "groundbreaking for eSports." Organizing international tournaments is now "a much easier process, because [players] are actually recognized by the government. This is a huge thing."

Getting the visas issued was a "lengthy process," Allen said, with Riot going back and forth with the government until enough proof was provided and the visas were finally issued.

Oh, and about those stadiums, the League of Legends Season 3 Championship finals will be taking place October 4 at Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Justin Carter, the League of Legends player who made a sarcastic comment on Facebook that landed him in jail, is currently free on bail thanks to a generous anonymous donation of $500,000. Today, Carter spoke with CNN about his case. He laments making the comment on Facebook, and warns that people should be careful of what they say online. “I just want to make it clear that people should be very, very careful of what they say and it’s being recorded all the time if you say it on any website, anywhere," Carter said. "And you can get in trouble for something that’s not something you should get in trouble for. And I just want people to be warned.” His comments mainly refer to the fact that he said he was "going to go shoot up a school full of kids and eat their still, beating hearts." The comment was allegedly followed up with "lol" and "jk" according to Carter's father. "It got taken out of context, and it's been blown out of proportion," Carter said when asked what he thought about the Facebook comment. He didn't think his actions would end with him in jail. If Carter is convicted, he could face up to ten years in jail.

An "anonymous good Samaritan" has donated $500,000 to the family of jailed League of Legends player Justin Carter in order to help them post bail, reports MSNBC. Carter, who was arrested for a Facebook comment in which he said he would "shoot up a kindergarten," has been in jail for almost four months. "Oh yeah, I’m real messed up in the head," the 19-year-old Carter reportedly wrote after losing a match of League of Legends. "I’m going to go shoot up a school full of kids and eat their still, beating hearts." According to Carter's father, those remarks were followed up by "lol" and "jk." Carter's hearing is set for July 16. If convicted of the third-degree felony of making terrorist threats, he could be jailed for up to a decade.

The League of Legends season 3 world championship is happening at the Staples Center on October 4th. The competition has a $2 million prize pool. Tickets, along with more details, here.

Jennifer Carter, mother of the jailed League of Legends player, recently had her petition requesting the release of her son go over 100k signatures. The family is also selling "free Justin Carter" T-Shirts here, the proceeds of which will go to Carter's legal defense.

Convention time means cosplay time—naturally, the Anime Expo in Los Angeles this weekend must've had a ton of cosplay. This video by MLZStudio highlights some of the more epic cosplay at the show, much of it champions from League of Legends (although not all of it.) A list of the characters depicted, courtesy of the video's YouTube description: Britthebadger (Traditional Sejuani):https://www.facebook.com/Britthebadge.....Arms, Armor and Awesome (Jayce, Queen Ashe):https://www.facebook.com/pages/Arms-A.....Monika Lee (Wizard, Diablo 3):https://www.facebook.com/London2191Co.....Jessica Nigri (Teemo):https://www.facebook.com/OfficialJess.....Yaya Han (Macross Frontier):https://www.facebook.com/yayacosplay?.....Vampy Bit Me (Ranma):https://www.facebook.com/pages/VAMPY-.....Missyeru (Vi):https://www.facebook.com/MissyeruCosp.....Stella Chuu (Ranma):https://www.facebook.com/stellachuuuu.....Courtoon (Lux):https://www.facebook.com/Courtoon?fre.....Glory Lamothe (Elise):https://www.facebook.com/GloryLamothe.....Kohalu (Aatrox):https://www.facebook.com/KohaluCospla.....Vensy (Miss Fortune):https://www.facebook.com/VensyCosplay.....Electric Lady (Caitlyn):https://www.facebook.com/electric.lad.....Jynxed Art (Pentakill Sona):https://www.facebook.com/JynxedArt?fr.....Gackto (Zero, Borderlands 2): https://www.facebook.com/gacktstream?..... ANIME EXPO 2013 EPIC COSPLAY 1-2 [MLZStudio]

Regardless of what you think about Justin Carter's current situation in jail, and regardless of whether or not he was serious, one thing is clear: the comments he made on Facebook, where he said he would "shoot up a school full of kids and eat their still, beating hearts" are messed up. This isn't the first time we've seen trash talk and its reception get out of hand. In fact, there are a number of cases in the last year that come to mind. Here's a situation that is eerily similar to Carter's: Josh Pillault, a Runescape player, is facing up to ten years in jail after telling another player he would attack his high school. The allegedly not-serious threat came after Pillault was repeatedly antagonized by said fellow player. There's more. Earlier this year, Microsoft's E3 conference came under scrutiny due to the "playful" (but unscripted!) banter where a Killer Instinct producer told an Xbox Live community manager to just "let it happen" and that it would "be over soon." Some felt uncomfortable watching the conference, as the exchange could be said to evoke the thought of rape. Before that, top-level Call of Duty players made headlines after a video compilation of ridiculous rage moments during a championship emerged. The players defended the trash talk by saying that it helped them play better—which is absurd, but hey. That's what they claimed. There are probably countless other incidents not mentioned here, but you don't have to look far to see evidence of gaming's arguable problem with trash talking. Xbox Live users are famed for being potty mouths, and League of Legends regularly makes the rounds as Riot finds the best practices to deal with toxic community members. You might say trash talk is unavoidable, as gaming is often a competitive activity. Things can get heated between players. Adrenaline gets going, but your body is stationary—making trash talk oh-so-easy to engage in as an outlet. I'm certainly not going to pretend I don't trash talk, but I do believe banter can be playful. At the very least, trash talk shouldn't involve threats to kill people who aren't even in the match or game. That's stupid. Which is not to say that trash talk against other players is any prettier. The problem is that when you've only got moments to say something, chances are you're going to focus on surface-level stuff: appearances/weight, gender, race—which means it's superbly easy for the trash talk to be homophobic, racist, or sexist. That's no good—and already, the frenzied way that trash talk happens tends to be unbecoming and nonsensical, nevermind lazy and bigoted. But it's that need for immediacy that makes it difficult to judge trash talk in the first place. Is it that the person genuinely holds awful beliefs? It could just as easily be that what you say in moments of anger or rage isn't representative of your typical demeanor; just an honest mistake. It could be that you're just saying what you think will hurt the most, so naturally you'll go for the ugly stuff. It could be that you're just parroting stuff you've heard others say. At the very least, trash talk shouldn't involve threats to kill people who aren't even in the match or game. I'm sure you have your share of people who trash talk because the veil of anonymity makes it easy for them to get away with it. And for those who seek the high of an epic burn against another person, I can't help but draw a comparison to rap battles—where the entire point is to diss the other person. Dissing becomes an art form, and rappers are expected to keep their cool against opponents regardless of what was said. Still, the danger, as I see it, is that regardless of why it's happening, and regardless of what type of person you "really" are, if you're engaging in trash talk, it's likely that you'll err into dangerous, uncomfortable territory. You'll say stuff you don't mean. You'll say stuff that'll get you into trouble. I can't be the only one that's becoming self-aware about what they say during games thanks to all these recent incidents, right? The thing is, trying to figure out how to "fix" trash talk might be a lost cause. Aside from stuff that's obviously bigoted or more of a threat than just banter, how do you figure out what's acceptable to say, what doesn't cross the line? Boundaries are different for every person. You can't know, and when things go sour, I'm going to guess that many of you didn't really mean it. Why risk it? It's almost like the real problem with trash talk is that no words are necessary: we could just be classy and let our skills speak for themselves. The Multiplayer is a weekly column that looks at how people crash into each other while playing games. It runs every Monday at 6PM ET.

Out of his infamous furious persona, Francis took to YouTube to talk about Justin Carter—the League of Legends player who is currently jailed after making distasteful, but not-serious comments on Facebook. It's clear that this hits close to home for Francis—not just as a gamer, but as a commentator who makes outrageous comments at times. Comments that shouldn't land him in jail, he reasons, as he's simply joking. He recognizes that what people say has consequences, of course. But beyond that, he recognizes that the comments Carter made were awful—he compares it to screaming "fire!" at a movie theater. Justin Carter - League of Legends player faces 8 years in jail. [boogie2988]

According to the parents of the 19-year-old facing eight years of prison for making threatening Facebook comments, jail has been a horrible experience for Justin Carter. Maybe that sounds like a no-brainer, but reading the specifics of what Justin Carter is undergoing while jailed is kind of shocking. Yesterday, we learned that Carter is on suicide watch in solitary confinement. But there's more to it according to NPR. Carter seems to be "suffering quite a bit of abuse" according to Carter's parents. "Without getting into the really nasty details, he's had concussions, black eyes, moved four times from base for his own protection...he's been put in solitary confinement, nude, for days on end because he's depressed. All of this is extremely traumatic to this kid. This is a horrible experience," Carter's father, Jack, told NPR. Carter is currently in jail because he jokingly told another League of Legends player that he was "going to go shoot up a school full of kids and eat their still, beating hearts,” followed by “lol” and “jk”. He was charged with making terrorist threats and is currently awaiting trial. If convicted, he can face up to 10 years in prison according to NPR. The bail, meanwhile, is set at $500,000, which Carter's attorney says he has "never seen" despite representing murderers, terrorists, and rapists in the past. A new hearing is scheduled for July 16th, at which point Carter's attorney will bring up the issue of abuse. Father: Teen Jailed For Facebook Comment Beaten Up Behind Bars [NPR]

Online handles are important, and that's especially the case if you're a pro player. Your name frames how people will see you as a public figure. Maybe you want to sound threatening. Maybe you want people to hate saying your name. People think about this stuff! It should be no surprise, then, that pro League of Legends players have stories behind their handles in this video by LoLChampSeries. Some are silly, some are random, some are as melodramatic—just about what you'd expect when it comes to online handles. How a pro player gets his name [LoLChampSeries]

Some days, solidarity comes from the unlikeliest places, with the unlikeliest of tones. Sometimes your most ardent defendants can be a total dicks about it. For one gamer facing prison time, that happened this morning. You may remember the 19-year-old League of Legends player from Texas that is facing 8 years in prison for Facebook comments he made. Well, the folks over at Fox’s late night show Red Eye heard about it, and for the most part are none too pleased. So they made jokes about it for about four minutes. “By this logic, shouldn’t we be arresting half of the commenters on the internet?” said Red Eye host Greg Gutfeld. The panel went on to refer to the anonymous Canadian woman who saw the original Facebook comments as a 'pederast' and refer to the way the Texas cops handled the case as a travesty of justice. If you've never been up at 3 in the morning and seen Red Eye, trust me when I say that this is par the course. The show plays to a cloyingly immature sense of humor, but to its credit it is still one of the most watchable and transparent shows on the network, in a grotesque, Morton Downy Jr. way. It is a show that knows exactly what it is. After all, Fox and Friends wouldn't book Damian Abraham or GWAR. “Kids today talk about how awesome their video games are, and how much better they are than the ones we had, but I never got in trouble for bragging about taking a wooden mallet to a gorilla throwing barrels at me,” comedian Keith Alberstadt joked. After they were done correcting the punctuation of a 19-year-old currently on suicide watch, Greg Gutfeld offered a glimmer of support. "Everybody should stay on top of this story. I can't believe there's a kid, in jail, obviously for making a joke," he said. "It's like Turkmenistan," another panelist chimed in. Sometimes the only people who have your back are the most cynical, black-hearted people on television. Good on you, Red Eye. "But I do predict we're going to forget about this," one of the guests concluded, before the other guests quickly agreed. Oh well — it was nice while it lasted. To contact the author of this post, write to chrisperson@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @papapishu

How badly do you want to win? Enough that you'd pay to strap on a gaming headset that shocks your brain? Maybe that sounds insane, but then again, many of the things people do to gain an edge in multiplayer games are ridiculous. You might be familiar with more 'tame' practices. I for instance have totally bought special controllers to play stuff online—specifically, Razer controllers for my Xbox 360. Why not? They offer a better experience than the 360's original controllers thanks to remappable, mouse-like buttons and a decent D-pad. Still, the MLG tends to ban controllers like it—and although I'm not interested in going pro or anything, the way the controller allowed me to customize the experience did allow me to play better. Whether or not that's taboo is arguable (hey, PC gaming lets you customize to your hearts content...). But did I buy it so that I could win a little more? Totally. The desire to win also fuels the practice of cheating—notably, hacks like the one they call Aim-Bot. Using aim-botting, players can do things like auto lock-on, auto-spot players, and kill with a single bullet—amongst all sorts of other things. All for a price, of course. Ah, yes. Winning can be sold, winning has a price—and it's not always hours of practice and dedication. Nor is it as boring as special controllers or cheating. Soon, brain shock will become a thing that people can actually do thanks to "fo.cus," a gaming headset meant to "overclock your head" via direct current stimulation. The idea is that the shocks will help your brain fire its neurons faster—which can then allegedly translate to better performance in games. The product doesn't come out until sometime in July, and it'll drop for a cool $249 dollars according to the official website. Whether or not it works, I can't say. Never tried it, and people who have seem unsure about its effects. What I have managed to try are "digital drugs" made specifically with the purpose of enhancing your abilities in-game. Depending on the genre, there are different binaural beats you can buy. Administering a dose is easy: you put on a pair of headphones, you dim the lights, and then you listen to a special track of binaural beats. It's mostly random sounds. Like the fo.cus, binaural beats are supposed to influence your brain. Some say the beats can get you high; I have no idea if that's true, but the beats did manage to make me feel weird. I'm not sure they improved how I gamed, though. So far, these methods all require you to actually play the game. But unlike most things outside of the digital world, being competitive in an online game can be wholly about appearances. Many games will allow you to see other player's statistics—meaning that you could hypothetically embarrass yourself without even having to do anything. Having shitty stats is something some people like to avoid. I've been in lobbies where people try to sell their "boost" services—which basically means that you can pay them to play the game for you, typically with the purpose of improving your kill/death ratio. You won't play any better—hell, you might not be any good—but as far as your stats are concerned, you're awesome. Similarly there are services for World of Warcraft where players will power-level your characters for you. If that makes you raise eyebrows, remember that games like Battlefield 3 allow players to buy entire unlock packs that would normally only be available after many hours of play. Maybe that doesn't seem like the same thing, but while the starting weapons are serviceable, the most powerful weapons can still be better in the right hands. Being competitive can either take time, or it can cost money. Your pick. Then we have games like League of Legends, which sometimes attract players who sell ELO boosting services. ELO is League's rating system, which calculates the relative skill levels of players. ELO dictates what players the matchmaking system pits you against, typically aiming to put you against players of similar skill in ranked games. Unsurprisingly, websites such as League Boosters have popped up in response. I'm told websites like these are promptly taken down, so here are a few screenshots that explain the service, and tell you about the company (so reliable and trust-worthy, this cheating service!) as well as some price-points: The prices go up to $1,100 dollars, which is absurd—especially when ranking systems are supposed to help you have a good time. If things are too easy or too difficult, you might not have as fun as you would when up against a decent challenge. Is cheating to have a better ranking worth it if you can't keep up? Heck, is being good at a game worth hundreds upon hundreds of dollars? That's for you to decide, of course...though these services—which could very well be scams!—know that people are desperate to be good at games, no matter the cost. I'm curious: have you done any of these things? Why or why not? How far would you go to be good at a game, outside of actually playing it and improving? The Multiplayer is a weekly column that looks at how people crash into each other while playing games. It runs every Monday at 6PM ET.

The MLG Spring Championship in Anaheim brought a ton of competitive action for StarCraft II and League of Legends fans over the weekend, like you see in the clip above. But for those of you who didn't have the opportunity to follow the whole event, or to rewatch hours and hours of content from multiple streams, we put together more highlights here. StarCraft II and League of Legends Championship winner spoilers ahead!!!!! Although the current top Korean players—like Innovation, Flash or Soulkey—didn't participate, Championship Sunday had some pretty exciting matches and even some eSport drama. A Surprising Winner Swedish protoss player NaNiwa proved several times that he can win against top Koreans on foreign grounds, and even though PvZ (Protoss vs. Zerg) is not Brood War legend Jaedong's best matchup, NaNiwa's 2-0 against him still was a surprise. Here are the two games they played against each other. Trash Talking In A Pre-Game Interview The drama factor reached maximum level before the semi-finals, where NaNiwa fired some shots against one of the best Korean terrans, Polt. The drama starts at 5:24. Starcraft II Grand Finals After beating NaNiwa, Polt was about to face his former Korean teammate Hyun in a Best of 5 TvZ (Terran vs. Zerg) finals. The first game definitely worth a watch, with ultralisks and battlecruisers firing up the late-game. The fourth game turned out to be an exciting one, too, where both players made some surprising errors, which is something that's unusual at this level. In the fifth game, Polt was able to take out Hyun's expansions rather quickly with precise drops, securing his first major championship in America. The Must-See League of Legends Match Of The Weekend Moving onto League of Legends territory, American pro Xpecíal's incredible play made the match between Curse and Team SoloMid one of the best ones during the weekend. Check 13:45, 18:27 or 19:00 for some amazing micro management and gameplay. League of Legends Grand Finals The replays for the League of Legends Best of 3 finals between compLexity and FXOpen are also up. That's almost 3 hours of intense action featuring FXOpen's win in this year's MLG Spring. This Doesn't Usually Happen The production team cut from gameplay to zoom into the shoutcasters at an awkward moment. You can see them standing in excitement, which isn't how we usually see them on display. And the "Best sign of the weekend" trophy goes to this guy. Did you watch the games over the weekend? Which one was your favorite? top pic: empthebeast; sign: starcraftislife To contact the author of this post, write to gergovas@kotaku.com

Trash talk during video game play isn’t all uncommon. And, while it’s troubling when the chatter turns sexist, racist, homophobic or extremely threatening, many games and communities have their own remedies: penalties, bans, negative consequences for player reputations. The last thing you’d expect is for someone to wind up in jail. But that’s exactly what happened to 19-year-old Justin Carter after a League of Legends match. He’s been in jail since February. Carter was playing Riot’s hit MOBA game in February and jokingly responded to another player’s comment. His words, according to Carter’s father Jack, were “Oh yeah, I’m real messed up in the head, I’m going to go shoot up a school full of kids and eat their still, beating hearts,” followed by “lol” and “jk”. After seeing the comments on Facebook, an unidentified Canadian woman looked up Carter’s personal information, found an old address located near an elementary school and called the cops. The then-18-year-old Carter was subsquently arrested on February 14th on charges of making a terrorist threat and has been in custody awaiting trial for more than three months. Many people feel like mass killings like the Newtown shootings are nothing to joke about and any remark that seems to hint at violence at that scale should certainly be investigated. But, according to a petition letter written by his parents, a police investigation of Justin Carter’s home turned up no weapons of any kind. Carter has a hearing on July 1st to review his case and could be sentenced to eight years in jail if found guilty of the charges. [Via The Daily Caller and KHOU]

This is Portabliss, a column about downloadable games that can be played on the go. Solstice Arena appeared on the App Store last week. It's a MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) game in which you choose a hero and play a top-down 3v3 match. Using various spells and abilities, you attack the opposing heroes and try to take out their towers before they do the same to yours. It's deep, well-balanced, and it's an inventive take on the burgeoning genre, designed from the ground up for mobile platforms and touchscreens. And oh yeah, it was published by Zynga.

The mention of Zynga may conjure up more thoughts of smarmy farm animals and dessicated drawing games than it does words like "deep" and "inventive," but that's kind of the point. Zynga picked up the developer A Bit Lucky last year, and then immediately put them to work on something that could change the company's reputation, a "mid-core" title that did more right than it did wrong.

And though you may be surprised, Solstice Arena succeeds at that task. It's probably not the next League of Legends (though Zynga wouldn't mind if it was), but it does represent the inklings of a new leaf for a huge casual game publisher on the wane.

League of Legends pro player ZionSpartan has just graduated high school and is ready to jump to the LoL scene full-time. Five years ago his teachers, schoolmates and parents would have laughed at the idea. Today they treat him like a champion. This video, part of the LoLChampSeries, demonstrates how eSports like League of Legends are gaining more and more mainstream acceptance every day. Yesterday's internet handle is today's sports hero nickname, transforming mild-mannered Darshan Upadhyaya in the hero they call ZionSpartan. It's pretty inspiring. Even his teacher calls him ZionSpartan [YouTube] To contact the author of this post, write to gergovas@kotaku.com

300 Heroes proves, as CrusaderCast puts it so well in this video, "there is no Mandarin word for copyright", because it doesn't just copy League of Legends (literally, it re-uses LoL's textures), it makes use of as many famous characters from properties it didn't pay for as it can get its hands on. There seems to be a healthy mix of Western and anime characters in the game, with a donkey-hurling Zorro Shrek easily my favourite. The game's available to download only in China, surprise surprise, but if you want to give it a shot you can try downloading it from here. You can see a more gameplay-focused clip below. 300 Heroes : Fake Chinese League of Legends clone [CrusaderCast, via NeoGAF]