Interview: Riot Games and Bayes Esports expand League of Legends data portal

bayes esports leading team members
The Bayes Esports team. Image credit: Bayes Esports

Game developer and publisher Riot Games and data company Bayes Esports have expanded their data portal for League of Legends esports.

The LoL Esports Data Portal (LPD) will be available for organisations, Riot Games partners and the community. The companies said the ultimate purpose of the portal is to boost the long-term growth of the competitive gaming scene.

The LPD originally existed for around one year but had its access restricted to professional teams. Over 150 League of Legends organisations around the world used the portal’s data to study opponents and players, aiming to develop better in-game strategies.
 

Now the portal’s features, which include pro player statistics and match history data, will be available to the community. The portal will also support websites like Leaguepedia and Oracle’s Elixir via UI and API.

Esports Insider spoke with Riot Games’ Competitive Data Programs Manager John Knauss and Bayes Esports’ CEO Martin Dachselt about the new LoL Esports Data Portal.

“The key to a successful service is understanding the requirements of the teams but also the differences between their resources and approaches,” said Dachselt about the project. For the CEO, data-driven strategies can make a team hold in-game advantages.

John Knauss Riot Games data
John Knauss, Manager of Esports Competitive Data Programs for Riot Games. Image credit: Riot / Bayes

The essence of the LPD is providing raw data for organisations to work on. The concept behind the project is that data-driven strategies can widen gameplay possibilities, which would result in elevating the level of competition, making matches more attractive to the audience. 

“We have long held that our community, partners, and the ecosystem of products that surround professional League of Legends are critical to the growth of our sport,” said Knauss. 

“As part of this, data accessibility and enabling product development and investment in the space are vital parts of our long-term strategy.”

Nevertheless, both Bayes and Riot foresee the need to educate teams about the importance of counting on data for their strategies. Knauss stated that Riot Games regularly works with teams to educate them about how data is important for high-level competition. Moreover, Dachselt mentioned Bayes intends to promote the platform, highlighting the potential benefits to organisations.

“Now that the data is available and teams onboarded, the first thing we want to do is to foster the usage of the platform and educate the teams about the possibilities,” Dachselt commented.

Dachselt also spoke about the project’s future plans, making clear that accessibility is a priority for the LPD.

Some of the CEO’s other points raised include making data available through third-party tools, supporting the development of open-source tools by the community and making data “easily available for different well-known tools and data processing pipelines.”

For Knauss, Riot Games expects this investment to help organisations – from any level – to improve their gameplay through accessing and analysing data from top-tier teams, resulting in better, more engaging events.

Victor Frascarelli, Journalist
Victor Frascarelli is a Brazilian esports business journalist focused on the LATAM market. Previously at The Esports Observer for two years, Victor enjoys all things competitive, from League of Legends to football to chess to CS:GO.

Supported by Bayes Esports