Riot Games Shuts down Oceanic Pro League

With Activision-Blizzard having just announced they were shutting down their own French office, it seems Riot Games decided to make a similar decision around the same time, and have just announced that they're going to be shutting down their Oceanic Pro League, formally ending professional League eSports in Australia, New Zeland, and Oceanic areas.

From a blog post:

Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of our teams and players, the OPL has not met our goals for the league, and we do not believe that the market is currently able to support the league in its current form.

So today we are announcing the dissolution of the OPL and the closure of Riot’s Sydney office, as it primarily focused on operating the league. However, this is not the end of League esports in OCE. We remain committed to supporting our pro players in the region with a path to continue their careers moving forward. Beginning with the 2021 season, we are adding OCE to the competitive territory for the LCS, so OCE players will no longer take an import slot on LCS rosters. This will open up new opportunities in North America for top OPL players. We will also hold qualifying tournaments in OCE for both MSI and Worlds in 2021, ensuring teams from the region will continue to be represented at our two major global events next season.

So basically, they're folding their Oceanic players into their North American league. It makes enough sense: in spite of the huge body of water separating them, they all speak English, and North America is a versatile enough server that the Oceanic players will probably find more challenge -- and thus, be more competitive -- in future seasons.

Still, this will certainly mean people are going to lose some jobs, so that's bad. Here's hoping they can find work elsewhere in the field.