Leaguetopia
He ran as fast as he could, jumping through the puddles as he felt the ground beneath him shift. He knew what he had done was punishable by death. He knew his time had come, but yet he kept running. It was this last bit hope in him that made him do it in the first place and it was this feeling that kept creeping back in his mind. "Just maybe, If I could get away, just maybe..". A sudden shock ran down his spine, he tumbled on the rain flooded road and hit a light post, falling down lifelessly. The ambient air was disturbed with the end of something significant. The Gold Guards shot him with their hextech revolvers and ended it for once and for all.
What started as a simple game at the start of the millennia had changed the world. Everyone thought harmless of it, a mere child's play made to occupy the brains of mindless and jobless teenagers. The addiction was just the beginning. A game written so brilliantly had more to come. League of Legends become the sensation for the coming years, first it were a couple million. Then couple hundred million. Soon everyone who could afford a decent computer and an internet connection had it on their agenda. The year 2020 when it was first proposed in the electronic entertainment expo that Riot gaming should take the lead in the gaming market and be the first mainstream developer that all studios would go to to produce a game. This ensured two things. One, the rich got richer, since with one body of game developing studio all the world gaming money would be channeled into one organization making it stronger. Two,the exponential growth of video games since more money saw its way coming. Soon the sole word entertainment meant video games. Less TV shows and movies were being produced and more video games. The remaining minds of the 20th century were coming to an end. The new era had begun. The Video gaming market reached in billions. And at the front of it was Riot Gaming. Channeling everything it had into this one game; League of Legends. It started to grow so fast, that by 2040 six billion people had so far played it. This figure was growing overnight and everything had this one game on their mind.
Two kinds of people were coming up now. The plebs and the upper class. The plebs were more or less associated with the ranks below gold in league' Silver and Bronze. Most of the population was in this class. The upper class consisted of two more parts. The leaders and the officers. The leaders were heads of political groups around the world that played league. The officers were basically their minions. Gold , Platinum and Diamond were mostly the officers. Masters and Challenger were the leaders. Nothing more was to happen for another 30 years, just formations of these societies centered around league ranks around different regions of the world. The bronze "filth" stayed below the upper class. They were excluded from everything, major decisions in these societies were taken by the upper class. Its human nature to discriminate and form herds, and when there is one goal to unite us all, we started doing it. Then in 2070, something major happened. One of these biggest societies that contained the most players voted for one leader. The voting was so massive the official government body of this country had to acknowledge him as one of the country's leader. The decision was made that in the next presidential election of the United States of America, Archie "Magnus" White ( A challenger himself) will run for the presidency. And what the majority expected happened, he won by landslide in all states. As soon as he came into office he proposed a one world League organization to spread the game and take the game to another level. Russia opposed as usual. But all the other countries agreed. And it was formed. World of Legends. This body had no control over the governments of the nations that agreed for this order. And as soon as the Order came into effect, Riot had replaced all the government with one government being itself. Now you might think this is taking things too far, why would any country agree to such nonsense. But you have to understand, the nation that joined WoL were 3rd world countries and some first world and developing ones. And Riot now was worth in Trillions.
Everything was to function normally. Nothing really had to change, people would get up in the morning and go do their jobs come back home and begin their day tomorrow. What did get impacted by this so called "one world order of League" was the social aspect. Us humans defined the term evolution but forgot to apply it to ourselves. By 2070 we had evolved into more social creatures. Things that weren't acceptable 20 years ago were now the norm. The social status of a person was now defined by his rank. His rank influenced his relationship with his co-workers and friends. The crowd one hanged out with were affected. Soon the government (Riot) started giving out privileges for being a higher rank. These privileges were in real life, not in game. The players who were at the top got VIP access to almost anything and were taken into account for deciding something for a country. Better luxuries were provided for the upper class. And anyone above gold was now eligible to apply for the United League Armed forces and national police and guard. Everyone below gold were moreover ignored most of the time. Bronze was the lowest pit of life one could expect to be in. And climbing out become the hardest thing. More than five billion people were in bronze making it the most occupied division. And these useless masses now formed the backbone of the haven the upper classes called home. But they were powerful. The bronze weren't to be underestimated .In these infant stages of the organization a revolutionary spark was to be lit any time if they sensed something was wrong and with such huge masses, they would eventually win. So to control the population the WoL now made Twitch. Twitch was single Global media outlet available to everyone. Its main idea was "teaching" or "helping" the bronze get a better life. Challenger players streamed all day and made millions off of this idea and it gave false hope to the lower class that the upper wanted to help them. Talk about effective control. The one currency had been established which was called the Riot Dollar (Initially called the Riot Point, but changed cause it sounds stupid).
Everyone was "happy". No one really objected to anything since everyone was now really involved into trying to rank up. "Get that Gold division now and you will be eligible for government issued home support so you can get paid for playing your favorite game!" Said one of the adds as you would scroll down the Twitch home page. The problems really started to begin when people never got out of bronze. Now 2090 the climb rate for the lower division started reached zero. The smarter people started to smell the fishy smell that Riot had been brewing up. Forums and sites started to show up opposing the fairness of the game. The spark had been lit.
To be continued.
