League of Legends has launched an official partner program, giving YouTubers and Twitch streamers easier access to content from Riot, codes for giveaways, and promotion through official channels.
The program is open to video makers whose content is focused at least 30% on League, and who average 50 or more concurrent stream viewers or over 5,000 views per video. The approcial process is set to take a couple of weeks, and the program may be expanding beyond video creators “in the months to come.”
Once approved, you get a Divine Sword Irelia skin, and every few patches you’ll get a new recoloured chroma skin to use for viewer giveaways, with the number of codes you receive growing based on the size of your channel. Getting into the program also opens up the possibility of being featured on Riot social media platforms.
This will also give content creators the opportunity to talk with Riot directly and ask the dev team questions in regular live chats, partner up for reveals of new champions and gameplay changes, and attend Riot-sponsored events around the world. You can apply for partnership at the official site.
All this is good news for the League community, though it seems all this should’ve been in place years ago. A number of content creators have left the scene over the past few years, and this may be an attempt to stop more from heading for greener pastures. Even if the opportunity for chroma skin giveaways isn’t that exciting, more generally Riot’s attempt to build a closer relationship with content creators is laudable.