How it is to Create Content for Runeterra & Tips to Start

In February 2024, I'll be celebrating 4 years since I started creating content for LoR. As it's been quite a while since this has been my life, to celebrate, I decided to share some of my experiences throughout all these years and tell you how this wonderful journey has been, while I give you many tips on how to start your career in this field as well.

90% of all the money I ever earned in my life I earned by creating LoR content, and the other 10% I earned by creating content for other games, most of them card games.

I listed some vital tips if you want to try and follow this career in Runeterra, and live off what you love as well. Creating content isn't easy, and we all just need a little push.

In 2019, I got a "key" for LoR's closed beta, in Riot Games' 10-year celebration event. I played the first version of Runeterra for a few days, and right away I fell in love with this game.

I was already in love with card games (in 2015 I wanted to be a professional Hearthstone player, but I ended up becoming frustrated with the meta, and became just an Arena player.) One year later, in 2016, I started pursuing a college degree in Game Design, where I fell in love with Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG, which so far I had never played because my mom is quite religious, and she thought this game was "demonic" (blame the Brazilian media for this).

Throughout the years, I also created several of my own physical card games as college assignments. So, when I got the news that a card game inspired by League's universe was in the works, I was very excited.

In February 2020, I went live on Twitch for the first time playing Runeterra, and right away in my first broadcast I reached diamond, in the Beta season. I really wanted to work in the gaming industry. This has always been my dream since I first played Skyrim in 2011 for the first time. So, I worked really hard, until the pandemic came along.

In my country, the pandemic really kicked off in mid-March 2020, and we entered complete "lockdown" in April. So, as I couldn't leave my house, nor look for conventional jobs, this was my opportunity to really invest my time in broadcasts.

I was blessed to choose the game with the most welcoming community of all time. Considering Runeterra had just been released, I was one of the first people to broadcast the game, which also helped me significantly.

Right away in Runeterra's first year, alongside several streamer friends, we founded LBR (Brazilian Runeterra League) - a team tournament that had a lot of success at the time. And I hosted almost all grassroot tournaments that existed in Brazil.

In December 2020, we got the news that we would get Seasonal tournaments, and that they would be Riot's official competitive format for the game. As I was already "working" in the competitive scene for almost a year, I was hoping to be called to cast or comment the seasonal tournament. But I wasn't. And that was my first heartbreak.

I worked hard during the end of the year, and, in February 2021, I got an e-mail from Riot, inviting me to cast the first seasonal tournament of that year. That was the first time in my life that I got any money from something I had worked on. I spent an entire year broadcasting the game, creating tournaments and dedicating myself to it, without getting one penny. That cost me a relationship and several fights at home because I was already an adult and I needed to find a "real job".

The hardest part in all of this was convincing my parents that working in the gaming industry wasn't a bad idea. But, when I was called to cast the seasonal tournaments, all of this changed.

I cast every single seasonal tournament since, except for the very first one, and all World Championships on Riot Brazil's official channel as an analyst/commenter. I graduated and got my degree in Game Design, and today I create written content about Runeterra, and also videos. In 2023, I was Top 16 in a Runeterra Open, which was my first competitive experience actually playing tournaments after official broadcasts stopped existing in Brazil.

Twitch, unfortunately, isn't the best place to start. If you want to start there, you'll have to put in significantly more effort because you'll be competing with people that have been there for much longer. Not to mention that, if you don't live in the United States, it is a bit unviable, financially speaking, to focus your content only on Twitch broadcasts.

Another critical factor is your health, considering you'll have to spend a significant amount of your time of your day over there, and that is exhausting, besides not being good for your health to sit all day in front of a computer.

I'll only recommend you start broadcasting LoR on Twitch, for financial reasons, if you have a significantly impactful "x factor", such as: if you're one of the best LoR players, or if you have a hilarious personality and have already created content about other games for some time.

Broadcasting games on Twitch with the goal of getting paid right away early in your career is also not seen positively by gaming communities.

For this reason, my recommendation is YouTube because that is a platform which, besides having a lot more activity, you can organize your video ideas better, without necessarily having to invest hours in live content. Some types of videos will be seen as greedy, but, if made in a sophisticated way and if you respect the people who watch your videos, it will be extremely beneficial to your channel. Something like: "My PC exploded after this LoR match" - and in the video, your PC really exploded.

LoR's community needs more video content, focusing on trivia, and light themes. So, I would start there: videos discussing broader subjects, such as a Top 5 something, or exploring the game's artwork, and the characters' stories.

Any content that is more educational, focusing on gameplay only or competitive, or even opinion-based, needs to be done extremely carefully because this can create several issues, which we'll discuss below.

My greatest difficulty throughout all these years was convincing people I knew what I was talking about, or simply giving my opinion about a subject. Unfortunately, everyone has their own ideas, besides their own experiences and truths, and it is very challenging to please everybody when your content is opinion-based.

To this day, I get mean remarks about my Top 5 lists, or whenever I share my opinion about a new card or deck. Keep in mind that people who are bothered by your content are always the ones that are the most vocal about it. The people who enjoy it will usually only give it a thumbs up and nothing more, and usually don't comment anything. So, if you get several positive comments, you can be sure your content was a great success.

Educational content in Runeterra is a bit complicated because many people will only take your opinion into consideration if you have achieved something competitively. My articles about Open lineups only started to show results after I got Top 16, for instance.

So, if you feel a bit insecure, want to avoid negative comments, and have no expressive titles in the competitive scene, I suggest you create basic educational content, with tutorials focused on new players.

Besides this, gameplay content needs to be interesting. This was the type of content I tried creating the most, and it has never actually generated me much success. Only gameplay content focusing on crazy decks or bizarre games show numbers. Common matches, with meta decks, usually are not that interesting to YouTube's audience.

For Runeterra, YouTube is the best option to create content for, but there are other ways to make yourself known in the game as well.

Twitter - Being relevant on Twitter is important because there is a whole ecosystem for the Runeterra community on this platform. And being known over there is very helpful for future gigs.

Articles - Writing about Runeterra is what I do the most lately, and it is a good "side job". Obviously, it comes with the stress you'd imagine, just like YouTube videos, but it is very rewarding when you write about something that is extremely relevant, and can move several people to discuss it. Actually, this feeling of being "present in the daily lives of people on the internet" is what moves me to work, and with articles you can reach people this way.

Tournaments - This one is a bit harder, but LoR's competitive scene is the section that shows the highest numbers in terms of broadcasts. Broadcasting a good tournament, with strong players, is a way of working with LoR. The problem is the prize pool; if you don't have a way to sponsor it, you need to be creative and find ways to encourage relevant players to participate in your event.

"Shorts" - This type of content is even harder for LoR, and we still need to understand how it works. Unfortunately, the screen format for "Shorts" and "TikToks" is vertical, which really makes it harder to see what's happening in a Runeterra match, and heavily limits what you can create on these platforms. To this day, what has shown the highest numbers for these platforms in terms of LoR content was trivia videos, but that isn't a type of video that can easily become popular.

- Try to always be aware of what's "meta" on the internet, and what is being favored by the algorithms.

- Create content that you love. Burning out is much more likely when you spend a lot of time doing things you hate.

- Be present in moments that are relevant for your game, such as Opens, expansions, patch notes, etc.

- Get inspired by content that yielded results in other card games, particularly Hearthstone. But don't copy it, ok? Do it your way.

- When you make a mistake, own it and improve for next time - people will be cruel, but you can't spend time just arguing with people on the internet.

- "Collab" with whoever you can; talk to literally everyone. Even with people that create content for other games: the more, the better.

- Never give up.

If you read this far, now you know a bit more about my story in the last 4 years creating content for Legends of Runeterra!

Don't forget to share this article on social media. See you next time!