Riot Games refers to Gen.G using “they” instead of mentioning the team by name
Controversy has erupted in the League of Legends ecosystem surrounding publisher Riot Games. Following Gen.G’s triumphant victory over T1 at the Mid-Season Invitational, Riot updated the League of Legends client as usual with an image of the winning team and a short congratulatory message. However, this time, instead of naming Gen.G, the message simply read “They win…,” a wording that both the organization and many fans found disrespectful.
In response, Arnold Hur, the Co-President and COO of Gen.G, called out Riot Games on his X account before reacting humorously by changing his profile picture—keeping the Gen.G logo but replacing the name with “Them.G.” Fans also expressed frustration over the situation, particularly regarding how long it took Riot to update the message, and the fact that in some language versions of the client, the team’s name still didn’t appear, on the English client, for example, Gen.G's name was added.
Reaction from the Gen.G executive
Lee Ji-Hoon, the director of Gen.G Esports, also spoke out about the situation, stating that the team immediately contacted Riot upon arriving in Riyadh for the Esports World Cup to report the issue. Riot explained that it was a translation error depending on the region and apologized, assuring that they had taken the necessary steps to fix it. Ji-Hoon ended by shifting focus to the team’s next challenge—the EWC—which they intend to add to their trophy cabinet, while ensuring the players remain in good condition.
"Immediately upon arriving in Vancouver, we identified the situation that caused concern among our fans and officially raised the issue with Riot. Riot explained that the system for displaying the MSI victory celebration message across all servers had encountered issues such as translation errors and delays in reflection due to language differences.
They expressed deep regret over this and took prompt action to correct the relevant content. Despite the outcome, we conveyed our disappointment from various angles, and Riot apologized and promised to prevent such incidents in the future.
At a time when we should be celebrating the valuable achievement of winning MSI with our fans, we are deeply saddened that such an incident occurred.
We ask for your continued trust in us, and we hope you can still enjoy and celebrate this victory. We will also do our utmost to help the players perform well at the Esports World Cup by managing conditions at the venue."
- Lee Ji-Hoon, Head of Gen.G Esports, on X
As a reminder, Gen.G and T1 were in Vancouver just a few days ago for the final stages of MSI. They are now in Riyadh for the EWC, and will then have to travel to Seoul for LCK Rounds 3 to 5, starting on the 23rd—a packed schedule that gives players little time to adapt to time zones or recover properly.
Header Photo Credit: Riot Games
