By Jeffrey Levine, JD, PhD – Associate Clinical Professor, Department of Sport Business Esport Business Program Lead, Drexel University
As the esports ecosystem continues to scale its business ambitions and global reach, its legal systems are beginning to catch up. Two recent developments, (1) the launch of the International Games and Esports Tribunal (IGET) by WIPO and ESIC (Maas, 2025); and (2) Riot Games’ rollout of a formal dispute resolution mechanism (DRM) for its EMEA leagues (Riot Games, 2024), signal a meaningful evolution in how the industry handles conflict. Together, they reflect a shift away from ad hoc, opaque, and jurisdictionally fragmented processes, and toward formalized, transparent, and industry-specific legal infrastructure. Esports legal structures, in short, may be growing up.
Riot’s DRM: A Publisher-Led Arbitration Model
Riot Games unveiled a new Dispute Resolution Mechanism (DRM) for its top-tier League of Legends and VALORANT leagues in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) in late 2024. The DRM operates as an independent arbitration system designed to resolve financial and contractual disputes, such as unpaid salaries, prize money, bonuses, and transfer disagreements, between players, coaches, and teams participating in Tier 1 and Tier 2 competitions. Riot is not a party to the proceedings, and the DRM does not accept claims filed against Riot itself. Procedurally, the system is built for speed and affordability. Disputes are decided by a sole arbitrator selected from a vetted panel, with no hearing and only one round of written submissions by default (Morris et al., 2024).
Awards are binding and final, part of a cost-efficiency strategy. The arbitration is governed by Chapter 12 of Switzerland’s Federal Act on Private International Law (Morris et al., 2024). To ensure accessibility, Riot has created a Legal Aid Fund to subsidize filing and arbitrator fees for eligible individuals (Riot Games, 2024). While participation in the DRM is voluntary, Riot is encouraging stakeholders to integrate DRM clauses into standard contracts (Morris et al., 2024), signaling a broader intent to normalize arbitration as a first recourse. In essence, the DRM reflects Riot’s strategy to enhance contractual stability in its ecosystem, reduce reliance on national courts, and bring a degree of legal infrastructure.
World Intellectual Property Organization + Esports Integrity Commission Collaboration
In January 2025, the Esports Integrity Commission (ESIC) and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) jointly launched the International Games and Esports Tribunal (IGET). This not-for-profit body’s objective is to resolve various disputes across the global esports and video game sectors. Positioned as an extension of ESIC’s long-standing mission to uphold integrity in competitive gaming, IGET reflects a broader push to formalize how the industry addresses issues like match-fixing, doping, and contractual breakdowns (World Intellectual Property Organization, 2025). IGET was created to serve as an industry-specific arbitration and mediation platform, tailored to the unique and global nature of esports. The central premise is simple: Decision-makers who actually understand the nuances of esports and video games are more likely to produce outcomes that are not just legally sound, but also effective in a practical manner. The IGET approach fills an important role that traditional legal mechanisms often cannot: resolving disputes with the speed, flexibility, and domain-specific understanding required in esports.
The system is fully international in scope and designed to be cost-effective. IGET accepts a broad range of disputes, integrity-related, commercial, and intellectual property, and channels them into distinct procedural tracks, with support from either ESIC or WIPO depending on the subject matter. IGET now serves as the exclusive appellate body for all ESIC decisions, consolidating integrity enforcement within a more formal legal structure (Maas, 2025). Disputes may be brought only if all parties agree to use IGET, either via pre-existing clauses in contracts or through post-dispute consent. And while the tribunal aims to grow over time, its early appeal lies in its mix of legitimacy, accessibility, and procedural clarity, traits that have long been missing from esports’ loosely coordinated and often inconsistent legal responses.
New Structures Reflecting Maturity of Esports Management
For years, legal disputes in esports were hampered by fragmented governance, legal uncertainty, and the lack of a dedicated dispute resolution framework (Cassels et al., 2024). Players and teams with contract issues, prize-money claims, or other concerns unique to the esports and gaming space looking for a resolution had nowhere to turn except for litigation, which often takes years to resolve disputes and is quite costly, or media as a case of last resort. Even though national court systems have formal rules and processes, they are not well equipped to handle esports disputes that span multiple countries and require deep knowledge of how the gaming industry actually works (Shmatenko, 2025). The absence of a dispute resolution system capable of addressing the specific contours of the gaming and esports sectors has been a nagging problem that prevented the industry from advancing. While traditional legal systems offer procedural strength, they often fall short in terms of speed, flexibility, and subject-matter fluency.
Unlike traditional sports, esports still lack a universal governing body or a standardized dispute resolution forum. Stakeholders, players, teams, tournament organizers, and publishers, often operate under varying legal standards across jurisdictions. When disputes arise, parties are often left with limited options: resolve issues informally, pursue a remedy through national courts, or rely on publishers who may be both regulator and party to the dispute. The creation of IGET and Riot’s DRM close these gaps. They collectively offer a process that merges a robust legal process with deep understanding of the competitive gaming landscape. These developments suggest that the esports industry may be entering a more structured phase, particularly in how it addresses legal risks and operational uncertainty. Over time, these systems may help establish greater trust, reduce legal ambiguity, and be an important step toward promoting industry sustainability.
Will These Systems Gain Industry Traction?
Whether IGET and Riot’s DRM become cornerstones of esports governance and dispute resolution depends on how quickly, and how widely, they are adopted by the broader industry. Players, teams, developers, publishers, and tournament organizers all face increasing legal complexity (Cassels et al., 2024). Many operate under inconsistent national laws and lack the resources or desire to litigate. These industry-specific arbitration models offer faster, cheaper, more specialized, and more effective alternatives to traditional litigation (Shmatenko, 2025).
IGET may benefit from gradual adoption through ESIC’s existing network of stakeholders, leveraging its subject-specific jurisdiction over integrity, IP, and commercial disputes. Riot’s DRM, while publisher-driven, signals a longer-term commitment to contractual stability by embedding arbitration clauses and outsourcing enforcement to neutral third parties. Taken together, both IGET and Riot’s DRM reflect the same underlying truth: esports is in the process of outgrowing its informal, patchwork approach to dispute resolution. As these models evolve, their adoption will likely hinge on trust: trust in the fairness of arbitrators, the enforceability of outcomes, and the value of predictability in an industry that has rarely prioritized legal infrastructure.
Conclusion
IGET and Riot’s DRM represent early but meaningful steps toward professionalized legal infrastructure in esports. Each system offers a credible alternative to litigation, tailored to the pace, complexity, and global scope of competitive gaming. They also reflect a growing understanding that as esports expands commercially, its systems of governance must keep pace. More fundamentally, they mark a shift toward legal maturity, one in which stakeholders increasingly understand that stability, integrity, and trust are foundational to a thriving competitive gaming ecosystem. If these mechanisms deliver on their promises, namely accessibility, neutrality, and procedural clarity, they could reshape how disputes are handled across the ecosystem. They also set a precedent: Legal infrastructure is no longer a luxury for esports, it is a necessity.
References
Cassels, T., Lanc, S., Arnott, B., Li, V., Cuncio, E., Shita, S., & Wyatt, D. (Dec., 2024). Riot Games’ International Arbitration Court: A new dawn for esports dispute resolution. Linklaters. https://www.linklaters.com/en-us/insights/blogs/sportinglinks/2024/december/riot-games-international-arbitration-court-a-new-dawn-for-esports-dispute-resolution
Maas, L. (2025, January 18). ESIC and WIPO launch the International Games and Esports Tribunal (IGET). Esports Insider. https://esportsinsider.com/2025/01/esic-wipo-iget-esports-tribunal-launch
Morris, C., Gokarn-Millington, S., & Aydinli, A. (2024, November 20). Game changer – Esports newest dispute resolution mechanism. DLA Piper. https://www.dlapiper.com/en/insights/blogs/mse-today/2024/game-changer-esports-newest-dispute-resolution-mechanism
Riot Games. (2024, November 7). Dispute resolution for Riot Games’ esports (EMEA). https://competitiveops.riotgames.com/en-US/news/riot-games-launches-dispute-resolution-for-esports-in-emea
Shmatenko, L. (2025, January 29). ESIC and WIPO launch groundbreaking International Games and Esports Tribunal. Esports Legal News. https://esportslegal.news/2025/01/29/esic-wipo-launch-iget-esports-tribunal/
World Intellectual Property Organization. (2025, Feb. 28). The International Games and Esports Tribunal. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9dRkiGNcPE
