Paravine

The Scene

In 2013, League of Legends esports was exploding. Riot had just launched the LCS, creating demand for consistent coverage. But English-language coverage of Asian competitive scenes — particularly the Chinese LPL and Korean OGN Champions — was almost nonexistent.

Building Paravine

I built Paravine to fill that gap — deep coverage of Asian esports when nobody else was doing it. Designed and developed the site on WordPress, implemented caching to handle Reddit traffic spikes, and built a contributor network of 20 freelancers across regions.

Simultaneously working with CBS Interactive as Head of Freelancers for OnGamers — the first esports site backed by a major media brand, alongside GameSpot and Giant Bomb.

Scale & Impact

Paravine scaled to 800,000+ monthly readers and became one of the leading English-language sources for Asian esports. Riot Games featured the site in their official Community Spotlight series.

The site became a launchpad for careers that defined esports journalism. Jacob Wolf, who became ESPN's youngest-ever hire and 2018 Esports Journalist of the Year, has said he was "reading a lot on their site and it inspired me to start writing."

The Acquisition

CBS Interactive acquihired the core Paravine team to form the foundation of their League of Legends editorial division. I led the LoL news team at OnGamers, managing staff and breaking industry stories.

When OnGamers was retired in December 2015, Leaguepedia archived Paravine's entire body of work with permission — recognizing its significance to esports history.