League of Legends
League of Legends is a MOBA, Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, game created by Riot Games which is a game developer that is headquartered in Los Angeles and many of their employees came from other similar MOBA games like DOTA and the game of World of Warcraft. The reason why I got interested into League of Legends was the amount of attention that was attracted to the game. Everyone around me played the game and I felt if I didn’t play the game that I wouldn’t be normal or conform to society, so I decided to play too. After getting invested and interested in League of Legends, I discovered how complex League of Legends is and I started to research the intricate details behind the champions and the game itself. I decided to take a deeper dive into the genre, history, aesthetic, cultural analysis, narrative, and the impacts and possible risks of League of Legends. As a gamer, many people ignore or forget about the other parts of the game that deserve to be admired.
First, League of Legends should be considered a strategy game because the game requires the players to have adept hand-eye coordination and requires bold strategies and crafty skills to be successful in the game. The strategy game genre is also split into two important sub-genres which include real-time strategy and turn-based strategy. Since League of Legends has no turns to worry about like games like Civ5, League of Legends is considered a real-time strategy game because players are constantly adapting to the opponent’s choices and strategies and the player must fall back on his/her reaction times and finger skills to be able to outplay in sticky situations in the game. The aspects that differentiates strategy games like League of Legends from action games are that action games do not require as much strategy to win. In action games, as a player who has swift hand-eye coordination and fast reactions can lead the player to victory. On the other hand, games like League of Legends also requires the cognitive side of the game where teams and players must formulate game plans to put your teammates in the best areas for them to succeed and achieve victory. A player with swift hand-eye coordination and fast reactions can be quite successful in League of Legends but there are some situations in which not even good motor skills and swift reactions can save you from dying in League. As the player skill gap closes, the thinking part of the game starts playing a massive role in the outcome of the games as shown in the professional League of Legends games. League of Legends is a game that can seem quite basic for the first-time players but can become a game as complex as games like chess.
Furthermore, League of Legends has ascended to the top of the world of esports and gaming in general for many years, but they didn’t just suddenly pop to the top. League of Legends hopped onto the market in October 7, 2008 and wasn’t a big hit until season 2 and 3 world championships. Riot Games has found many different companies to help distribute the games in other countries with companies like Tencent Inc., Garena, and GOA. This helped increase the international players in many other Asian, and South American players. As the player base increased, League of Legends started to develop professional leagues in so of the more populated countries to compete in international Riot tournaments for prizes. Riot Games has also expanded eSports into the college scene. Riot has created four of their own regional conferences but is also trying to partner up with NCAA to expand the number of conferences. League of Legends has become popular through the esports scene but the most important part of why League of Legends is still popular is how they treat their players and the updates they constantly push out. In season 1, the game started with only 55 champions (characters that the user could play in the game) and after 7 seasons has already expanded to 140 champions that the player could play. League of Legends also added a tribunal that punishes players that don’t follow the rules of the games which is a quite unique feature that other games don’t really have or enforce the rules. In 2016, a massive update allowed all players to have a chance to receive cash items. Free players could earn their way to paid content which spiked a lot of interest in the player base. League of Legends has a patch every couple 1-2 week which updates the games in respect to the graphics, maps, bugs, and balancing the champions and items in the game. This constant change allows players to enjoy the game more and always ready to wait for the next possible update in the game. As a League of Legends player, myself, I find myself getting really bored of other games because of the lack of variety in other games. League of Legends creates a new experience every time I step onto Summoner’s Rift, 5v5 map on League of Legends. Change is what player I strive for in a game and I feel League of Legends provides that.
When playing League of Legends, the first impression of the video game isn’t about how nice it looks usually. There have been many League visual updates, but the graphics isn’t why people play the game. The graphics may not be the top of the line, but the aesthetics of the game could be considered one of the best. League of Legends has created a well thought set of in-game rules and rules that are implemented to encourage fair play. As a video gamer, something I hate more than lagging in a game is playing against an opponent who is cheating or hacking. It makes the game excruciatingly harder to play and I feel useless as a player. The game is filled with rules for the players in-game so that players play a balanced game while in a non-toxic environment. For example, Riot games implemented a laser on the fountain at the edge of the map where players spawn into the game. This laser was created so players won’t be spawned in their own base when the the skill levels between two different teams are too far. This allows players to still play the game without having to die instantly when they spawn. Riot Games added a new system called the LeaverBuster that punishes players that leave games early or afk which means the player is not playing the game. Since League of Legends is a 5v5 game where each player must stay through the whole game, one person leaving in the middle creates a terrible game for the other four players on the team. To prevent this from happening, many punishments from longer queue times to account bans have been issued so this behavior is condemned. Riot Games also doesn’t take toxicity lightly. Many players in countless games use words that are offensive and unhealthy for the gaming community. Riot Games wants to extract this negative behavior from the game, so players could play the game without being attacked by other players. All these in-game rules are placed in the game, so the players could have healthy gameplay without being in an environment that is toxic. Riot Games implementing these rules helps provide players with a gaming environment that allows players to have fun and meet new friends without being put down.
In the mainstream media, video gamers have been perceived to look like a lazy fat guy who doesn’t do anything but play video games. This stereotype may be true for some video gamers but for many other gamers like myself are not the stereotypical fat guy. A statistic from Riot Games showed that 60% of the players enrolled in or have completed in colleges which debunks the statement that video gamers don’t study. The marketing team of Riot Games, creator of League of Legends, has been trying to market League of Legends as a game in which everyone from all genders and ages to be able to enjoy the game. League of Legends has been focusing on advertising League of Legends as a game that is a legitimate career path for players that are interested in going pro. Instead of looking at video games as a negative, League of Legends could become a job for future video game professionals. Another point that I found watching mainstream news is how negatively video gaming and League of Legends has been shown to become an illness if you play the game. I found it really perplexing on how playing a video game could be considered a disease or illness. “A new study published by the American Academy of Pediatrics finds excessive gaming may lead to depression, anxiety, and poor grades in school.” (Wade) From personal experience and from players near me, I have felt no danger from League of Legends players and I find the game a lot less violent compared to many of the other first-person shooter games.
As a player who focuses mostly on the gameplay, I never had time to admire the story and the narrative of League of Legends. League of Legends has a fascinating Lore that explains the story of the reasoning of everything created in the game. The story is focused on a war on Runeterra where opposing tribes would fight to settle their disputes. Everything in the game can be explained by the Lore. The narrative structure of League of Legends is closer to progression games, but the story level does not change the action much. Riot Games has changed the way some characters operate according to each other to fit the Lore. For example, when playing Caitlyn, a small icon near the hud tells the player how many times Jinx was killed when the player is playing against a Jinx. This interaction only happens when Caitlyn or Vi are played against Jinx because of the story that Jinx was a champion designed to rob while Caitlyn and Vi are the police in the game. In the game, some of the dances and taunts are different according to the champions that the player is facing against. Even though League of Legends has a deep storyline, the story level doesn’t affect the gameplay side of the game. The Lore is quite interesting for a player who is deeply invested in the game but in terms of the gameplay of the game, it makes no difference for new players.
Have you ever thought about considering League of Legends a “serious game” and are there risks in playing video games? After looking at the possible categories of serious games, there are five subcategories which includes edutainment, advertainment, educational, health, and political. Since League of Legends has been such a popular game is revolved around marketing. The game is used as a marketing tool for esports and the Riot Games brand. The game allows players to play for free and be attracted to the possible in game rewards where players can use their real money to buy cosmetics for their game characters. The skins don’t add a winning edge to the player but makes the characters more pleasing. As a player who has only looked at the positive parts of League of Legends, I have never noticed the possible risks that could be found by playing League of Legends. The media has heavily influenced the way we view video gamers. To fix this, there is an Active User perspective in which it is a research style that focuses on the players and less on the ideas of the media writers. It provides the readers with comments from real players and not media reports.
In conclusion, I have always enjoyed playing League of Legends, but it was quite interesting to delve into what League of Legends is made of and the different other aspects of the game. If I were to rate the game, I would give the game a 90 because of how complex the game could be but with a relatively simplistic interface for first-time users. League of Legends has changed the landscape of how we play video games and I’m hoping to see the next game that does the same.
Gallegos, A. (2012, October 15). Riot Games Releases Awesome League of Legends Infographic. Retrieved from http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/10/15/riot-games-releases-awesome-league-of-legends-infographic
Subcultures and Sociology. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://haenfler.sites.grinnell.edu/subcultures-and-scenes/league-of-legends-esports/
Wade, L. (2011, January 17). Excess gaming linked to depression, bad grades. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/17/gaming.depression/index.html
Egenfeldt-Nielsen, S., Smith, J. H., & Tosca, S. P. (2016). Understanding video games the essential introduction. New York: Routledge.
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