David Grabowsky Professor Robert English 1101 Ethnography

The subculture chosen for this ethnography report was the group of people known as leaguers and or rioters. This subculture is composed of gamers who play the game known as league of legends. League of legends was created by a company known as Riot Games. Hence the gamers who play league of legends, or LoL, are known as Rioters and or Leaguers. To research this subculture I participated in one normal unranked game and two normal ranked games of league of legends. The chat logs for these games can be found in the Appendixes located at the end of this report. Rioters will often use shorten words in order to convey meaning when typing within the game. These shortened words are similar to the abbreviations used in texting, such as brb which means be right back. For an example of this language the following chat log shall be analyzed. Chat logs are ordered by the name of the champion, followed by the time stamp (the duration of the game during which the char was entered) and finally followed by the actual message. Ashe Ashe Ashe [00:06:44] [00:06:57] [00:07:06] stay b mia missing

Cho'Gath Kayle Ashe Ashe Ashe

[00:09:06]

[00:09:36] [00:10:43] [00:11:08] [00:11:51]

lag when it matters the most gunna b mia stop taking my farm heal

Volibear Kayle

[00:14:21] gj

[00:15:19]

(Appendix A) In the above chat log the champion Ashe types, b and mia. The term b in the rioter subculture is taken to mean that the champion either is recalling back to spawn, or that the champions should back off from the current course of action. In this case the champion Ashe and her support Kayle were rushing an enemy and as Ahse continued to take damage she made the decision to back off and tried to convey that decision to Kayle with a single letter. Rioters will act, talk, and think with the objective of winning the game in mind. This means that they will concentrate fully and both gameplay and teamwork. In a fast paced game, such as league of legends, lengthy messages cannot be sent. The reason for this is that a champion cannot play the game and type at the same time. Opening the chat will cause the rioter to be unable to command their champion. Thus in order to still communicate with the team and be able to operate rioters will use short abbreviated terms to save time and convey their meaning. Rioters will also think objective based. Rioters are not that concerned with how their teammates days are going, they are more concerned with if their teammates can accomplish the objective of the game and how effectively they can accomplish such objectives. If a teammate is having trouble accomplishing their assigned task then the other teammates will lend a hand to help that teammate keep pace. A large part of the community is based around creating a friendly competitive environment that encourages teamwork. It cannot be stressed how much this community revolves around teamwork and accomplishing the objective of winning the game. Everything revolves around working as a team and winning the game. This of course means that a very competitive attitude pervades the community. While this competitive attitude is helpful in healthy doses there are those who take it a little too far. The below chat log shows an example of how a competitive spirit can be taken too far. In the below chat log the

chat highlighted green represents that chat log of one team while the chat highlighted red represents the chat log of the opposing team.

Heimerdinger [00:24:17] Blitzcrank Alistar [All] Alistar [All] Ryze [All] Brand [All] Ryze [All] Volibear [All] Ryze [All] Alistar [All] Ryze [All] Volibear [All] Corki [All] Volibear [All] Corki [All] Volibear [All] Ryze [All] Volibear [All] Ryze [All] Ryze [All] Brand [All] Volibear [All] Ryze [All] Volibear [All] Ryze [All] [00:24:24] [00:25:04] [00:25:06] [00:25:11] [00:25:15] [00:25:27] [00:25:29] [00:25:32] [00:25:32] [00:25:39] [00:25:43] [00:25:43] [00:25:46] [00:25:49] [00:25:51] [00:25:52] [00:25:53] [00:25:55] [00:25:57] [00:25:58] [00:26:02] [00:26:04] [00:26:05] [00:26:08]

Gg yeah fuckin WRECKED demolished easy they said league isnt easy oh how afk brings pplz together this game proves otherwise back the FUCK up ur bad nub Lol they say 4v5 is really hard you laned against noone this game proves our point and whne you did lane against someone this is probably you got fucked the easiest gmae ive ever played simple no shit you guys must be really bad 4v5s are auto like really really bad

Brand [All] (Appendix B)

[00:26:10]

so easy actually

In the game above the green team is playing with a player down. This means that that instead of having five players fighting five players, there are now four players fighting five players. In a four vs. five scenario it is almost impossible for the team with four players to win the game. This usually results in an easy but unsatisfying victory for the opposing team. There have been numerous games where once the team with five people have defeated the team with four people they apologize to that team for their missing teammate as they too recognize that this was an unfair match and that there was nothing the team could do about it. This is when the positive competitive attitude comes into play. Both teams play as hard as they can regardless of the missing player, yet when the game is over they recognize how unfair the situation was yet commend each other for still playing the game. The above chat log is an example of how the competitive spirit can get out of hand. For the purpose of this discussion the team mission one player shall be named the green team and the team with five players shall be named the red team. In the very beginning of this game one of the green teams players disconnected from the game and was unable to reconnect. Despite this the green team managed to fair decently well and managed to keep the game going despite their lack of a player. The green team remained friendly and encouraging towards one another even as the inevitable loss approached. Both teams fired jibs and taunts into the All chat throughout the game but it wasnt until the near end of the game that things got out of hand. With victory looming the red team decided that it was their time to brag. In any competition braging will always happen. After all, the victor does have the right to have recognition for their accomplishment. A honest and competitive team would have said something along the lines of, gg, sorry about the afk, it was fun though. The red team did not fit the category of honest and competitive. They aggressively taunted and verbally abused the green team for the loss even though the members of the green team could not help it. This negative competitive

attitude creates a negative environment for rioters and will often make them feel shy and abused, and thus uncomfortable about attempting to play another game. This illustrates the hidden conflict of an over-competiveness that is pulling the community based around team work and friendly competition apart. Another hidden conflict that pulls the community apart would be the negative attituders. These are people who as soon as they start to do bad in the game decide that the entire game is thrown, its everyone elses fault, and now they just want the game to end as quickly as possible. In the chat log in appendix 3 the player alkali is a negative attituder. She had a little trouble in her lane, died a few times, and immediately decided that it was over. The rest of her team was ready to continue, aid her if possible, and try to win the game. However the player alkali had already decided that the game was lost and ensured that her team and no chance at victory. In early level noncompetitive games, such as the one found in appendix A, team members will often be very relaxed and play for just the fun of the game. If a team member makes a mistake it isnt that big of a deal as it will not affect that team members status. There are those that will take the game extremely seriously and still be offended by other team members bad gameplay but once again, it is not as big of a deal since all team members know the game will not be ranked. Low level ranked games have a much different atmosphere than non-ranked games. At the end of a ranked game either a victory or a loss is added to each players records. Player records can be seen by anyone and are used to place people within the ranking system. This is meant to create a fun competitive atmosphere. League of Legends is a team based game. Five people working together can accomplish much more than five individuals working separately. In low level games players are often inexperienced and have trouble working together. This leads to each player attempting to achieve victory by them self. This is not necessarily a terrible thing as it is all part of the learning process,

however because of this every man for themselves mentality there are some players whos attitude ends up ruining the game. These players will think that they are the head honcho and that the game revolves around how they are doing. This player will view the other four people on his team as incompetent and not worthy of being called team members. With this attitude the player is effectively playing a one versus five game. Whenever a team member makes a mistake this player will harasses them and offer no constructive criticism. Whenever the player in question makes a mistake he will instead blame his teammates and consider himself to have not made any mistakes at all. As player move to higher level ranked play a new atmosphere develops. Higher level ranked play will often have experienced players who understand that working as a team is much more powerful than working individually. These players will work together and aim to achieve the team goal of winning. If one player makes a mistake he may still be ridiculed but the other team members will strive to aid the player so the mistake is not made again, compensate for the mistake, or teach the player how not to make this mistake again. The team does this because they understand that just yelling at the player isnt going to help them win the game. To win the game they need all five players working effectively together. The downside about this level of ranked play is that there are some players who will purposely not work with other team members just to make them angry. These players find joy out of making other players who take the game seriously angry. These players will purposely taunt teammates and hinder their progress towards victory. Even though it is only a game many players will become extremely angered by these players and devote more time being angry at the player than drying to accomplish to game objective.