League of Legends: A closer look to what it is has become.

Ranz Ransley Saturinas

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Background/Introduction
Have you ever wondered how video games became very successful in the recent years? It
all started from a plain and simple video game to a very complex and detailed one. It has been
present from years now and lots of genres of video games popped out. From your simple and
classic platform games like Super Mario to the MMORPGs (Massive multiplayer online roleplaying games) like World of Warcraft, everything is accessible and playable now. Whatever
genre youre into, there is a game thats just right for you. One of the most popular video game
right now is League of Legends. League of Legends is a MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle
Arena) and developed by Riot Games Inc. Do understand better what is the game about, lets
define MOBA. According in the article "From Generative to Conventional Play: MOBA and
League of Legends", it is where two teams of five heroes (These are characters in the game and it
is called champions in League of Legends.), each with different roles and abilities, farming
creeps (These are monsters in the game and it is called minions in League of Legends.) and
engaging in complex machinations and formations against their opponents (Ferrari 2014). The
game was initially released on October 27, 2009. Since then, the game just started flourishing
with the efforts of Riot Games, the developer of the game, which made this awesome game
possible.
Throughout this paper, I will be researching on what the game has become since it was
launched and these are all the updates and changes that occurred in the game. Several factors like
the rise of popularity of the game, the improvements that the developers executed in the game
and the introduction of the eSports scene are going to be tackled. To do this, I plan to consider
past researches and personal experiences by players in League of Legends since they started
playing. I want to gather and study as much sources as possible to be able to present, effectively,

on how the game started and what it has become now. The focus of this paper is about how the
game positively evolved over time. League of Legends might be considered one of the hottest
games in the market but the players still encounter bad experiences in the game. Trash talking,
trolling and intentionally feeding are just some of them. I believe every online game that I played
before face this problem and it cant be avoided. Even the greatest stuff in the world still have
flaws right? Further in this paper, Im going to suggest a potential solution for this bad
experiences that players have. The goal of this proposed solution that I came up with is to lessen,
hopefully eliminate, these unpleasant incidents.
You might be wondering why I chose League of Legends out of the hundreds, probably
thousands, of games out there. The answer is simple, I love the game. It all started when my
friends got addicted to this game. I wasnt aware of what it was so I started playing it. However, I
couldnt understand it at all so I stopped for a while. A terrible thing happened to me after a
month that somewhat flipped into a good one. I broke my left hip/leg part so I couldnt walk for
a month or two. It was also summer time so I didnt have anything else to do. I returned to
playing the game, since its the only game my friends was talking about. I just played the entire
summer and got really good at it. After a year or so, I started joining tournaments together with
my friends. The most memorable one was when we placed 4th at a national level online
tournament in Philippines. We were able to beat some famous teams and we were really
surprised. Were just very glad that were able to experience that and the rest was history. Ive
been playing this for 3 years and I still love it. Probably the most valuable lesson it taught me is
that being a team player is a key not just in the game, but also in real life. Hearing my
experiences, I might have some biases that are obvious in this paper. The words Im going to use
is probably one of them. Most part of this paper might be about praises on the game but as what

Ive said, there are flaws in the game that Im going to talk about. Another bias are some certain
updates and changes that I personally picked, which were my favorites that occurred in the game.
Nonetheless, Ill try to be as balance with praises and criticisms as possible. I hope this paper
will give you a better insight about the game and what it has become.

Literature Review
League of Legends evolved drastically over a short amount of time. The overwhelming
patronage of the players are undoubtedly obvious. It was only released in late 2009 and the game
made a huge impact in the video game industry since it was launched. I was able to interview
one of my good friend, Charles Cuerdo, on what made him decide to play the game. Charles is a
college student that has been dedicatedly playing the game since 2013. He decided to play the
game because of the fast paced gameplay and how the game progresses. It was hard for him at
first but as time went on, he had fun playing the game. The diversity and art style of the
champions (characters) in League of Legends also sealed the deal for him to play the game
(Cuerdo 2016). The article Thinking Style and Team Competition Game Performance and
Enjoyment states that the ultimate game design goal are the multiple factors that are associated
with sense of enjoyment (Wang, Yang and Sun, 2015). This is, maybe, why League of Legends
and other video games are acquiring success due to the undying support they get from the players
who happen to be enjoying the games. Another reason why League of Legends is labeled the
most popular game in the world is the free to play model paired with the easily accessible
computer hardware requirements (Caudill 2015). This is really a good thing about the game
because you dont have to have those expensive gaming computers to play the game, a simple
with good graphics card and processor is enough. As a League of Legends player for 3 years, I

always find the game fun for the fact that the game always brings something new to the table.
The developers regularly comes up with this bright ideas like different game mode, visual and
game updates and adding more champions to the champion pool. In 2013, League of Legends
saw 1,779,636 years of logged gameplay, more time spent than even fathomable. Since 2013, the
play time and population have only grown, and with this growth, the demographics have also
changed (Caudill 2015).
In the recent years, Riot Games, the developer of League of Legends, made a lot of
updates and changes in the game. The developers continues to release patches (updates) to
present new features as well as balance changes to the game. These balance changes includes
adjustments to the abilities of the champions and complete reworks of older champions that led
to a huge impact on players decision on using the champions in matches (Lee and Ramler 2015).
I was able to interview Dustin Wallace, another avid player of the game, which has been playing
the game for 3 years and currently a junior in University of North Carolina at Charlotte. The
introduction of the support items had the biggest effect on him since hes a support main. At the
beginning of Season 4, they introduced these items in the game, specifically for support
champions that lets them passively earn gold so they wouldnt be starving for items 20 minutes
into the game (Wallace 2016). The observations presented by Saturinas in his Assignment One
provides good explanations about the roles in the game if you are not familiar with it. Supports
are utility-based champions. Their goal is to help the team and let them deal majority of the
damage (Saturinas 2016). They dont really earn that much gold since theyre helping and not
actually killing units to earn. Overall, the support items made a huge impact on the game since
season 4. Another major update that happened was during preseason 2016. The League
Community Podcast discussed a lot of updates and changes on preseason 2016 and one notable

change was on the marksman class. Marksmen are range-type champions and normally deals
damage from a safe distance (Saturinas 2016). They decided to change and update the marksman
class because they want to give them a specific unique identity. They want to differentiate
marksman champions with each other by changing or updating their abilities, as well as the items
theyll use (Van Roon, Wenban and Street 2015). Marksmen are currently more diverse now.
Whether youre a tower destroyer or ability based marksman, the power is now acquirable
according to your playstyle.
I believe one great proof that League of Legends is one of the most popular games in the
world is its eSports scene, which has become the most sought after event in the online game
industry. Before we dig into the games eSports scene, lets define eSports first. Dal Yong Jin
described eSports in ESports and Television Business in the Digital Economy as a new area
developed through the concurrence of culture with technology, sport and business (Jin 2010).
ESports can be interpreted as the professionalization of digital gaming, competitively. Since the
introduction of its professional tournaments, it undergone some drastic changes in their structure
and presentation, and these changes have occurred in a short span of time. The first world
championship tournament was held in June 2011 and was presented as an additional event at the
Dreamhack Summer in Sweden. The teams that competed were selected from the top ranked
leaderboards. In season 3, a new structure was introduced to the world championships and
selection of participating teams. Riot has made its own competitive league series, separated by
geographic region, which competes for limited spots in the world championship. This is known
as League of Championship Series, or LCS. When Riot Games announced that the participating
teams would receive salaries, LCS gained lots of attention. This is a notable step towards
defining League of Legends as a professional sport and a legitimate one (Hinnant 2013). A

number of shoutcasters who provide professional, indepth commentating for official

tournaments was employed by Riot itself (Ferarri 2014). There are more than 50 professional
League of Legends teams in the world as of today and are sponsored by different companies. The
eSports community as a whole has grown tremendously. The prize pool increased from
~$100,000 in season 1 to $2.13 million in last years world championships (Wallace 2016). The
League of Legends eSports scene is probably one of the biggest one in history. These changes
and updates in the eSports scene marks their dominance in the gaming industry and shows a
positive effect on what the game has become.

Entering the Conversation

Its undeniable that League of Legends became one of the fastest growing game in the
world. This can be seen through how the game developed over time. The unquestionable support
by the players on the game is evident. On my Literature Review, I was able to interview one
League of Legends players for 3 years, Charles Cuerdo. Charles decided to play the game
because its fun (Cuerdo 2016). Ive stated earlier what the article Thinking Style and Team
Competition Game Performance and Enjoyment says, the ultimate game design goal are the
multiple factors that are associated with sense of enjoyment (Wang, Yang and Sun, 2015). I
believe that the sense of enjoyment plays a major role on games, especially League of Legends.
It really feels good when youre doing great in the game and continues to dominate. It will surely
give a positive effect on your play style and gameplay based on your positive aura that exert and
feel. I can personally say that this is true because I play the game myself. Whenever I get an
early lead, it boosts my confidence and results to a better game experience. If a player continues
to dominate, there is definitely a big chance that his/her team will win the game if played right. It

is a team-based game after all, so communication and a positive attitude will also be a key in
winning.
However, enjoyment might only apply when youre in the winning team. How about
when youre in the losing team? What do you actually do when youre losing and constantly
dying over this over-powered opponent? Do you feel amazed and still blissfully continue playing
the game? This may vary from player to player but recent studies shows that losing results to
toxicity. Even with this amazing improvements that the game achieved, toxicity cant be avoided.
Toxic behavior includes behaviors like unjustified rage, threatening, racial and/or sexual insults
and harassment towards both new and experienced players in online gaming (Fahlstrm and
Matson 2014). This is one of the main reasons why players experience a bad game. In the game,
there is a Tribunal System which allows a player to report other players that he/she believes have
misbehaved during a game. There is a list of misbehaviors that a player can select and additional
comments if desired to (Kou and Nardi 2013).

League of Legends report system

The figure above shows the report system in League of Legends. There are seven (7)
choices and you can choose up to three (3) if you needed to. The choices are Negative attitude,
Verbal abuse, Leaving the game or AFK (Away From Keyboard), Intentional feeding, Hate
speech, Cheating and Offensive or inappropriate summoner name (in-game name). The
developers also included some definitions for clarity purposes of the said choices. This report
window is available at the end of the match where you see the overview of the game. It can be
accessed through clicking the red exclamation mark along the name of the person you want to
report (I marked it through a red rectangle on the figure above). However, there are still
questions floating around about the credibility of the system. I read some players complaining
about it in the games forum and some other forums online like Reddit. It normally takes a lot of
reports before a player gets punished or permanently banned.
Toxic Buster System
Since it would normally take quite a long time for the developers to make a case about a
player and consider taking an action, I would suggest that they should consider the reports right
away after the game while waiting for the real punishment. If a person misbehaved and the rest
of team reported him/her, they should give that person a penalty before he/she plays another
game. I just want to clarify that the rest of the team, the other four (4) players in a team, must
report the misbehaved player before giving him a sanction. I decided to have this parameter of
four (4) reports from the teammates to avoid trolling in the game. The opponents may also report
the misbehaved player but the four (4) teammates would be more effective since they actually
experience the toxicity. It would be more credible if there is a unanimous decision to give a
person a penalty. Im going to call this sanction or penalty system as Toxic Buster. Toxic

Buster is in the form of queue time or wait time before starting or playing another game. The
chart below shows the number of offenses and corresponding penalties.

Toxic Buster Offense and Penalty Chart

Number of Offenses

Penalties

First Offense

The misbehaved player gets a warning of too much toxicity

and is incapable of starting another game for five (5) minutes.

Second to Fourth Offense

The misbehaved player gets a warning of too much toxicity

and is incapable of starting another game for fifteen (15)
minutes.

Fifth Offense or more

The misbehaved player gets a warning of too much toxicity

and will received an initial and final penalty. Initial penalty is
where he/she will be unable to play a match until a final
decision is made. The final penalty is a long temporary ban
that ranges from one (1) day to one (1) month or a permanent
ban will be executed depending on the toxicity level he/she
has.

I believe this new system called Toxic Buster is justifiable enough. Toxicity is one of the
reasons why a team lose and toxic players should be punished. The penalties I suggested above is
justifiable since I divided it into three (3) categories. The first one is the lightest since it only
prohibits them to play for five (5) minutes. The second one is quite heavier since they are unable
to play for fifteen (15) minutes. The third one is the heaviest since they arent allowed to play
any games until a final verdict is concluded. They can still log in in the game, visit and buy stuff
at the store or chat with friends but they cant play a match. They need to wait for the verdict
before theyll know their final penalty, which depends on toxic level they received from other
reports. Im pretty positive that if this system will go live, lots of toxic players will change or get

banned. If this will get implemented, there may be some issues that this system will face like
some other systems in game, but those will be addressed and fixed as we go along. As of now,
this system will result to a better and fun game experience, which are the core of a game. I
decided to make this toxicity buster system because I think that the report system in the game
lacks immediate attention and action, especially when its about toxicity. The tribunal system in
the game exists but the action executed is not as fast. As a player, I experience toxicity every now
and then. It would be beneficial for all if this suggested system will get implemented. League of
Legends is an evolving game but some incidents like toxicity cant be avoided. Toxic Buster will
definitely lessen this problem and will surely make a positive impact in the game and players
experiences.

Conclusion/So What?
In this research paper, I was able to explore about the different improvements
implemented in League of Legends. I also discussed on what the game has become since it was
launched. It was only released in late 2009 and the growth of League of Legends has been
phenomenal. The population growth of players is enormous since it was launched, and they have
different reasons why they love the game. But there is one reason they all have in common, it is
the sense of enjoyment they experience while playing. After all, multiple factors that are
associated with the sense of enjoyment are the ultimate design goal (Wang, Yang and Sun, 2015).
Another point that I discussed are the updates and changes that occurred in the game in recent
years, especially the Support and Marksman class or roles. The developers usually release
patches (updates) to introduce new features as well as balance changes in the game. The last
point that tackled was the eSports scene of League of Legends which is a great evidence on how

big the game is. ESports can be interpreted as the professionalization of digital gaming,
competitively (Hinnant 2013).
However, theres always going to be two sides of the same coin. The game is still
evolving so theres still some room for improvements, even though it is labeled as one of the
most popular game in the world. Every happiness of a winning team is the opposite of a losing
one. One reason why teams experience a bad match is because of toxicity. I really think that the
new toxicity system I coined, which is called Toxic Buster, will play a major role on the
improvement of not just the tribunal system in the game, but also the players game experience.
Toxicity has been present for a long time in League of Legends and it has been one of the main
reasons why players lose a match. The game has their own tribunal system but I think the process
is not as effective and fast as what the players wants. I can testify this because Im a League of
Legends player myself. It is just depressing when you know youre playing really well but one
person is being a pain. Implementing Toxic Buster will surely solve or lessen this toxicity
problem. The offenses and penalties I designed is justifiable and reasonable. A range to a lighter
to heavier penalties will be the consequences of their negative behaviors. These penalties will be
presented to the misbehaved player right away after a match, when the other four teammates will
report him/her. Toxicity is not the right way to tell a person to play better. League of Legends is a
team-based game after all, so right communication and proper behavior are some of the key to
success. Toxic Buster will definitely get rid of these bad behaviors and it will result to a better
community in League of Legends.
Theres still lots of area in the game that needs updates and improvements and this is
achievable since the game is continuously growing. This is what I like most about the game, it
keeps on updating things in the game that needs improvement and balance. Other games doesnt

do this actively thus making League of Legends, in my opinion, one of the player-friendly games
out there. One question that I want to ask the League community if Toxic Buster will get
implemented is can these banned players do something to compensate their bad behaviors. Some
of them may be playing for several years and they might think that this system is unforgiving. Is
it justifiable to bring them back to the game? I was also thinking to propose a system to the
Ranked game mode in League of Legends. It is where players get points and they are placed in
a certain rank according to their performance in the game. Players can go up or down these rank
ladder if they win or lose. I personally think it needs an update and some improvements. League
of Legends has come a long way, though. Ive experienced this myself and I can testify how
amazing the games growth is. It surely reached a broader audience due to the efforts of the
developers and community. From a newly launched game to the one of the most popular game in
the world, League of Legends truly made a mark in the gaming industry.

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