Toxicity Towards Teammates in League of Legends

Since its release in 2009, League of Legends has grown to become the most popular online game of all time. With a monthly unique player base of nearly 70 million users, and peak hours reaching nearly 8 million concurrent users, no other online game comes close. League of Legends’ gameplay values teamwork above all else, including individual skill. So why is it that League of Legends is widely considered to have the most abusive tendencies toward teammates of any online game?

The most commonly brought up point is the anonymity of the users. When users know they won’t be held personally accountable for their verbal abuse of other players, they lose that inhibition to tone down insults and personal attacks. League of Legends takes measures to prevent this through the “Tribunal”, a player-run court to punish toxic players. However, because League of Legends is a free-to-play game, there is nothing to stop toxic players from simply creating a new account to circumvent a temporary or permanent ban. However, this factor is not unique to League of Legends.

The nature of League of Legends’ gameplay is largely unforgiving. Even a small mistake can spiral out of control into a major disadvantage. It takes a lot of experience and willpower to play from behind and prevent this domino effect from completely encompassing the game. As a result, players will criticize even the smallest of their teammate’s mistakes. It doesn’t help that for a large portion of the match, teammates are generally separated from each other, fighting their own battles. So it’s impossible to avoid the feeling that the game is out of your control when a teammate loses his battles on the other side of the field. And with League of Legends’ 5 versus 5 gameplay, a team needs each player to contribute to the overall strength of the team. These principles of League of Legends’ gameplay makes it difficult to ignore even a small difference in a teammate’s skill and performance.

These issues are exacerbated by the time investment required to play League of Legends. An average match takes upwards of 45 minutes, with matches lasting over an hour on occasion. Players such as students or adults in the workforce only have time to play a handful of games per week, averaging only one or two games a day. As a result, each match holds significantly more weight than games with quick sessions that last only a few minutes, such as mobile games or online card games like Hearthstone. This is amplified by the fact that players cannot leave in the middle of the match, and simply start a new match when they get behind.

Together, each of these issues contribute to this toxic state of the player base. While aggression towards opponents is a common theme in most online games, no where else can you find behavior so abusive towards teammates as in League of Legends. Although not all of League of Legends players subscribe to this abusive behavior, I’ve certainly found it more common than in any other online game I've played. Are League of Legends players doomed to continue this cycle of toxicity?