League of Legends

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Genre	Multiplayer Online Battle Arena
Gamming Style	MOBA/MMORPG
Platform	Windows, Mac (In Development)
Release Date	October 27, 2009
Developer	Riot Games
Publisher	Riot Games [USA], Tencent Holdings Ltd [PRC], Garena [TW]
Website	www.na.leagueoflegends.com

League of Legends is an online competitive multiplayer game created by Riot Games. The game was first released on October 27, 2009 for the Windows platform. The official release date for the Mac version has not yet been determined. Currently, Mac users can enjoy the game through a few unofficial modifications. Today, League of Legends is the number one most played PC game in terms of minutes per day according to Xfire, a popular instant messaging service for gamers. Forbes.com has also noted that League of Legends has become the most played PC game in the world according to data collected by DFC Intelligence and Xfire.

Game Play

Champions

General

There are five different game modes:

• Tutorial: Step by Step directions that teach players basics of the game.
• Custom: Players create manually create game sessions with their preferred sessions that are visible to other players on a game list.
• Co-Op vs Al: Players are matched alone or part of a group to play against bots.
• Normal: Similar to ranked mode, but less competitive.
• Ranked: Players are matched up according to their player rating and attempt to increase the rating through this game mode which allows for visibility of all players picks and ratings before the start of the game.

There are different methods of selecting champions:

• In Draft pick, teams will take turn banning up to three characters that neither team can choose as their champion. Following, players from both team will alternatively select their Champions. This system greatly reduces the chance of one team counter-picking against the other team.
• In Blind pick, teams will both remain oblivious to the other team's composition of Champions. This is the less-balanced preference, but much more time-conserving.

The game focuses strongly on team work and collaboration. Players are divided into 2 even teams 3v3 or 5v5. Each player controls a "Champion" which are fantasy characters. The team must work together to advance through a series of turrets and minions to reach the enemy "Nexus" which signifies a flag in a Capture the Flag game. The Champions gain experience and money when defeating enemy minions, towers, and Champions. The Champion levels up gaining new abilities in each level and the money can be used to purchase new items to increase the stats of the champion. The game ends when one team destroys the other team's Nexus.

The Summoner

A player in League of Legends is also referred to as a summoner. At the end of each game, Summoner will also receive experience points and influence points. The experience points levels up the Summoner's account as a whole, and the influence points can be used to purchase runes and new champions. The Summoner becomes more powerful as he/she collects more champions and runes.

Gaming Etiquette and the Tribunal

Gaming Etiquette

Every player/Summoner who wishes to play league of legends must sign an electronic contract stating that they would adhere to a set of rules call The Summoner's Code. The Summoner's code states clearly what is acceptable gaming behavior and what is not. If a player fails to follow the Summoner's code, he/ she would be at risk of being reported. A player can be reported for the following reasons:

1. Offensive Language – Including, but not limited to language that is vulgar, obscene, sexually explicit, or racially, ethnically, or otherwise objectionable.

2. Verbal Abuse - Including, but not limited to, language that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, or otherwise objectionable.

3. Intentional Feeding - Purposely dying to enemy champions or turrets to make the opposing team more powerful while putting your team at a disadvantage.

4. Assisting Enemy Team – This includes using all-chat or Summoner abilities to assist the opposing team in any way.

5. Unskilled Player - If you feel that a Summoner is not playing well - such as not last hitting, not using the right skills, having the wrong build, and having poor map awareness, you can report that player for being unskilled.

6. Refusing to Communicate with Team – Applies to any Summoner that refuses to use chat or pings.

7. Leaving the Game/AFK - This includes logging out or exiting the Game before a match ends as well as standing idle for long periods of time or refusing to participate in the match at all.

8. Negative Attitude – Any Summoner that is constantly putting other Summoners down or being generally negative about the game.

9. Inappropriate Name – Select this option is you see a Summoner name that is falsely indicative of an association with Riot Games, contains personally identifying information, infringes on the proprietary rights of third parties, or that is offensive, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, sexually explicit, racially, ethnically, or otherwise objectionable. This also applies if the name uses a misspelling or an alternative spelling to circumvent this restriction on Summoner name choices.

10. Spamming - Whether for personal or commercial purposes, by disrupting the flow of conversation with repeated postings of a similar nature is a reportable offense.

After a player has been reported by another player, the case would be put on trial on the tribunal.

The Tribunal

Tribunal screen, displaying a player up for potential punishment.

Any experienced player (players above level 20) can participate in the tribunal. The player would review a case and determine if the player in question deserves to be punished. The tribunal would show the information of the games the players are being reported in. Below is a example of a case being reviewed.

After reviewing the chat log, game statistics, and inputs from the players of the game, the player can vote to either pardon or punish the reported player. A case is reviewed by multiple players to ensure a fair judgement. A timer is also added to the right of the page so that each case gets sufficient time to be reviewed before a player makes a decision. Riot Games rewards players who make the right judgment on a case through extra game points. Punishing every player who gets reported would not make the system reward the player more. Players get rewarded by making the right judgment base on the 10 rules above. Players who are punished by the tribunal are banned from playing. Players are banned for different duration depending on the seriousness of the offense, number of times reported, and previous punishment. The duration of bans ranges from a day to a month.

Player Rating

League of Legends recently developed a feedback system for players to rate other players after each games. This rating system is called the Honors Initiative and it consists of 4 different ratings which are "Friendly", "Helpful", "Teamwork", and "Honorable." These ratings are used as a way for players to gauge the playing habits of other players. If a player has been friendly or helpful to another player, the player can have the option to add a point to the other player's rating. Although the ratings do not affect how the game plays and have no incentive if one has a lot of them, they signifies the player's reputation. Riot Games developed this rating system as a way to reward players for good behavior. After the system has implemented, there has been significant improvement in the quality of the games. Below are the results of after one week of implementing the system.

Negative Attitude reports: -29% in normals games and -11% in ranked games

Offensive Language reports: -35% in normals games and -20% in ranked games

Verbal Abuse reports: -41% in normals games -17% in ranked games

The improved game play due to the Honor Initiative is notable. The system promotes good gaming etiquette through a rating system that doesn't interfere with the actual game play. Players naturally want to collect these honor points to be reputable. Riot Games also implemented bots that routinely checks for players that trade honor points(Giving points to other player for no other reason than to receive points back) , making it difficult for players to accumulate honor points through unconventional methods.

Growth of League of Legends and Riot Games

An infographic illustrating the size and scope of League of Legends today.

League of Legends has seen tremendous growth since its debut in 2009. League of Legends’ first major tournament was the World Cyber Games Grand Finals in Los Angeles in October of 2010. The winner was granted a first-place prize of $10,000. This was awarded to team Counter-Logic Gaming, who defeated team SK Gaming 2-1 in a best-of-3 matchup.

In the beginning of 2011, major Chinese internet investment company Tencent Holdings acquired majority stake in Riot Games for roughly $400 million. CEO of Riot Games Brandon Beck stated that "[Riot Games will] tap Tencent's resources for worldwide expansion." The acquisition marked the biggest international acquisition made by a Chinese company in the gaming industry.

The WCG Grand Finals proved to be a huge success for League of Legends. Riot Games showed ambition when they announced their Season One Championship in spring of 2011 with a total prize pool of $100,000. Season One consisted of over 50 certified tournaments throughout the year leading up to the season one finals at Dreamhack, the world’s largest computer festival. Season One North American Qualifiers accrued nearly 300,000 unique stream views with a peak concurrency of 69,000, setting the record for North American viewership of any eSports event. This figure was blown away during the Season One Championship Finals; Riot claims that 1.6 million viewers streamed the Season One Championship online and their peak concurrency was a whopping 210,000 viewers during the final matches between Team FnaticMSI and Team Against All Authority (aAa).

Riot Games set the bar even higher with Season Two. Riot Games announced that their Season Two World Championship would have a prize pool of $3 million and a grand prize of $1 million to the winner of the Season Two Championship, the second largest first place prize for any eSport. League of Legends set new records in terms of viewership once again with the Season Two Championship. Riot Games announced that during the Season Two Championship, they reached a peak viewership concurrence of 1,154,000. They also received over 8,282,000 unique viewers throughout the championship, not including the 2,402,225 viewers watching from Korea and China.

Ethical Issues

Delayed Punishment

One of the biggest problems of the Tribunal is that it is a delayed punishment system. Players who are reported due to poor gaming etiquette are not punished immediately. Players can continue to play games and behave poorly after being reported. A case might not be reviewed until there are multiple reports and incidents. When a player is put on the Tribunal, almost certainly there's a pattern of poor game play in not just one, but multiple games. Players can avoid being put on the tribunal by playing some games well and other games poorly, making it difficult to pinpoint unethical gaming behavior.

"Smurfing"

League of Legends is a free to play game. Anyone with an email account can apply for an account and play. Players who are banned from one account can just create another one to play. Officially Riot Games does not have any rules or regulations against such behavior. Theoretically, players can create as many accounts as they please, play on one until it gets banned and move on to another one. "Smurfing" becomes a concern since players at a certain skill level may create a new account and play players at the default player rating who tend to be less skilled players. This ruins the experience of new gamers who are trying to learn how to play the game because these "smurfers" have higher skill levels than the new account(s) they are hiding under. The "smurfers" have the benefits of beating lower skilled players which cause ethical issues to a growing League of Legends community as this can be discouraging for new players. However, despite being able to go smoothly from one account to another, the player does not get to keep any of the items or champions they have bought and must essentially start from scratch. Also, the moderators of League of Legends have stated multiple times that they generally have a good idea on which accounts are smurfs and if the player's attitude does not change, the smurf will have a high chance of getting banned as well.

Game Addiction

As with other games, League of Legends may lead to severe game addiction in users. Individual games usually last at least 20 to 30 minutes and in many cases go over an hour, so it takes a good chunk of a player's time to play a couple of rounds. As it is looked down upon to leave in the middle of a game, in many cases players opt to finish games rather than take care of responsibilities in their real life.

See Also

• Ethics in Computer & Video Games
• Electronic Sports
• Diablo III
• Starcraft II
• Warcraft III
• World of Warcraft