I was in a game of League of Legends, where I found myself dealing with the normal slew of complete jerks. My teammates decided they both wanted to go mid, but instead of explaining this move to us they decided to just both call mid last minute and leave it at that. When the neglected lane started to be pushed, they began the normal barrage of harassment, making sure that everyone else but them in the game knew how much of noobs we were. Eventually I got tired of it and told them to shut up and suggested that we switch to a more conventional meta. But they insisted that we were "noobs" and continued to be complete assholes the entire game. When it became clear these guys were refusing to play the game in a way we could win, I started to feed in retaliation.
To this reaction one of the players stated this, " I can forgive anything you say to me, but I can't forgive feeding, that's a no in the game." This is wrong. This is a clear example of how the culture of competitive gaming has its priorities mixed up. It doesn't matter what in game transgressions one does, the act of attacking a player as a person should always be weighed as the most grave offense. Someone who "feeds" or goes "AFK" or anything that isn't directly targeted to hurt a particular player cannot be considered worse than someone who is devaluing another person. That's because the game is ultimately a fantasy. Sure, high stake tournament matches might be different, but for the bulk of LoL games, a single game is a short 1hr instance, where a bad player or bad player behavior can ruin your game, but not your night. Hurtful language and discriminatory slang can successfully do both.
Intentional feeding and other similar behavior are very rare in a game like LoL because the time commitment one has to undergo when joining a game deters people from trying to troll games. Trolling only works when it can be done efficiently. If I have a horrible team I can troll 4 different people every 20 minutes in LoL, in the most efficient scenario. Compare this scenario to online games like Halo where a new trolling experience can be accessed within minutes, with little to no penalties for dropping matches. LoL makes it so that those who want to intentionally feed, won't get very much satisfaction for doing so. Yet players still hold this near deification of the game meta, while ignoring how they hurt actual people.
One might say that the same deter for trolling exists in negative language (basically people who want to go around being rude can do so at the same rate as those who want to around intentionally feeding). This is true, but ignores the fact that while using this hurtful language players can still derive the benefit from playing the game and winning the game at the same time. If one intentionally feeds, chances are high that their team is going to lose.
This culture of "game over people" needs to stop. When I look through Tribunal cases and see people being punished for horrible play and/or intentional feeding, while those in their chat ridiculed them a and belittled them, I see a huge example of injustice. It's time the video game community looked itself in the mirror and top sugarcoating the message. People matter more than games. It's that simple.
To this reaction one of the players stated this, " I can forgive anything you say to me, but I can't forgive feeding, that's a no in the game." This is wrong. This is a clear example of how the culture of competitive gaming has its priorities mixed up. It doesn't matter what in game transgressions one does, the act of attacking a player as a person should always be weighed as the most grave offense. Someone who "feeds" or goes "AFK" or anything that isn't directly targeted to hurt a particular player cannot be considered worse than someone who is devaluing another person. That's because the game is ultimately a fantasy. Sure, high stake tournament matches might be different, but for the bulk of LoL games, a single game is a short 1hr instance, where a bad player or bad player behavior can ruin your game, but not your night. Hurtful language and discriminatory slang can successfully do both.
Intentional feeding and other similar behavior are very rare in a game like LoL because the time commitment one has to undergo when joining a game deters people from trying to troll games. Trolling only works when it can be done efficiently. If I have a horrible team I can troll 4 different people every 20 minutes in LoL, in the most efficient scenario. Compare this scenario to online games like Halo where a new trolling experience can be accessed within minutes, with little to no penalties for dropping matches. LoL makes it so that those who want to intentionally feed, won't get very much satisfaction for doing so. Yet players still hold this near deification of the game meta, while ignoring how they hurt actual people.
One might say that the same deter for trolling exists in negative language (basically people who want to go around being rude can do so at the same rate as those who want to around intentionally feeding). This is true, but ignores the fact that while using this hurtful language players can still derive the benefit from playing the game and winning the game at the same time. If one intentionally feeds, chances are high that their team is going to lose.
This culture of "game over people" needs to stop. When I look through Tribunal cases and see people being punished for horrible play and/or intentional feeding, while those in their chat ridiculed them a and belittled them, I see a huge example of injustice. It's time the video game community looked itself in the mirror and top sugarcoating the message. People matter more than games. It's that simple.
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