If You Play League, You're Probably Toxic

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League of Legends is one of those super fun games that can suck you in and keep you addicted for long periods of time. As publisher of one of the most popular multiplayer games in the world, Riot Games has done an excellent job of growing and maintaining its user base. Unfortunately, the League community has gained a reputation as being one of the most toxic (ill-mannered) groups in gaming. One of the reasons for this includes having team centered gameplay, where if one player makes a mistake, the rest of the players on the team are affected. Many times the interaction between players on the team through in-game chat will turn negative, and players will verbally harass or "flame" one another for bad plays. The other reason for negative behavior is due to long game times, where players will have to invest 30 to 40 minutes of their time playing out each game. This makes early mistakes potentially devastating, as it sets the other team up for a lead which will likely result in a win farther down the line. Riot Games is attempting to fight back against this community-wide toxicity, through psychological studies and techniques such as the new honor system, and a player based banning system. Unfortunately it's hard to see the community changing too much from these changes because as long as the company keeps in-game chat enabled, people will always get upset about something and make sure to let everyone on their team know about it.