League of Legends is BAD | an Essay

originally published on 04/05/2023

Hello.

I go by GEMSimov. I am a gameplay designer, a design guru under a master of design, responsible for introducing the term "usability" in my country of residence, a philosopher-in-training (as no philosopher is a philosopher until they become a professor, and even then there's more to be done), a writer in the death throes of the 'career' in question, a fledgling reviewer and a surprisingly un-stinky player of games(because I shower, daily, and apply deodorant, daily).

Today I am going to be going on about League of Legends, and why it is bad, qualitatively, in regards to how well-made it is, as well as in regards to its moral quality. In most possible interpretations of what League of Legends is, related to quality of workmanship, it is bad. In conjunction, as a result of that badness it is also morally bad. However, in the few regards that League of Legends is good, when it comes to workmanship, it is also morally bad. I will elaborate.

However, first, it must be stated that League of Legends can not be defined as a single, concrete thing - be it a game or a product - as it is not something that fits in the description of one thing in particular. If we were to treat it as a game, we would need to consider that it is a game that exhibits certain qualities that are not particular to games. One could argue that the story that exists in conjunction with League of Legends is not part of the game, even if it is so closely associated with it, to a point that it is nigh-inseparable. In the same vein of argumentation, one could present the 'cash shop' that is glued to the game, but is not a part of it. There are many other examples that will be presented and examined, which all are tied to the thing "League of Legends", but what that thing is can not be properly defined, as it is clear that the purpose of the thing in question is not concretely apparent, or at least is not one that is agreed upon, by all who are involved in its creation and maintenance.

Thus, as a result of that impossibility regarding the provision of a proper definition for the thing in question, as that would require a number of sentences far greater than what can be presented in an elevator pitch, or what ought to be written down as a characteristic 'tag' on the back of a box or in an online store, it must be considered as everything that it could be, separately.

I will now present all the things that League of Legends could be, in no specific order; League of Legends is:

A game
A multiplayer game
A single player game
A service
A product
A story
An art gallery exhibition
An E-sport
A store
A means of raking in profits

There are, doubtlessly, a vast number of additional things that League of Legends could be, however I have deemed the number of propositions enough.

One other thing that I need to do - it is important that I make my point clear in regards to what a 'thing' is and how it is defined. If a thing is made - as is the case with League of Legends - then it is whatever was intended to be made, as long as whatever it is that was intended was achieved. The achievement of intent needs to be of a certain level of quality - a quality that does not immediately invite observations of imperfections, flaws or possible improvements, rather a sense of completeness and satisfaction.

Thus, a thing that is made is only whatever was intended if it was well made - otherwise it is not what was intended, and as a result of that it is not the thing as was intended, but rather it is something else. As an example, a badly made horror movie is not a horror movie, it's a funny movie, a comedy.

With that out of the way, I will begin by taking a look at the potential interpretation of League of Legends as a game, which is what is most often used as a means of describing it (with the exception of 'cancer'). To achieve that goal, I must first define what a game is, which happens to be a difficult endeavor, according to the borderline inept professors at Staffordshire University - sorry, not sorry.

A game is something that one engages in for the purposes of recreation, of deriving joy from it, or of enjoying it. Naturally, deriving joy from something can occur in a multitude of ways, and it can also overlap with simply enjoying that something. In addition to that, the concept of enjoying oneself, or of joy overall, has been severely clouded and muddled by contemporary use of those words, which will necessitate definitions of them, as well.

It must also be noted that recreation has, similarly, been splashed into the puddle of the other two concepts, whilst also bearing its own weight and meaning, and has further enhanced the challenge of defining them.

So, what is joy? It is happiness. It is the essence of being happy - one is happy when they have joy, when they experience joy. Joy is an emotion that is associated with happiness, with goodness and positivity…And fun. It is, essentially, fun. It is a grade of satisfaction from an activity or life itself, which satisfaction is greater than other types of satisfaction, though it is not a perpetual thing, rather a momentary occurrence. It's a state, one could say.

So, again, what is joy? Did any understanding show up, or did I simply use other terms to describe it, terms that have synonymous meaning with it and bear no great weight in regards to explaining what it is? Perhaps fun can't be described as joy, and it'd be more appropriate to dub recreation the act of having fun, of amusing oneself.

In any case, it is evident, or at least hoped, that joy is something known to everyone, and that it is something that is associated with positive sensations, but perhaps does not reach the very pinnacles of positive qualities. It is more than an average goodness, but it is not the most overwhelmingly good thing there is in regards to an experience or an emotion.

Enjoying something, then, is associated with the positivity of an experience, a positivity of the mood of whoever it is that is enjoying something, of a pleasantness associated with the events unfolding. One who enjoys something can find joy in it. In addition to that, it is possible to not derive joy from something one enjoys, yet that enjoyable thing can remain a source of positive emotion. The important aspect of enjoying something is rooted in having fun with whatever thing is being enjoyed.

As an example - I might spend an hour running on the treadmill. I might enjoy it - in such a manner that would leave me filled with joy. However, on a subsequent day, I might spend an hour running on the treadmill, and even though I might enjoy it, I might fail to have fun. It could be that my mood, upon stepping on the treadmill, is different. Maybe I had a different train of thought that day, one that I did not find particularly pleasant. Maybe I was more tired than the previous instance of running on the treadmill, and that negatively impacted my experience.

In conclusion, there's one instance in which I derive joy from my enjoyment, and there's another instance in which I don't find the experience totally reprehensible, in which I enjoy the act, but I don't get off the treadmill with a state of mind that would be fittingly described as 'joyful'. Thus, enjoyment is a positive sensation, or a positive qualification of an experience, which could also feature negative moments.

Then there's the recreational aspect of games. Recreation is somewhat associated with joy and enjoyment, but if it were to be placed in a hierarchy, it would be situated at the third step, beneath enjoyment, which would be on the second step, and joy, which would be on the first step. This indicates that recreation is also related to positive experiences, fun, and a measure of happiness. However, recreation is not that.

Recreation is a means of taking one's mind off of things - thus it necessitates either a complete lack of thoughts that are not focused on the activity of recreation in question, or a lack of negative qualification. In a sense, it is such that it requires a measure of separation from everything else, and a focus upon itself. In the word itself - recreation - can be found an indication relating to what it means, and that is a second creation, one that occurs anew. A new world is created and the one engaging in recreation finds themselves in this new world, becoming divorced from the other world.

It is a positive experience because of the lack of negative experiences - because it takes the individual experiencing it away from the proper world, wherein the negative experiences take place, and this, by necessity, is not bad, but it does not need to be good. It is fun as a result of taking away what is not fun and presenting the individual with something that maintains a not-un-fun, but not necessarily fun condition. Lastly, and easily deductible from the other two statements, is that recreation brings a measure of happiness. It does not necessarily bring happiness in a quantity greater than the bare minimum to not go into sadness, but that is what it needs to provide.

Thus, recreation is a divorce between the individual and the real world for the duration of the recreational activity.

This indicates that there's a necessity for games to be not un-fun, in the worst case scenario - that is if they want to be considered as such. If the thing is not a source of fun, it can not be a game. The necessity remains constant, though it is unlikely that a game can remain fun throughout its entire duration; after all, there are many means through which fun is derived from something, and there is great difficulty in creating a source of constant, stable fun which doesn't experience dips or heightenings. In addition to that, there's something else that needs to be in effect to make a game a game.

I will dub that thing interactivity. A game needs to be something that the individual engaging in it must perform certain, conscious actions and make decisions regarding the activity. Interactivity can boil down to moving one's limbs and applying force onto objects (force that doesn't affect their structural integrity or cause them pain, but still a force that can cause a positional change), but then that would mean reading a book is an interactive experience and, if it provides the reader with a measure of fun, it winds up being a game.

So the interactivity that I am looking for is more specific. Perhaps the choice of flipping the page or not is too restrictive to be considered interactivity - for, if the choice were made and the page was not flipped, the experience ends. Perhaps the choice must not be one that necessitates its own selection, and so there must be the option to cease, as well as at least two other options which have different outcomes?

That ought to be it! So, a game is an interactive thing that provides its participants some measure of fun… And, well, with that said, how fun are games?

They need to be fun, though the fun they generate needs not be constant. However, there must be a calculation, or a comparison. If fun can be measured - as it evidently can be, judging from the three 'qualities' of fun that were featured here, being joy, enjoyment and recreation. Thus, the amount of fun derived from a game, for that game to be fun, needs to be greater than the amount of un-fun, or, alternatively, the amount of time spent playing the game should feature longer stretches of fun than lack of un-fun… But, that, too, seems impossible. Is there an amount of un-fun that is permissible? And how much un-fun would be allowed? Perhaps 1 unit of un-fun to every 9 units of fun? And, if we were to add lack of fun/un-fun into that, do we need at least two times more fun than lack of fun/un-fun? Or do we need at least three times more?

In any case, League of Legends, as a game, fails at securing the ratios. That makes it fail as a game overall - it is improper to call it such, because it does not meet one of the two mandatory requirements that are present for its ontological existence to BE. However, playing League of Legends features four outcomes:

1. The Player wins by a landslide, which is fun;
2. The Player barely ekes out a victory, which can be fun, however, knowing that one can win as handily as in the previous scenario, the enjoyment derived is so minimal that it would barely be enough to propel the experience over the level of lack of fun/un-fun, and it is dangerously close to being un-fun;
3. The Player loses, but only barely, which can, similarly to the previous situation, be fun, but considering the landslide victory, or victory in general, the conditions suggest that it might be even harder to have fun than in example n2;
4. The Player loses by a landslide, which is not fun

So, outcomes 1, 2 and 3 can provide fun; outcomes 2, 3 and 4 can provide un-fun; however, outcomes 2 and 3 require more explanation.

In League of Legends, there are two teams - one team that wins, one team that loses. By default, losing is less fun than winning. In addition to that, seeing as the only goal the Players of League of Legends have is to win. Failing to succeed at your only task is not fun. Not only that, but being penalized afterwards is even less fun - for in League of Legends there exist a number of values that go up after a victory and go up by a significantly lower quantity after a loss; there are even values that go down upon receiving a loss, rather than go up by a lower quantity.

Losing a game is not fun, but there can be fun found in playing the game, which could mitigate the un-fun that was had as a result of losing. However, when a person loses something, or is penalized, they do not have any fun from the interaction (with only one exception that can be thought of, and that instance occurs only once). By contrast, winning and being rewarded is describable as fun… Though there's an aspect of chance when it comes to winning or losing in League of Legends, which is a matter entirely related to something else that I will get into later. For now? It's Gambling.

So, we have found that there seem to be more sources of un-fun than there are of fun, at least in League of Legends when it comes to winning or losing in the game. However, the sources of fun are plentiful - as we have so far looked at more than three - and there are a few more that need to be presented in relation to League of Legends.

The way that thing works - League of Legends - is naughty. It features more than 150 characters that can be played by the Player, but only one at a time, and each instance of playing is relegated to a match. The match ends in a victory or a loss, and we look at the fun to be had from winning or losing.

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However, during a match there are other things that take place, things that might be conducive to fun. One of those things is growth - for some reason, human beings like observing some kind of expansion in the numerical sense, or growth in another, potentially more abstract dimension. Watching a person's transformation, from being 300 kilograms heavy and going down to 100 kilograms after a few years of going to the gym and eating healthy, is enthralling. Watching a building get built is engaging in some manner. Watching a wall get painted is somewhat amusing. Watching a number increase is also a source of enjoyment.

Thus, the growth experienced during a match is fun - the character the player plays grows in levels, with a vast number of numerical values increasing in unison with the levels. There is a currency that the player generates during a match, a currency that can be used in purchasing power-ups, which increase the aforementioned numerical values. That growth is somewhat satisfying, somewhat enjoyable, and this provides the player with fun.

Unfortunately, that growth is lost upon the end of a match, which loss presents itself as yet another un-fun factor. However, it can be considered as 'not' lost, due to the fact that there is another value that grows, although that value is more abstract and can't be tracked via numbers. It is the skill/comfort of a player at utilizing one of the characters - mainly the one that they have played with during that match.

This argument is already struggling to gain ground - as the increase of an intangible value is difficult to consider something that provides its observer with fun - however there is more that goes on. The sheer number of characters indicates that the possible skill for playing 1 of them will need to involve the ability to play in conjunction with and against the remainder of the cast. The amount of time and effort that would need to be invested into improving at playing one character, then, becomes obtuse.

Not only that, but there's a plateau that winds up reached at one point - a player can 'get good' at playing a character, but then they need to keep investing more and more time into playing that character and supposedly getting better at playing said character, but the sheer amount of that required to reach mastery - which, for the purposes of this work, is going to be what comes after attaining goodness - is so great that any fun that might be derived from it dissipates.

After all, playing character X 6 times per day, with winning 50% of the games, and only 25% of them by a landslide, after having gotten so good at playing that character that it feels as if there's no getting better, is a chore. And, by definition, a chore is not enjoyable and does not produce fun. In the best case scenario, it might produce lack of fun/un-fun.

Thus, observing growth, which is a possible avenue for deriving fun off of engaging in League of Legends, becomes an untenable source. Imagine if you had to gain mastery of all 150 characters, the number of which increases by at least 4 per year! It would lose its luster and become an infinite task, much like what Sysyphus is forced to do with that boulder of his. Interestingly, something that's supposedly fun becomes torture.

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An alternative source of enjoyment in a game presents itself in overcoming a challenge; whether through thinking and coming up with a strategy, or by trial and error, there is fun.

One could argue that League of Legends features an opportunity for strategizing, and that it features the potential for a challenge worth overcoming to present itself, but that argument, much like the one relating to growth being a source of fun, also fails to hold out.

The main reason for this would be the aspect of the game that's responsible for its relation to gambling - the fact that there are other players involved. Player 1, who will be our hypothetical deriver of fun and seeker of an overcome-able challenge, is matched up with Players 2 through 5, placed on the same team with them and presented with the challenge of another team of another five, similarly matched up players.

The challenge has already appeared. Communication, effective communication, at least, is going to be troublesome, especially when one considers that there is no voice-chat functionality in the game. League of Legends required impressive amounts of coordination from 5 strangers, from different ends of a continent, and sometimes the world itself, which coordination is to be achieved through the use of a chat - which requires the use of both hands and this leaves the player incapable to adequately react to a situation arising in the game, if they are busy communicating.

That issue - of not being able to make proper statements due to the fact they require that the player technically stops themselves from being able to control their character and reacting appropriately - is resolved via the utilization of the simplest possible call-outs. Say, Player 1 is trying to urge their team to go and focus on a certain objective. To do so, they need to indicate that objective through text - so they say the name of the objective in a chat message. But that, by itself, could be problematic. After all, what does "objective" mean? Is Player 1 trying to urge the team to attempt to complete the objective, or is Player 1 informing the team that the enemy team is attempting a completion of said objective, or is Player 1 indicating a need for a different interaction with that objective perhaps through the placement of items that provide vision?

All those things could be conveyed through the name of a certain objective, but how does the rest of the team know which one it is that is being conveyed? Fortunately, the developers have thought of a means of solving that issue, by providing another tool - pings - which serves as a means of conveying information through the press of a button.

Unfortunately, those can also have different meanings. At the very least, the severity of the message conveyed is completely lost. If Player 1 uses the 'back away' ping, does that indicate that the team needs to just leave? Does it indicate that the team needs to back off for a few seconds and then go back in? Does it indicate that the team needs to not back off, but rather hold off from advancing, until something else happens?

So the challenge of communication with the team is present. Unfortunately, with the tools available, effective communication is difficult, at best, and nigh unachievable under normal circumstances. In fact, even with the addition of vocal communication, effective communication remains difficult. So that challenge is nigh insurmountable, and even if it does get overcome, there is no warranty that it will actually be fun. However, bad communication can make the experience un-fun - as it makes the team that is not communicating well a lot more likely to lose, and, thus, get a lot less out of the experience.

Then again, good communication can lead to more fun to be derived from the experience, even if one loses, but then is it the game that makes the experience fun, or is it the communication with other people? I claim that good communication - which one could call good vibes - is something that amuses people, something that provides them with enjoyment of the act of interacting with other people, and is in no way connected to the game.

In fact, there is a sentiment that a game can be terribly bad, but it can be made fun when played with friends - with whom communication is almost always at least satisfactory. Thus, solving the challenge of communication, and that being the source of fun in League of Legends, constitutes a cheat. We can not accept that, as it is far too peripheral to the 'game'.

What of the other challenges? Well, there are many of them. The challenge of besting one's opponent, as each Player is meant to fill a role in the team, and due to the fact there are two teams, there are two identical roles for each of those teams, and a type of competition presents itself between those with the same role. The challenge of dealing with that particular combination of characters - as the enemy team is made up of five characters, and with the vast number of characters available in the game, there is an obtuse number of possible combinations.

And how does the Player best those challenges? Well, they employ a certain strategy that, if not tailored to the particular circumstances of the match, could handily fail. Thus, the Player has incentive to figure out how to deal with each character, which either requires skill at playing that character, or knowledge of what that character does and how other people play said character - in short, it requires a very large amount of time, and, frankly, having 150 different strategies for handling every character in the game is untenable. Developing them is also a Herculean Labor, so I'd say it could be fun the first few times it is done, though it would then transition into more of a chore than a source of fun.

Add to that the strategies around defeating a certain combination of characters, and it becomes totally fanatical to consider that coming up with strategies and overcoming challenges is a viable source of fun.

Now, one could argue that they do not need to develop strategies for all characters and all combinations of characters, as Players tend to pick a role and stick to it. With the stipulation being that the character roster can be split 5 ways (to accommodate for each role, with decent overlap), that does lessen the number of likely strategies in need of development. I argue that it would be impossible, still, to develop adequate strategies, and have the development of said strategies be fun.

That would be owed up to:

1. the high intensity of the matches - which require such total focus that it becomes difficult to think about anything other than the match itself, unless one does not care about their performance, which leads into a higher likelihood of losing and having less fun
2. the sameness of the matches, making it harder for the Player to differentiate between them on the day after going through them, thus increasing the difficulty of the reflection required for the development of strategies
3. the unlikelihood of a Player getting to employ the same character, in the same role, against the same opposing character, in the same role, in consecutive matches. Due to the fact that issue number 2 makes reflection difficult, the only other manner of developing a strategy would be to accumulate data that does not mix with other data. Thus, consecutive matches against the same opponent are the only really viable way of developing a strategy, as that would allow one to find the patterns relating to the play-style associated with that character and figure out how to deal with them

In short - there are too many variables (that make the development of a strategy, with the goal of overcoming a challenge) for this activity to be anything other than tedious. Of course, if one were lucky enough, they would be able to brew up a perfect storm, play against the same character, have enough time to play multiple matches, and then have enough time to reflect upon the actions of that other character.

But that's like winning the lottery, which is not a solution to our problem.

However, one could argue that strategizing can occur through different means. As an example, watching recordings of matches, analyzing them and figuring out what kind of approach was utilized, comparing it to what would have been necessary, and condensing that into a strategy. That is a possible solution, one which could involve derivation of fun.

However, it could be troublesome. A person could grow agitated with their choices and decisions, they could get angered by themselves or by other factors in the recording of the match - such as the decisions made by the other players or ways the game works - which could lead into a state of un-fun. Thus, depending on the type of match that is being reviewed, we could claim that there is a chance that it would be un-fun - generously placed at a 25% likelihood.

That, coupled with the fact that playing the game to procure recordings to analyze brings with it the aforementioned less than 50% chance of having fun (25% chance of fun - [1/4 games] landslide victory, 12.5% chance of fun - victory [1/4 games that are fun roughly half the time], 6.25% chance of fun - defeat[1/4 games that are fun roughly 1/4th of the time], 0% chance of fun - landslide defeat[1/4 games that are almost never fun]).

So, then, if we spend 50% of the time engaged in League of Legends playing, we would be having fun 43.75% of that time, and then the other 50% of the time we spent reviewing recordings we would be having fun 75% of that time. Then, overall our engagement with League of Legends - out of which we would be deriving fun via coming up with strategies through which to overcome challenges - is barely more fun than it is un-fun, as we get a value indicating that 59.375% of the time spent engaging with League of Legends, as a challenge that requires the development of strategies to be overcome, is fun.

But League of Legends is not a 'puzzle' game; or, at least, it does not claim to be one. It also does not claim to present the Player with a challenge to be overcome - as it presents the Player with such an obtusely small amount of information (through its tutorial, which is meant to introduce the Player to the game and its rules) that the Player does not, actually, get the opportunity to even grasp the basics off of that information, resulting in a necessity to engage with external content related to League of Legends, which content is NOT directly available IN or THROUGH League of Legends.

Thus, the idea of having fun by improving at League of Legends becomes discredited, at least as something derived from League of Legends exclusively, as improving at League of Legends requires engagement with other Players through conventional(directly talking to them and asking for advice) or unconventional(reading a guide, watching a video) means. And, as previously stated, communication is an external factor that can not be considered the source of fun provided by the game we are examining.

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Then, perhaps, the fun in League of Legends comes from exploring the game itself?

Now, whereas this argument could actually hold water in the earlier days of League of Legends, when the game was regularly updated with content that was conceptually different from the usual, in its current state the game can not be given any credit. In fact, it can only lose credit, as it has actively reduced the number of possible ways to experience its gameplay.

In the past, there were more than two modes of play. There were, of course, the 5vs5 Intentional Selection modes on Summoner's Rift and the 5vs5 Random Selection mode on Howling Abyss, which are currently available, but there were more.

There were the 3vs3 Intentional Selection modes on Twisted Treeline, there was the 5vs5 Intentional Selection mode on Crystal Scar (Dominion). At certain points in time there were other game modes - such as the Odyssey Cooperative Event or the Star Guardian Cooperative Event, both on unique, never seen before (and since) maps, the Ascension mode on Crystal Scar, the Cooperative Doom Bots mode on Summoner's Rift, or the Nexus Blitz mode on a unique and never seen before map.

All of those modes, which were a thing at one point in the past and were subsequently removed, were full of gameplay opportunities that were entirely different from what the game had on offer under normal circumstances. They were exactly that - an interesting, different thing that was for the Players to explore, which could break the tedium brought about by the "improvement" aspect of the game or improve the odds of having fun even when losing, as is evidenced by the "Doom Bots" Cooperative Mode.

In simpler terms, they provided a new and unknown thing for the Players to interact with and learn. These additional modes of play were a way of getting the greatest possible enjoyment out of learning and improving, as that enjoyment is vastest when one starts off not knowing a thing about the object they are interacting with, and subsequently experiences rapid increase in their understanding of said object.

However, since these modes are no longer supported - and all of them were purposefully removed from the game as a means of funneling more Players into the standard 5vs5 Intentional Selection mode on Summoner's Rift - it is proper to say that League of Legends is also bad in regards to the exploration it allows the Player to engage in.

Alternatively, one could argue that exploration of the game could be done through the 5vs5 Intentional Selection mode on Summoner's Rift, as the game offers such a vast array of power-ups (items), which do many different things, that their interactions with the characters could still be unknown. However, in a competitive game, in which most of the fun is derived from winning, such as League of Legends, purposefully lessening your chances of winning is not really conducive to fun.

In fact, that's stated with the explicit knowledge that it would be very difficult for a Player, wanting to try something unusual, to get into a match at all. Many Players make use of the 'dodge' functionality, which entails closing the League of Legends application during the pre-game (match) lobby, in which the Players pick their characters.

Dodging seems to be a superior alternative to playing a game that is obviously going to be lost, or that is going to be very challenging to win, because dodging makes it so the Player who dodged needs to wait 5 minutes - which is at least three times less than what they would need to spend in a match - before they could queue up for another match. If that match is not going to be fun, the equation is simple - take the 5 minute penalty, don't play the game, don't subject yourself to 15 minutes of bothersome, un-enjoyable struggling.

And when a Player in the team might play something that is not a standard pick, such as a character usually utilized in role A, but in role C, the other Players can easily calculate that their chances of winning, and subsequently having fun, are quite low. That's indicative of another problem with League of Legends, and is an example for another one of its badnesses.

The point is that exploring the game is made very difficult to do by the culture and mindsets cultivated by the game's mechanics. Not only that, exploring the game is inherently prone to being un-fun, due to the fact that playing a character in a manner not in line with "the META" is more likely to lead to a loss than not, and while there is a higher probability of the experience being enjoyable, due to the added aspect of exploration, the mechanics of the game will stifle the ability to explore. As an example: playing an off-META character in an off-META role versus a META appropriate character in their META role is not only harder due to the META/off-META dynamic, but also because the META character can better abuse the mechanics of the game and be ahead without being ahead. And being behind, which includes being powerless to do anything, and being unable to exercise one's agency, is not conducive to fun.

So it would appear that even in this avenue, League of Legends is bad; and not accidentally, purposefully!

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Let me touch upon the META. The META, essentially, is "the way the game is meant to be played". By following the META, the Player is most likely to win… Thus, the Player is, forced by the game, to play a certain way, in a certain manner, so as to win. Otherwise, the Player will be less likely to win, and will thus have less fun.

That is very odd, considering that the game is designed in a manner that does not indicate the presence of a proper way to play it. In fact, it is also marketed and presented to Players as something that does not feature a right way to play. And yet it does feature such an element.

Let me explain myself here - League of Legends' characters are the most important part of the game. They provide a set of tools to the Player, which allows the Player to engage with the game and derive enjoyment out of that engagement. These characters are designed in a manner that puts all of the focus and importance of said characters on themselves. They are designed as though they are going to be characters in a Single Player game (with VERY few exceptions), where there is no well defined META, as there is in League of Legends, and thus they provoke their Players to play them as though they were playing a Single Player game.

However, that is not the META. Playing League of Legends as though it was a Single Player game is one of the most surefire ways of losing every match and deriving as little enjoyment out of the game as possible. When playing League of Legends, the Player must actually do everything they're doing in accordance with the META, with the needs of their team - there is no room for self expression, there is no room for the pursuit of personal goals. There is a set of rules - those dictated by the META, those detailing how to play and how to win - and they must be followed, if the Player wants to win (and have fun).

The marketing surrounding the game is similar, in design, to the characters themselves. It features a great emphasis on "YOU", "YOUR" champion, "YOUR" legend, and the characters focus on YOU, and the gameplay is so designed that only YOUR experience matters. But then the way the game is meant to be played appears and turns out different from that.

What matters is not you, it's the team. What matters is not your experience, it's whether you win or not. What matters is not what you do, it's what that does for the team. What matters is not how you want to play, it's how you should play. The game is simultaneously designed around YOU, and it makes YOU feel important, but then it is also designed around a team, and it's designed in such a manner that YOU do not actually matter.

As an example - you might enjoy playing the game in a certain manner, which involves killing minions and slowly pushing a lane. But doing that for the entirety of the match - no matter how enjoyable it is to you - will not win you the game. It will allow the enemy team to become far stronger than your team, and then it will allow them to stop you from doing that thing you enjoy, and then you will lose. Thus, you playing the way you want to play, although enjoyable for you, is followed up by a lack of opportunity to play that way, a complete negation of any fun that might have been accrued, and resulting in a loss.

–

But maybe there is another means of looking at League of Legends as a game. As a social game, where the fun comes from social interactions that are provoked by the game (thus discounting the option of bringing in friends from outside of the game).

The interaction that can be had between players, who do not know each other, in League of Legends, is not a single one. There can be communication between teammates, there can also be rapport between opponents.

In the best case scenario for the former, a conversation can take place between teammates as they are winning by a landslide. Due to the fact that everyone is in high spirits, it is more likely for that conversation to be positive - hypothetically - and so it can carry over into the post-match lobby, wherein the players can examine the statistical values of the match. That interaction can persist as the players decide to play together again, and it could even bloom into a sort of friendship.

Unfortunately, due to the fact that this game is designed as I have mentioned it is, those are very rare encounters, requiring the figurative alignment of the stars and planets. In this game, the most important thing is winning. As such, it is a ruthlessly competitive game, and ruthless competition entails exploiting any advantage that is obtained as violently as possible.

Conversely, any disadvantage that occurs presents a monstrous problem - especially when the cause for that disadvantage is not Player 1, but rather Player 4. Player 1 is being sabotaged by Player 4, because everyone is assumed to know what the META is, what the rules are, due to the fact that the game claims to match the player with other players of a similar skill level (which generally is a lie), and if Player 1 knows the rules then Player 4 should also, obviously, know the rules.

Well, when that is not the case, or Player 4 is not following the rules, or if Player 4 is even slightly steering away from the rules, but still following them, there's a problem. And I must remind the reader that the rules state that the Players need to perform optimally - as well as possible - which means not dying, making the right calls, being at the right places at the appropriate time, controlling minion waves, having perfect Creep Score, pushing properly, buying the correct items - and so on and so forth.

If someone is failing to do either of those things, it is tantamount to failing to follow the rules. And when someone does not follow the META, their team is less likely to win. Whenever someone is making you lose a competition, you are not prone to being nice to that person.

However, there is a thing called sportsmanship, right? Well, yes, but not really. The culture that permeates throughout League of Legends, as amplified and emphasized by the fact that the game markets itself as something focused on YOU, the individual. It makes you seem and feel more important as well, because the characters are almost exclusively designed as ones meant for a Single player game, in which only a single player's experience matters.

And when you are the only one that matters, in any circumstance, there's a problem. Any slight against you is, no matter how small or unintentional, is purposeful and stupendous in scale. This, it is no stretch to assume that the thought process behind any Player with a teammate not following the META dogmatically, is: "This Player 4 is playing poorly and is this taking away from my fun, because I, Player 1, will lose due to no fault of my own, and then it will also amount to me wasting half an hour of my limited free time! How dare this Player 4 do this to me?"

Thus any positive interaction is very rare. Not only that, but due to the fact that games tend to be played as a means of winding down following a work day or a school day, the individual engaging with the game is prone to be irritable… And when irritable, one is more likely to embiggen something otherwise small.

So the Players on a team are not likely to have positive interactions (that could result in fun being had) and are unlikely to positively encounter people and befriend them thanks to the game. Perhaps it is not so in regards to the opponents?

In the best case scenario - which would have to be either a barely won or barely lost conclusion of a match - so that both teams could have had fun from playing the game. In addition, the irritability of the Players should be low, the players on their teams should not be verbally lashing them over some minor or major mistake, and they must also make use of the "all chat" functionality for purposes other than what appears to be the intended one - which is to type "GG" once the game ends.

Other than there being a greater likelihood of one winning the lottery than getting an experience like this, this is very unlikely, because the community of League of Legends is markedly toxic. Not only that, due to the fact that the game is competitive, there is an implication that the winner is good and the loser is bad.

That implication, of course, does not extend to the person's entire being, right? Not quite. In League of Legends, all that matters is one's performance in a match, in the game. If one wins more than they lose, that means they are good in the eyes of the community (and the game itself) - not just at the game, they are good overall, they have some kind of value to their life. If they are bad, then they are bad in general, their lives have no value and they're only making the game worse for everyone.

That perception - which is undeniably present and prevalent in the League of Legends community - is only exasperated by the hypothetical potentiality of 'going pro'. As with every competitive game, there is a 'pro scene' in League of Legends, which features potentiality to get paid for playing a game. That is purportedly a dream job, and anyone who decides to put effort into playing League of Legends is likely to be willing to take it up… if it were offered.

And the offer appears via scout - a professional team's scout, who is looking for new potential team members. To get a scout's attention, one needs to be really good. So if one is called bad, or if one loses and appears bad as a result of it, that is, in and of itself, a slight against them.

Even if the dream of being scouted and becoming pro is subconscious, even if the connection between being called bad or, again, subconsciously seeing oneself as bad as a result of losing, is not explicitly connected to the dream of going pro, it is still present. A human being's hopes and dreams are very valuable and central to their humanity, and whenever that dream is being belittled or discarded, that person does not feel good about it, they even feel wronged.

Thus, being made to lose by someone is a slight against the loser, and so the victor is automatically not on the best possible terms with them. Being told that the game was good, after losing, and believing to have lost due to no fault of their own, is yet another slight. It implies that the loser did all they could and played as well as possible, when the loser knows that it was not so, and that losing due to no fault of one's own is as things should be, that it is a component of a "good game" (referring to the concrete match, not the game overall) - again, that is a slight, but this time against the person's sense of justice.

Naturally, those are only two examples, but they showcase well enough the fact that the competitive nature of League of Legends breeds disdain for the opponent. On top of that, let us not forget the officially sanctioned, by League of Legends' developers (specifically Riot Games, not the individual developers), "community members" who create content about the game. These people become the epitome of a League of Legends player, and their actions, within the context of League of Legends, become endorsed by Riot Games.

And so whenever the community members endorsed by Riot Games make use of even more demeaning language in their communication - such as adding an "ez" to their "GG", implying that the match was easy and not at all a challenge - the degradation of the losers becomes even more pronounced. And this is not all that gets done - the habit of implying that the match was easy is already bad enough, but it is a bit indiscriminate - it could be anyone's fault that the match was easy. Well, players have devised a means of negating that - by adding, for example, "mid diff" or "mid gap".

That indicates that the match was easy specifically because the player fulfilling the particular role - of mid in this case - on the winning team was better than the player on the losing team. This is targeted assault that does not need to be included - it is purposefully done with the goal of rubbing one's victory in on the defeated's face. It is purposefully done to indicate that the loser is bad, and, as stated above, that's a slight.

And those things are common practice - every single match features at least one such inflammatory statement. Not only that, but they are ENDORSED by Riot Games, meaning that this is a conscious part of the game's design… Which easily leads to the conclusion that the social game of League of Legends is bad.

–

So, if League of Legends is considered a game, it is unquestionably bad, as problematized by the examples provided and argumentatively proven as ones depicting things that are bad, by design.

And it is not just badly designed as a game overall, it is badly designed as a multiplayer game - because the characters are not designed with the consideration of what it would be like to play against them or with them in one's team, nor are they designed as members of a team; in addition to that, it is also badly designed as a Single player game, because it does not feature any situation that is conducive to a Single player experience.

–

Then, if it is a badly designed game, perhaps it is not meant to be considered a game. Maybe League of Legends is a service, and it should be viewed as such?

If so, we should make an examination - what is a service, and what constitutes a good service, as well as what traits of a service does League of Legends exhibit. Once we do so, we'll be able to give some examples… And make a conclusion.

So, a service: "a piece of work done for a client or customer that does not involve manufacturing goods"

Well, a good service would clearly be well done work, or work that can be described as good. Considering that League of Legends, as a service, could either provide entertainment or enjoyment(fun) to the customer, it can be said that League of Legends, as a service, is bad because of the reasons earlier discussed in relation to why it is bad as a game.

But that is only one of the things that can be considered when measuring the quality of a service. One should consider the availability of a service, its dependability, its speed, whether or not the service is fairly priced, whether or not the service is what it presents itself as, and so on.

–

In the case of League of Legends, the service is everything accessible through the League of Legends client and the League of Legends website. Unfortunately, the availability of the service is perpetually lackluster, because there is always - or at least for the past 4 months (as of 04/25/2023) - an announcement informing the customer that something is not available - be it account transfers or chat functionality, something is not available.

Thus, League of Legends' availability is constantly under question. That makes the quality of the service lesser.

–

But let's not dwell on that too long, and go over to dependability. League of Legends is an always online service, and so it relies on the customer's internet connection and something else. What that something else is, there is no easy way to guess. Perhaps it is the geographical location of the customer, perhaps it is the temperature of the server room, perhaps it is the load of the servers, perhaps it is the quality of the League of Legends' Client's code - it is unknown.

Still, what is known is that the dependability of the service is also very lackluster, as is evidenced by countless examples, such as:

A stable ping(the amount of time needed for an input made by the customer to reach the server and get back to the customer), which stable ping is around 100 milliseconds. 100 milliseconds amount for 0.1 second, which, in a service (which service is the opportunity to play a game) that requires split-second decision making, incredibly fast reaction times and the precise inputs of complex sequences in less than a second… That's a lot. Being able to act and react slower than one's opponent is a handicap, making it harder to win, and making the fight unfair. An unfair fight is very rarely fun, so a high and stable ping is problematic;

Crashing, which constitutes a failure of the program - the League of Legends Client - which results in a cessation of a process - most often that of the game itself. Whenever the game crashes - and it does so reliably frequently - the player's character tends to die. That puts the player at a disadvantage, but that might not be all of the troubles. The player might spend a decent amount of time unable to rejoin the game, because of the crash. And that can then lead to the application of a penalty for "being away from the keyboard; not playing" - which is atrocious, for it takes away any semblance of fun that might be derived from the remainder of the game… A game that could be over by the time the player manages to reconnect to it, as fighting against 5 players when there are only 4 players on one's team is nigh impossible;

Lag-spikes. Those are associated with ping, but impressively high ping spikes, which constitute the transition of one's ping value from 50 to 300, or 800, or 1000 or more. The ping then lingers at that height for a short amount of time - more than enough for the player's character to die - and falls back down to 50. Similarly to the issue of crashing, lag spikes are problematic for the same reasons, though they might fail to lead into a penalty for the Player;

Disconnections, and random ones at that. Those are similar to crashes, though the game does not actually crash - instead, the player's ping shoots up so high that a pop-up appears on screen, informing the player that the game is attempting to reconnect. Whereas during a lag spike one can, in theory, issue commands, during a disconnection like that no such thing can be done. Not only that, most often the solution is to close the game and to start it again, attempting to reconnect. These are even more problematic than crashes, because initially the player might wait for the game to reconnect without being restarted, but that only winds up costing them more time and makes it more likely that they are penalized for being away from the keyboard. These issues are not caused by the internet availability of the user, as I have experienced such events and have simultaneously performed internet speed tests via Ookla and have checked if I have internet at all via ismyinternetworking.com - both of which informed me that everything on my end was perfectly fine, but still League of Legends was not interested in connecting;

Inoperability of the Client, which has countless manifestations, and can be boiled down to a feature (or features) of the Client not working. Examples include the pop-up window that appears whenever the player has started looking for a match and the game has found a match for them. Without this window's pop-up, the Player can not even play League of Legends. Other issues include a fading out of certain buttons over the Client's Interface, rendering the buttons unusable. The buttons most often affected are those which relate to the selection of an alternative game-mode. Those issues prevent the player from playing the game at all, and that is problematic;

In conclusion, all of those examples, which are a constant companion for any player of League of Legends, are indicative of the low dependability of the service in question, rendering it lesser in quality than it could otherwise be.

–

But why is the Client so problematic? Perhaps it sacrifices stability in favor of something else - like speed? Well, no. Whenever one wants to launch League of Legends - and does so - they need to spend around ten, maybe fifteen seconds waiting for the app to boot up, then they need to ONCE AGAIN click a button that will supposedly let them play the game, after inputting account information to log into the Client, then, after waiting around 15 more seconds, they will be let into the client.

At that point they need to click the "Play Now" button, pick a game mode (by clicking), click the "find match" button after waiting around 2 seconds for the screen transition to complete and for the button to become clickable, after which the player will be given an estimate on how long they need to wait before they can play the game. The amount of time varies - sometimes it takes less than 15 seconds, other times it takes 4 or more minutes.

Following that, depending on the gamemode picked, they need to wait between 40 seconds and up to 2 minutes while they, their teammates and their opponents pick their characters and make adjustments. Then, they are presented with a loading screen that takes anywhere between 10 seconds and 1 minute, potentially even more.

After all of that, the players finally get to make use of that aspect of the service. Needing to wait half a minute to make use of a digital service is almost improper. Needing to wait two or three minutes is unacceptable. Thus, the quality of the service is diminished.

–

The price of League of Legends, as a service, varies. It could be said that it is "free", though, in truth, it extracts information about its customers, which information is then used to generate profits, or which information can be packaged and sold for profit. That indicates the service is not free, even when it claims to be such, as it not only requires that the customer waives a vast number of their rights in order to access the service, but also provides information in exchange for no compensation, when that information could, under different circumstances, generate impressive quantities of money. Thus, even the free aspect of League of Legends constitutes a slight "rip-off", considering the fact that what is earned in exchange for the information provided is access to a badly designed game that is more prone to generating stress and negatively impacting the customer's mental and physical health.

So the price is too high, at least for the free portion of the service. What, then, about the price of things that do cost money?

In short - it, too, is too great. That is owed up to the fact that whenever the customer purchases a "virtual good" from Riot Games, via League of Legends, they do not actually purchase a concrete thing. They purchase the license to make use of that good, which license can be rescinded for a number of reasons, including: "If we want to improve the service"

Not only that, but no compensation is guaranteed in the event that one's access to this service is taken away. Thus, we have issue number 1 - the customer is being told that they can buy a thing (for example a skin). Whenever someone buys a thing, they are considered its owner. However, in this case, the customer does not buy the skin - the customer buys permission to use the skin - and the customer does not own anything.

Issue number 2 - the customer is not guaranteed to be able to make use of the skin directly after buying it. Not only does this customer need to go through the lengthy amount of time needed to get into a match, but the customer needs to be allowed to pick the character the skin is made for. That can be prevented through: banning the character; having a teammate or an enemy pick the character; not picking the character (in the unintentional selection modes); being assigned a role that is not one that can be filled (in accordance with the META) by the desired character. Thus, even if one purchases the permission to use a skin for one of the characters, they might be unable to use it for an extended period of time.

Issue number 3 - the customer is abused when making purchases, due to the fact that the customer needs to purchase a currency, which currency can only be obtained in particular partitions rather than an amount set by the customer. That currency - Riot Points(RP) - is the only accepted means of obtaining skins (and other things that can be bought in League of Legends). Keep that in mind.

Now, a skin can cost: 3250 RP, 1820 RP, 1350 RP, 975 RP, 750 RP, 520 RP, 390 RP. RP can be purchased (on the EUW server) in partitions of: 575, 1380, 2800, 4500, 6500 or 13500.

As can be seen, one needs to purchase two partitions of RP if they want to buy a moderately priced skin, but they can not buy the exact amount they want - they will have an excessive amount, they will have some that is left over. In short, to buy something, which supposedly has a certain value, the customer is forced to pay more than what the item is, supposedly, worth. Thus, issue 3 is that everything costs more than it supposedly does, and the price is too high.

Issue number 4 - the customer does not know what they are getting; not only that, but the customer is being explicitly lied to when advertised and offered a "hextech chest", and the customer is not buying what they are told they are buying when they purchase a hextech chest. The price of a hextech chest is 125 RP, which requires a "hextech key" to open, priced at 70 RP (when bundled with a hextech chest). A Hextech chest can provide the customer with something, whenever it is opened. That something is the chance to obtain a license for an item that would otherwise cost a certain amount of RP.

In short, the thing being advertised is a way to get a random skin for a lot less than it would otherwise cost.

However, there's a catch, because these hextech chests contain "shards" - be they for characters, for skins, or other things that can be purchased with RP. A shard requires a certain amount of currency to be activated, and when activated, it presents the customer with the license to use the item this shard was for. As an example, I open a hextech chest. I obtain a skin shard from it. I need to spend a certain amount of a given currency - Orange Essence - to activate it. When I activate the shard, I obtain the skin.

In theory, this could be reasoned to be a means of obtaining skins at a lower price than what would otherwise be needed. However, due to the fact that it is entirely random what skin shard will be presented, and if it will be a skin shard at all, that is not the case.

If I were to have 0 Orange Essence and were to spend 195 RP to buy a hextech chest and key, and I then opened it, I have a chance of obtaining a skin shard (that could also be a skin shard for a ward, not a character), a champion shard, an "eternal", an "icon" or an "emote". I have a 50% chance of getting a skin shard, and a 50% chance of it not being a skin shard.

There are 1384 skins in the game, all with an equal chance of being obtained from a hextech chest (as a shard). Some of them - 68 - always drop as an activated skin shard. The rest drop as ordinary skin shards 161 129 333 377 61

Let us say that I get a skin shard for a skin costing 1350 RP, as those are most plentiful. To activate it, I would need 1050 Orange Essence. To get Orange Essence, I would need to obtain more skin shards and I would need to "disenchant" them, which would grant me 20% of the skin's RP value in Orange Essence.

Thus, I would need to open at least 4 more chests, in which 4 chests I would need to find 4 skin shards for skins costing 1350 RP. Then I would need to disenchant them and generate the Orange Essence needed to activate the skin shard and get the skin. However, that is me being very lucky, and still I buy 5 hextech chests + each costing 195 RP.

If we do the math, I would need to either buy two batches of RP for 575 RP, or 1 batch of RP for 1380 RP, as 5 times 195 is just 25 shy of 1000, being 975. So, to get a skin that costs 1350 RP, off of hextech chests, after getting impressively lucky, I would need to spend at least 10 € (since we're operating with the prices from EUW). Alternatively, I could have spent 11€ and I could have bought the skin with the RP, instead of buying hextech chests and hoping that I would get monstrously lucky.

However, as stated, this hypothetical experiment relies on me getting a skin shard 5 times in a row, and it being a skin shard that has a specific value. Not only is the 50% chance of getting a skin shard likely to bump that number up to 8, if we were to maintain the hypothetical that I get skin shards worth 1350 RP only, but the chance of getting a skin worth 1350 RP is around 28%. Thus, getting to spend less money and get something off of hextech chests is not only unlikely, and the amount of money spent is barely going to be less than what would otherwise need to be spent, in the even that the customer is very lucky, but the skin that would be obtained is completely random and, potentially, not one that is desired by the customer.

Thus, the price of hextech chests is too high, considering what benefit they supposedly provide.

So, considering these three issues, it is clear that League of Legends is an overpriced service, which reduces its overall quality.

–

With all of that said, is there anything left to consider? Let us be exhaustive and approach the question of whether League of Legends is, as a service, what it presents itself to be.

Simply put, no.

It presents itself as something that provides the customer with enjoyment, but only does so in less than half of the instances in which it is utilized.

It presents itself as something that allows the customer to own things - such as an account, characters, skins - but, in truth, the customer does not own those things.

It presents itself as something very focused on the individual customer, emphasizing the importance of that individual customer, but in reality what matters is a group of customers, and that individual customer is sacrificed in the name of that group of customers.

It presents itself as a means of getting things cheaply, when in reality it is not such a thing. It purposefully lies to the customer and inconveniences them at every turn.

It presents itself as a service that allows the customer to play a game that is fair and balanced, when in reality it is anything but that - that much can be proven by reading an excerpt from the patch notes relating to patch 10.25, in which a character is stated to be balanced, but then the statistical values of that character are increased, which constitutes a balance-related change, even though that same character is, again, stated to be balanced - thus, a contradiction. As a result, the service provided is not what it claims to be.

Having been provided with those examples, we can safely conclude that League of Legends, as a service, is misleading, and thus its quality decreases.

As a result of all those things, it is evident that, as a service, League of Legends is bad.

–

What about League of Legends as a product? Can it even be viewed as such, considering the fact that Riot Games has explicitly stated that there is no product, there is only a license to use a certain piece of software?

Well, if it is a bad service, perhaps that is owed up to the fact that it is a good product? Alas, that is hardly the case. Let's define product: "an article or substance that is manufactured or refined for sale"

It could be argued that League of Legends is an article, or substance, if one were to lend credence to the claims that it is addictive, that is manufactured and constantly refined for sale. But who is it being sold to?

If it were being sold to the customers, to the players of the game League of Legends, it would strive for excellence in a number of fields that have by now been established to be lackluster, when related to League of Legends.

One of those things would be dependability - whether or not the product works - and what can be done in the event of the product not working. Unfortunately, League of Legends does not work as intended almost 95% of the time, as a result of which it is dependable in only the probability that it will not be dependable.

Well, when a product breaks, it usually features a warranty, a means for the user to utilize and get compensated. As was mentioned, Riot Games does not provide any warranty for League of Legends; but even if we were to ignore that article in their Terms of Service, it has been shown, time and time again, that no compensation is issued whenever the broken product inconveniences the customer.

Another thing would be customizability. If I were to buy a box of LEGO bricks, I could dip half of them in paint, cut a bunch of them in half or even carve decals into others. In the case of League of Legends, no such thing is permitted. There used to be means of modifying the game - applying community created skins, which were not official and did not cost money, and playing with them, or editing certain aspects of the game - such as the appearance of the map, or the appearance of other, non-Player Characters - but those were cracked down on. In fact, it is against the Terms of Service to modify League of Legends, even if it were only for personal use. It is a bannable offense.

Thus, there is no customization to be performed, and so the product is needlessly restrictive, which, in turn, makes it lesser in quality.

What else is there to be said? Perhaps the fact that the product requires constant internet connection to be utilized can be considered a fault, for it restricts the availability of it, even if, considering the fact that the person who has obtained the product has obtained it for the purposes of unlimited availability, that is meant to be unrestricted.

One could argue that electrical appliances are also restricted in such a manner, but the electrical grid is a prerequisite for any household or dwelling, and it experiences outages far less frequently, whereas one's internet connection not only has a competitive price - on account of the fact that there are many InternetServiceProviders whose only purpose is to make money - but it also needs to be installed as the grid is not usually connected to separate households. In addition to that, the internet grid experiences outages so commonly it can not be considered perpetually available.

Thus its availability is not as close to "always", as it needs to be, which lessens its quality as a product. With that many qualitative downgrades, it is easy to conclude that League of Legends, if considered a product, is bad.

–

Now, onto more abstract and interpretative means of viewing League of Legends - namely, as a story.

It could be argued that League of Legends can be viewed as a story, as it features a vast plethora of characters, who have been described as interacting with one another, as influencing an overarching world and affecting other characters, albeit indirectly. With the addition of new characters or new items (objects in the game), the story is expanded or developed, and the world is further unveiled.

So those are reasons as to why League of Legends can be considered a story. Now, whether it is good or bad will have to be discerned through other means.

Let us begin with consistency. A story is good whenever it is consistent - and it is not such when it is not consistent. In the case of League of Legends, things are not consistent. At one point in time, years ago, the story involved a location and took place on a certain continent. Then, that location was removed - stated as not having existed at all. It was simply deleted from the story.

However, due to the fact that the location in question was incredibly tightly bound to the story, the entirety of the story was forced to change. There were 'champion judgements', which were additional tidbits of lore about the characters - those were completely invalidated. There were important events that had taken place in the story - those events were rewritten or entirely removed from the story. There were whole characters who were changed as a result of this.

And yet Riot Games did not change enough, and thus the consistency of the storytelling was damaged. Some characters maintained stories related to this deleted location, while others did not. Other characters featured voice lines that maintained that location's existence, while simultaneously sporting stories that did not feature said location's existence.

One would assume that upon making such a drastic change, things would be allowed to settle in, to be properly retconned, before further changes are implemented, but no. Things keep being removed from the story, whilst others are added, and the new additions do not attempt to fill in the gaps left by the removed content, whereas the characters affected by the removed content continue existing in a limbo which questions their status - are they as they are, is this the story, or are things different? Are those characters even characters in the story, or are they just potential entities?

So that's an issue, consistency. But there are plenty of good stories that are not consistent, right? Perhaps every other aspect of League of Legends' story is rock solid? Let's check in with plausibility!

Imagine a world with early medieval technological advancements that makes use of magic. Aside from that, it's all swords and boards, cooking over a fire and manpower. Now, imagine a city that's somewhere between the 20th and the 21st century, with factories that produce items produced in those centuries, and put it in the middle of the world. It is plausible that this technology will start flying everywhere, or folks will do their best to steal the secrets of said technology, and will attempt to use it to their advantage. There are massive empires and kingdoms in the story, they like technology and technological advancements, so they should be trying to get their hands on stuff like that, right?

Well, no. Well, actually maybe yes, but also no. The other factions want this technology, and the city itself wants to propagate it, but somehow the power source that powers this technology, which originates from an entirely different region, does not function outside of the city… Because of reasons. Even though the power source is not native to the city, it works in the city, but not outside of it.

Is that plausible? Does it, at the very least, make sense? No. Of course, one could try and hand-wave it away by saying 'magic', but the existence of magic in a story does not make it possible for stuff to just be a certain way - especially not when the magic is explained and put into a system, thus creating a set of rules that should be followed. When those rules are not followed, a problem occurs.

Not only that, but there are also social phenomena in the story that defy any explanation. Would it be plausible for there to be a 21st century influencer in this medieval world, which influencer is situated in the funky advanced city? Which city has not been allowed social reform and still features a bourgeois class and a working class that does not have any disposable income to spend on things like an "influencer"? I digress - the plausibility of the story is constantly strained and broken for reasons that defy any adherence to a high quality standard.

Could it be said that even though those issues plague it, the story is still somehow good? Perhaps. But maybe not, for there is no coherency to it. There is no time-frame that can be discovered and examined, there is no indication of which even transpired when, or even which event did transpire. There are multiple versions of a single component of the story, and the reader will find it challenging to figure out which is the 'official' or 'canonized' one. There are things that are not clear - is this character such, or is that character such? Is that character situated at location X, or is that character situated at location Y?

What is the relationship between character A and character B? Is there a relationship, as hinted by these elements of the story, or is there no relationship? Is character A such, as depicted by these elements of the story, or is character A different, as depicted by these elements of the story? Is the relationship between characters A and B as it is depicted here, or is it as it is depicted there?

All of those are questions that can be asked of the story and yet no concrete answer can be found. That is a problem - and as can be seen, there are a lot of problems surrounding League of Legends. Especially when it comes down to the story itself!

But let's add one last branch to the fire. The means of presentation of the story should also be considered whenever a story is told. In the case of a book, the means of presentation are purely verbal. In the case of a film or a game, usually there is a combination of the two. In the case of League of Legends, there is a very pronounced issue with the presentation of the story - as it is not presented in one manner, but, rather, a large number of manners.

There is the element of film-based presentation, found in cinematic pieces. Which scenes in them have actually taken place in the story, which are just advertisements - is not made clear by the cinematics themselves. There are comic-based bits of presentation - be it a true-to-form comic book or a Virtual Novel style of comic, they are present - and they tell a story, which story appears to be part of the canon. There are entirely text-based elements of the story. There are elements of the story that appear in other games that are not League of Legends itself.

The story is scattered. So scattered that it appears as though the means of understanding it are to employ the service of a pseudo-historian, someone who collects these fragments and attempts to fit them together, wading through truths and falsehoods - which is canon, which is not - and then presents it to their employer. The thing itself - League of Legends - fails to provide adequate means for a story's presentation.

Based on the presence of that, and the many other problems that plague it, I can state that League of Legends, if viewed as a story, is bad.

–

How about art? League of Legends is a very visual thing, featuring many pieces of artwork - at least 1000 of them - which makes it possible to call it an "art gallery", or more precisely an "art exhibition".

If we regard League of Legends as one such thing, perhaps it can avoid referring to it as a bad thing? Initially things seem okay. The way the game presents its artwork is well devised and even allows itself to be sorted. That is done, primarily, by accessing the "Collection" tab and navigating to the "Champions" sub-tab. Upon clicking a champion, the visitor of the gallery can take a look at a large number of associated pieces of art.

Unfortunately, there is no means of zooming, of "leaning in" and getting a closer look at certain things. There is also an incompleteness to the collection - some of the associated pieces of artwork are not accessible through this avenue, even if they are present in the game and are accessible to other visitors (Players). So then the game's client is not sufficient when it comes to accessing the entirety of the art "collection" that is officially League of Legends.

Thus, there are already problems with the idea of considering League of Legends as an art gallery. If one can't look at the details, and can't access everything that's, supposedly, being exhibited, then we have grounds to question the quality of that set gallery's exhibition.

But if we allow ourselves to ignore those faults, maybe everything else - such as the art itself - is stellar? I claim that is not the case. An art gallery has a theme - what it is depends on the exhibition currently being presented at the gallery. Seeing as the exhibition League of Legends is presenting is "League of Legends", it appears to be very broad.

That raises issues. If League of Legends has a magically medieval theme, then there are things that do not match that theme. Many skins are based around science fiction, featuring sleek, futuristic designs and mechanical suits in a style reminiscent of mecha anime, or retro-futuristic ones, or gritty, grim-dark designs - which feature ignition engines, battery powered elements and even space travel. Some are reminiscent of living toys. Others seem to be at some kind of party. Others yet are doing sports.

Those do not match the medieval, magical theme. But then they are complimentary pieces, one could argue, and what matters are the base skins, not the additional ones. Yet they, too, present a problem - as some match the theme, but then others do not. There is a robot animated with magic, but then there is also a robot running on steam power. There are various handheld types of pistols, rocket launchers, grenades and machine guns. There are microphones. There are mechanized crab legs. There are air filtration masks.

Those also fail to match the theme. Overall, it appears as though there is no consistency to the adherence to the theme, or perhaps there is no theme and things are just being thrown about. In any case, there is no consistency, still.

But the art itself is not bad, right? At least in that regard it can be said that the art is good… Can it not be? Well, perhaps an argument can be made, and I'd avoid refuting it, for the artwork presented in League of Legends is, when isolated and viewed in a vacuum, good. However, when considered in the context of the entire frame - all the pieces of art involved - it fails. For, is it not a failure to create pieces of art that are supposed to be distinct and different, which are supposed to depict different characters with different personalities and stories about them, but to still depict them in a manner that makes them almost indistinguishable from one another? An example would be the "Coven Morgana" and the "Snow Moon Caitlyn" skins which look remarkably similar, or the "Withered Rose Talon" skin being more reminiscent of a Kayn skin than of a Talon skin.

Here is the issue - the characters are meant to be certain, specific characters, but a large number of the artworks do not do a good enough job at conveying that the character being depicted is the character in question. This muddying of the waters, if it can so be called, is very problematic, as the artworks become a mess of slush that melds together and loses any personality it might have otherwise had.

Thus, I dare to say that even if considered as an art gallery, League of Legends is bad.

–

What about eSports? Esports? Is it one? Well, it passes for one. As mentioned in the game interpretation for League of Legends, it is better with friends. In a professional team for an Esport, the members are likely to become good acquaintances or even friends. That, in turn, means they will get better at communicating with one another and they will be able to more efficiently convey information to one another, as well as coordinate, thus increasing their chances of winning by a lot, thus increasing their chances of having fun by a similarly large margin.

However, when that team is put up against another team of professionals, the fun had from just playing dissipates. These people are now working. If they lose, they will get paid less - they might even get fired. Thus, playing League of Legends, as an Esport, is not a fun experience.

But one can argue that playing a sport professionally means it does not need to be fun and enjoyable, so perhaps the enjoyment of the sportsmen is not indicative of the sport's quality? If so, what is important? The enjoyment derived from watching the sport?

Unfortunately, Esports are not as entertaining as sports. For starters, whereas sports put the participants on a generally even playing field and provide them with the same tools for the achievement of the goal, an Esport does not do that. The Esport in question - League of Legends - does not do that. Half of the game is selecting the most powerful character and capitalizing upon the unfair advantage provided by that character to win. The skill to exploit is not nearly as impressive as a skill cultivated and perfected over years, for which sacrifices have been made and discipline was practiced.

So the admiration for the sportsman, when considered as a part of the sport, is lessened, especially when the observer is well aware of the workings of the sport itself. After all, if the rules of the game do not make sense, it would not be the skill of the Player that is the reason for his success, but, rather, the design of the game.

Yet the most important aspect of an Esport has to be the act of watching the Players play it. And a good sport is easily understandable and readable - soccer makes sense, for the goal is to kick the ball in the goal. Basketball makes sense, for the goal is to throw the ball in the hoop. Athletics make sense, for the goal is to run faster than the others, or jump higher than the others, or to run faster than the others while jumping over obstacles. Boxing makes sense, for the goal is to punch the other guy harder.

League of Legends is far more complex than those, however, and so it has two levels of sense making. On the one hand, it makes sense on the basic level - there is an opposing base that needs to be destroyed and an allied base that needs to be protected, similarly to the goal from soccer. Then there are Players on one team and Players on the other team, who contend with one another. In soccer and basketball, they pass around a ball or try to steal the ball from the other team.

In League of Legends… Well, there's a lot. In fact, there is so much that even a seasoned Player winds up struggling with figuring out what is going on. A teamfight - which features ten Players going at it - has so many particle effects, so many interactions occurring, so many movements being performed by so many individuals involved at once, that things slip past the observer.

In soccer, the fact that there is one ball and that with the ball can interact up to three players at once, in rare cases, makes it so there is far less chaos and following the game is easy, even for folks who don't know what's what. However, in League of Legends, there is no ball. Or, rather, there are five, six, maybe even ten balls! Try keeping track of ten balls at once, without practice.

So, as an Esport, League of Legends is more successful at confusing the observer than at providing a coherent picture for them. It is difficult to understand why something happened, if one is not all that well acquainted with the game, and that makes it less interesting to watch.

Thus, as an Esport, League of Legends is bad.

–

What about perceiving League of Legends as a store? What if the entire thing in question is exclusively a store? That might overlap with the last means of interpreting League of Legends as a means of making money, but that does not matter. Seeing as the thing I am observing has displayed itself as badly made, and when it comes to a store or a means of making as much money as possible, there is no moral excellence to be found within them, I feel no need to make my analysis to be of excellent quality.

So I will combine the two and look at them simultaneously.

How does one make money? By having others give them that money in exchange for something. But that something needs to be made, and the making of a thing, most often, requires money. What if the thing is not physical, and so it only needs to be made once? Then there is a far lower amount of money that needs to be put into the creation of a thing to sell in exchange for money.

But who would want this thing? If it is not a real thing, then it can hardly satisfy a need or solve a problem, right? Well, what if we MAKE a problem, which problem we solve with this thing we sell, then we've got a reason for people to buy our 'solution'.

That is enough, dear reader, to implicate the badness of League of Legends as a means of making money. It is bad, not because it does not make money, but because it actively makes one's experience worse in its attempts to convince them to make a purchase. In short, this is extortion - if you don't pay, you're going to have a bad time, you're going to have a worse experience than you would otherwise.

The Mafia does that - they tell you to pay up. You don't. Then, suddenly, your windows end up broken. Your property gets vandalized. Your shoes get stolen. So on and so forth. The Mafia is behind it, and then they come over and tell you to pay up to no longer have those problems. And so you pay to solve those problems.

That is not good. Forcing someone to do something against their will is, simply put, evil, as it disregards their humanity and their free will. One could expand that and associate it with degradation, and establish that human rights are being violated by such deeds, but there is no need for the purposes of this work.

All that needs to be stated is that no matter how efficient League of Legends is at making money, it is not a good thing, because on a more fundamental level it is bad. Imagine a mailman. He's the best mailman there is; but he also kills people on the side. Which takes precedence - his goodness as a mailman or his goodness as a person?

Thus, League of Legends, by merit of the fact it creates a problem and then sells the solution for that problem, showcases a badness that takes precedence over its goodness as a store or as a means of making money. But let's go a bit more in-depth than that.

League of Legends bombards the customer with offers that are going to disappear at one point in the future. Buy these "products" now at half price! Otherwise, if you want to buy them in the future, they are going to cost you more!

Another similar limited offer is that of an entire "product". League of Legends has made it a point to turn a number of "products" into legacy "products", which means they can no longer be purchased. There is no good indication that a "product" is going to be made into a legacy "product", and so the customer is left with uncertainty as to whether that "product" will be available, as well as a fear of missing out on obtaining that "product".

Those are means of manipulating the customer to act against his better judgment and his own interests. Naturally, it is more beneficial for a person to not buy "products" that neither exist nor do they assist them in making their life better, especially when one considers that the average individual does not have enough money to live their life well. However, League of Legends tricks the customer into thinking they need that "product".

That trick is very sly. It does not convey a need - it only provides the customer with enough information to be able to make a comparison and come out with a conclusion. A conclusion intended by League of Legends.

The comparison is made between the basic skin of a character, which is simple and plain, and all other skins for that character, which are more complex and bombastic, rich in flair. League of Legends urges the customer to buy a skin to showcase their flair, or to do something "on the Rift". A call to action indicates something. Whenever the customer normally plays the game, they are not urged, or advised, or encouraged, in any way. They are simply told to find a match.

Whenever one is told to go and do something specific - which specific activity is associated with something good, such as flair, or with something positive for the Player, perhaps winning, such as crush or stomp - then the customer makes that association in relation to the skin.

If the customer has that skin, they will stomp the competition. If they do not, they won't. Then there's the factor that people used to make compliments when it came to whether a Player has a skin or not. The game starts and some Players say: "nice skin", providing the customer who has made a purchase with positive affirmation. It is good that they have a skin!

Now this phenomenon has become very rare in my recent experience - that could be owed up to the worsening toxicity of the community or the way I am being matched with players - but it is important to note that people do share that they have bought a skin, they brag about it and expect to be congratulated.

What for? Their irresponsible financial decisions? To League of Legends this does not matter. What matters is whether a purchase was made - and the folks working on League of Legends are doing everything in their power to convince the customer to make a purchase.

So it could be said that League of Legends is really good at being a means of making money, but it does so in a manner, the badness of which takes precedence over the goodness of League of Legends' money-grubbing quality.

Lastly, it is bad as a store, because the User Interface of the store page is horrid, as is the User eXperience of said store page, but it ultimately makes money, so it could be argued that it is actually good. Even so, it is bad, due to the fact that it actively disregards the humanity of the customers and manipulates them in as bad a faith as possible so as to force them into making a purchase.

–

As a result of this analysis, I have come to the conclusion that League of Legends is bad. Objectively, in fact, if we allow ourselves to make use of the word "objectively". Either way, down to the parameters I have chosen, League of Legends is bad, for it either fails to accomplish its goal, fails to meet the requirements for qualitative accomplishment of said goal, or is bad in another manner, which manner takes precedence over the possible goodness of it.

In conclusion - do not buy the products offered by League of Legends and demand changes (with the goal of said changes to be the improvement of the User eXperience and the means through which the goal of League of Legends is accomplished).

It is important to note that this text has, as its secondary goal (following the presentation of arguments in support of the thesis that League of Legends is bad) , was to provoke and agitate. That is all,

ciao