The latest League of Legends survey results are out, revealing that nearly every one of the players surveyed reported they had been harassed in-game. In Riot Games’ League of Legends, matches last around 15 to 20 minutes, filled with intense action with constant communication between online players. This leaves plenty of room for interaction, including toxic behavior, which the vast majority of survey respondents described as witnessing in these recent survey results.
League of Legends is an immensely popular MOBA created by Riot Games. The game, available only on PC, sees combatants divide into strategy-based teams that choose different champions to conquer opposing team bases. League of Legends is known for its many colorful champions and fast-paced, often ferocious gameplay.
As reported by PC Gamer, this new survey data comes from a large study of nearly 3,800 League of Legends players from various LoL Reddit communities. The players were asked a detailed set of questions by the survey’s creator, Clanaria, who wanted to know details concerning player lifestyles, habits, experiences, careers, and much more. According to the results, compiled into a massive infographic that players can review on player Celianna’s Imgur, 98% of players reported that they had been harassed while a game was going on, with the margin of error for a full 100%. While the survey covered a variety of abusive behaviors, the most common proved to be getting cussed out during a match, spamming messages or invites, and being sexually harassed – the latter of which was primarily contained to the 12% female population of League of Legends players.
Of those surveyed, a majority were between 21 and 24 years old, with the largest swath of players between 18 to 30, and a total of 75% under the age of 25. The report also showed that a majority of players have been playing for 6 to 7 years, with only 9% having played for a year or less. While toxicity isn’t exactly a surprise in online multiplayer games, this new study provides more concrete information on one of the largest MOBAs in history, currently with more players than the other top 10 Steam games combined. Redditors are doing their best to help, as the survey and following infographic created “points” for various toxic behaviors and different levels of toxicity, with the worst offenders being rated “Extremely toxic.” The study found that the worst-behaved class in LoL is currently the Slayers, which were rated as 26% extremely toxic.
Riot Games has had its share of troubles in the past, such as fiascoes with salty banned Twitch snipers. The company has an upcoming League of Legends World Finals event in China it really needs to keep clean, and a new tabletop gaming division that doesn’t need any bad brand associations weighing it down. Now, the question is how will Riot Games respond to what is essentially an independent study, no matter what it may say about toxicity?
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Sources: Imgur, PC Gamer
