Playing in the League

Video games are a popular form of communication and pleasure shared between players that use them. But what about the people that play them? How do they differ from regular everyday people that play more sports or are more business orientated? A better question would be how are they similar. There are so many people out there that share the love of video games that the same person who works in a accounting cubical might actually be a royal knight who fights dragons along side his online peers. Throughout this ethnography, we will focus mainly on the players in the game League of Legends.

Specifically I am observing a young gentleman by the name of Bill. For the sake of Bill’s personal information, I changed his name. Bill is a 5’9” 20 years old Portuguese male that works at a local supermarket. He has a medium build, brown hair and bluish eyes. Occasionally you will see him wearing dark slacks with a kaki button-up (his work attire) and his silver rimmed glasses. Bill lives at home with his parents, saving until the day he moves out on his own, building his work career and financial portfolio. Bill is also an avid video game player. I asked Bill if I could observe him for about an hour to two hours while his casually played his games. I explained to him that after my observation I would then ask him a few questions.

The first thing I started to observe was his doorway to his room. It was spacious, had a white border framing the rich blue room. As I entered the room I noticed the environment he played in trying to make out big features and move to smaller features. A town sized bed was facing me in the corner of the room. Next to it was a light wooden colored bureau with six drawers, each with a single engraved metal handle. On top of the bureau was a decent sized black LED television, approximately 36”. Across form the bureau was pale wood desk, with metal legs and drawer. On top of the desk was a laptop. A high end Asus gaming laptop. As he started up the computer and game I looked around at the environment I was currently in and began to log everything that I could.

On the floor there was a over flooded basket with dirty clothes in it. Next to it was a library case with various books, games, and other important documents in it. On the top of the bookcase there was a small M&M dispenser that took quarters. Next to it were 2 model cars. To the left I noticed a large poster of a hockey player on the Boston Bruins and across the room adjacent to it was a model plane hanging from the roof on wires. As I was writing things down he told me that he was ready.

“Which game are you going to be playing?” I asked.

“You said you were going to watch me play league of legends so I’m started it up first.” He replied quickly.

I reviewed my notes for other questions I had prepared and asked him “If you could shortly describe the game League of Legends in a short answer, what would you say?”

He paused for a second to think of an answer, “League of legends is a typical MOBA that is extremely competitive and takes a lot of skill and calculations to take everything into account and win.”
After thanking him for his answer, we started up the game. I quickly tried to write down what the interface of the game looked like. The game had a blue window, there were sales on “champions”, videos explaining current gameplay strategies and a box at the top where players could watch other players play. At the top center there was a decently sized red play button that stood out from the rest of the interface. He clicked it, chose his game type from a few selections and started the que. Based on the size of the game, there are thousands of players being matched up together at the same time based on rank, skill level, and preference. After about two or three minutes, the players had been chosen. He accepted the game and moved into the champion selection phase where players pick the character they would play for the game.

“My favorite champion is Garen because he tanks so much and doesn’t care.”, He told me as he shuffled through champions.

After he selected his champion, he locked in and then started to explain the game mechanics to me before we looked at the game closely.

“The game is pretty simple if you ask me. Since this game mode is five versus five, it’s broken down into 3 lanes. Two champions usually go bottom, once champion mid, one top and then theres 1 that goes into the jungle moving from lane to lane.”, He explained.

“Could you explain this jungler more to me and the roles of these champions?”, I asked.

“Well, the jungled is a very important player because he can tip the scale of the battle. but for basics, I should talk more about the game in general before talking about the Jungler. The game board is separated by lanes. In between the lanes is not only the jungle, but a game tool known as the “fog of war”. This ensures that the player can’t be seen all the time. This is important for the jungler because they move through the jungle in order to secretly attack other lanes. There are also minions that the player must attack. Minions are continuously moving down the lanes that are respective to their own sides. If 5 minions come down the lane from one side, the other side will also have 5 minions that will clash with them. There are also neutral monsters in the jungle that are allied with either side. This is how the jungler makes his money.”, He elaborated.

“What do you mean with the money?” I asked.

“Champions gain money over time that they can spend on new items in order to gain power. They start at level one with 450 gold at their respective starting base. Champions gain around three gold every five seconds. They also gain money by killing minions. Junglers’ gain money by killing neutral monsters and occasionally minions in the lanes. They also gain experience as they kill monsters and minions. A champion starts at level one and works their way to level eighteen. Oh and their are towers that defend each lane. Each lane has three towers. One at the end, one in the middle, and one on the inside of their base. Including those, there are 3 inhibitors that the inside towers defend. Those inhibitors allow the production of super minions. Behind those are 2 more towers and and the final construction in the game, The Nexus. This is the most important structure in the game. If this is destroyed, the game is over. besides that there……. Oh the game started.” He said.

I watched as he quickly purchased items and moved from his starting position to the beginning phase in his lane. As he moved I asked how players know which lane to go to.

“How do you know where to go in the beginning, like lane wise?”, I asked.

“That is decided before hand in the champion selection… Oh the game started.”, He said.

As the game started, there were five champions standing on a platform. The champions visit their respective shop before heading onto the battle field. Bill was playing a roll known as “Mid”. this refers to a champion who is playing in the middle lane. Bill explained to me the main different types of champions as he headed down his lane.

“Champions have different ways of building. This is based off of the items that they purchase. There are AD, AP, Hybrid, and Tank champions. Traditionally an Fighter, which is amid of tank and AD will go into the top lane, a Tank will go jungle, a AP caster will go to the middle lane, and on the bottom lane you have a ranged AD and a AP support. Almost all champions can be Hybrid which is a combination of AD and AP except for the support which is a AP with crowd control. (AD stands for attack damage and AP stands for ability power.)” Bill explained.

Bill started making his way down the middle lane. He was playing a champion known as Yasuo. Yasuo is an exception to the natural order bill explained before. Yasuo is a lone samurai with a blue kimono tied with a yellow sash. On his left hip there is a long katana and on his right, a gourd for drinking. He has a bushy ponytail and a scar on his left eye. Yasuo is a samurai of the wind. He uses his skills to slash, dash, block and knock up champions with wind. By category, he is referred to as a AD fighter. He is viable in the middle lane because of his ability to block with wind and get in close by dashing. Most other AP kids can’t handle up close fighting and rely mostly on ranged attacks.

The battle started quickly as he faced off against another champion known as Ziggs. gigs is a small furry champion that uses bombs as his weapons. He has bombs in beach hand, a belt compartment with rooms for more, and his signature goggles used when experimenting with explosives. Ziggs uses his placement of bombs as a way to poke down the enemy champion, but also keep himself out of harms way. He can throw bombs, mines to slow enemies, charges that can detonate and blow champions away, and A massive bomb that he uses for a finishing blow.

As the battle starts, zings begins slowly, throwing a bomb here or there to zone Yasuo into a corner and pin him down. Yasuo gives no leeway and pushes back. Slashing through minions to let his own advance, Ziggs is forced to retreat slightly as he is now overextended form his team’s side of the field and is susceptible to a “gank”. As the fight moves I watch both the screen and Bill closely. He is very concentrated and is preforming actions extremely quick. Yasuo has pushed up to the point where he is now overextended. Ziggs takes this into account and lets him push p even more. Unaware of how pushed up he actually is, Yasuo continues forward. From the far side of the screen, Ziggs’ jungler leaps out from the bushes off the edge of the shadow of war. It’s Skarner.

Skarner is a Scorpion made of Crystals. He uses slows, grapples. and suppression to slowly poke down his targets or hold them in place long enough for his team to come up with a kill. Skarner comes in with the determination to do just that. He comes in behind Yasuo and grabs him with scorpion stinger. Ziggs releases a flurry of bombs on top of Yasuo too try to secure a kill, Yasuo notices that his jungler, Hecarim, is now coming to aid him. Instead of running to safety, Yasuo lures in the enemy champions by dashing through them and their minions using wind. He does enough damage for Hecarim who is a half man, half horse headless horseman to come in and suppress both Ziggs and Skarner. Yasuo knocks both champions up into the air and smashes them down to secure a double kill for himself in the middle lane.

The game progresses and tensions are high. a mere twelve minutes have passed by. A team battle emerges on lower part of the map within the fog of war. The ranged AD’s are shooting everywhere trying to secure as much damage for their team as possible. The supports are healing anyone that gets hit, the tanks and fighters are also at the ready for someone to get themselves into a bad position so that they can pounce in. Soon enough the enemy team ranged AD gets caught with a trap left behind in a bush. Yasuo instantly jumps in with his Tank Shen. Shen uses a taunt to hold the ranged AD in place as her team rushes to her aid. Before they can get close enough, Yasuo and Shen begin taking down their team one by one as they flee from the battle. First the ranged AD, then the support, to the tank. The top fighter manages to take down Shen and attempts to flee again only to be caught by hecarim as he flies in at full speed and cleaves him on the spot. Although the fight ended with Bill’s team losing a person, they managed to eliminate everyone on the enemy team. This fight crushed the enemy team’s morale because Bill’s team was missing their tank in the fight. The tank is a vital role in a team fight and they were able to decimate the enemy team with him. The enemy team soon chose to surrender in a 4 to 1 vote. This resulted in victory for Bill’s team.

“Wow, that entire game had me on the edge of my seat. That was pretty hectic!”, I exclaimed.

“It was a good fight until the end but we crushed them with strategy even thought we were a man down.”, He replied.
“How were you able to successfully win that game at the end? You were one man down, partially injured and out of position.”, I asked.

“It was all about the strategy. My team used that fast that we had been hit hard to lure the enemy team in to where we had more vision and traps laid out. Once we snared them in, it was only a matter of picking them off one by one. That is the power of the fog of war. If they can’t see us coming then we have the advantage.”, he explained.

After that we began talking about the other questions I had for him. He talked about his future dreams on becoming a professional streamer. This is a person who regularly streams their gameplay to a website for other people to watch, analyze and comment on live. He showed me his favorite possession which was his M&M dispenser his grandfather gave to him when he was little. I asked him about how he normally acts around his coworkers, and family compared to how he interacts with people that he meets in the gaming community.

“I like to think that I am pretty polite and respectful both when I am at work and at home with my family. But I don’t always act this way. When I play I feel that the best way to win is to tamper with the enemy team. I do this psychologically. I didn’t do it this game for the sake of your paper, but usually I will taunt, down talk, and antagonize the enemy team into making mistakes and then act upon them. This is a common way to beat your enemy, especially if they are short tempered. Usually a simple in game laugh or a “you suck, uninstall” will be enough to get them riled up and makes it easier for them to make a mistake.”, He explained.

I was shocked that he would use such tactics to beat his opponent. I would have never of thought that from that game that I had just watched.

“Don’t get me wrong though. I also have to prevent the enemy team from doing that to me and my teammates. Periodically I will congratulate my teammates for securing a kill or destroying a tower. This helps build up out moral and win the game much faster.”, He continued.

We wen ton to talk about his Special place that will help him play better or just his special place in general. He told em that his bed was his special place because of his ceiling. I looked up and noticed that his ceiling was slanted and covered with various posters and pictures.

“They are all my inspiration. Every game that has had an impact on me or every character from a movie that i looked up to is on there.”, He said.

Sometimes he would sit there and stare into the posters from his bed just thinking about them. They gave him the tenacity he needed when he played to get through the battle with such high morale.

Our interview gave me a new perspective of Bill. When I watched him play, he seemed like a different person. The game he plays is truly a competitive sport with many aspects and calculations to take into account. He aspires to one day be a professional and play in the major league gaming tournaments. I believe that with the attitude he has along with the strategy he uses both int he game and out of the game, he can make it there. There are many within the gaming community that solely base themselves upon being the best and those who stream their gameplay everyday to thousands of people at a time. It will just take the time to get there.