League of Middle Management

Competitive team video games can teach the suburban college going future leaders of the world the middle management skills they need to get promotions and occupy talking time at company meetings.

Take League of Legends, the Free-to-Play business model for promoting conformist mediocrity. League is full of the neeblets who populate the world:

• wanting distinction for doing essentially nothing,
• wanting superiority status over other people,
• feeling deserving for simply being complete tools, milked cows, sheep,
• needing some way to gloat over their advantages.

Today's gaming community headline: Reformed players ask riot, how you like me now? In the article they claim their ban system for 'toxic' players has reformed problematic players. But when a company's purported morality code is designed only to exclude hostile players so they can coddle their incompetent paying clientele from the ridicule they deserve, it's not surprising that there is little discussion to be had. 

This is what is the greatest concern of the 'press a single button to have the game play for me', play by shopping, 'my step-father takes me to Aruba on summer vacation' noobs: special edition character skins - how rare and visibly exclusive their clothes are. The only topic discussed in comments is about a limited edition purchasable skin: Will you ever bring back Championship Riven?

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If you bring Championship Riven back, give people that had her before a reward that demonstrates that they've had the skin since it's original release, something like you did with the First Strike Project thing.

so some kind of banner/splash art frame/etc. that would differentiate the rerelease of Championship Riven from its original release.

Sizhin  - 6 days ago

• 88

I feel they needed to do this with King Rammus too. I have one of the oldest accounts thats still active in league of legends and now a bunch of brazilians got my skin without being around since alpha. shame

SPACEJAMTHEME  - 6 days ago

• 9

Yes all limited skins should be "redone" with a splash art frame... It's a kick in the nuts for those that have played for a long time.

• 2

I'm still salty about surprise party fiddlesticks, why is exclusivity such a bad word? If they make a limited release it should be exactly that. People that didn't get in should look at those who did and say damn I can't wait til I get a skin that others will be jealous of, instead of trying to ruin the experience for those that have one.

Conditiona  - 3 days ago

I agree. I have King Rammus as well and I feel it takes away from the "special" of it.

xX JayTea Xx  - about 12 hours ago

(Look at this neeb's xX Xx name. I think adding those x's to your name makes you super and not having them takes away from the "special" of it.)

• 22

I think people who own Championship Riven should be given an emblem

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There are some voices of reason in the discussion that get passed over without much reverberation. Their views are dismissed as unprofitable and contrary to the team mission: how to market status and privilege in digital form.

lvngdead  - 6 days ago

what about the people that don't want that type of content but want an original limited skin that a lot of people payed $300-500 for before riot removed the option? am i gonna get double that in RP? (i dont want RP i have almost all content) i understand the desire to bring it back and ofc rito will makes tons of money... but can we just not?

Romance is Dead  - 6 days ago

• 107

It's a shame that Riot made these Limited Skins as a concept, because it made people much more entitled than they should be.
I own the skin myself and I don't really deserve it. I'm just a dude with a job who had RP and said "Wow, that's Riven's best skin (Until Arcade came out), I should buy it"
That's it. I wasn't there for Beta. I didn't reach Platinum/Diamond, I didn't guess the winners of Worlds, I didn't have 1000 games on Riven, I just was there at the right place at the right time.
The solution to this "problem" shouldn't really matter because no matter what happens, everyone's going to be mad. I feel like as an owner of the skin, it's nice to say that I had it for as long as I did. It's just a skin like any other skin, afterall. The people asking for ELO requirement or people to inflate the skin is ridiculous.
It's a 975 skin you paid for. It's nowhere near as rare as PAX TF and PAX Sivir. It's nowhere near an accomplishment to get as the Victorious Skins, and it's nowhere near an accomplishment to get as Black Alistar and the PAX skins.
Just give them a rare Icon or something- oh wait, we already got those.
Look at that, it's as if we already got something to show we've owned the skin for years.
Stop being entitled. That's like me getting a lifetime supply of Twinkies before the Twinkie endangerment. I just bought a product, got a product, and that's all that was needed to be done.

Wario  - 6 days ago

• 13

We need more people like you, these people that are selfish and entitled honestly make me laugh that they act like their diamonds are being stolen from them when in reality all they had is a skin that is no different than any other skin, just it had the mistake of being called Limited when Riot got rid of that idiot concept real fast.

Shonjl  - 4 days ago

• 1

Hmm no. Limited skins etc are a fantastic concept. I own a one off car. I bought the car because no one else will ever have one. If the company which sold me the aforementioned vehicle decided to reproduce it and market more, I would immediately sell mine.
Some people get a kick out of having stuff other people don't. It isn't toxic, it's life.

Absurd ADC  - 3 days ago

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And this is what the company caters to. Paying chumps who suck each other's dicks granting each other 'honor' points after group queueing against the same pushover AI over and over instead of getting their faces wiped by human opponents. Self proclaimed pros who spend more time posting to forums about their invincible builds and unbelievable strategies than actually playing them. Kids who whine, complain to their nannies through player 'reports', and call their lawyers when their egos are bruised because they can't play a simple game that requires casual gaming skills comparable to flipping channels on a television.

Noobs for life who think they are so good, so special, so amazing simply by being in the game, because that's the feeling the company sells them and that's what been spoon-fed into their little coddled adolescent brains their entire life by a suburban school environment. And if they don't feel that way in real life, they yet believe that message and search out a way to prove it. The company convinces them real life is mistaken, but the video games sees in actuality, yes they are inherently better than 90% of the population.

How could they not see, look at this pre-Alpha skin and gold loading screen border! Follow my alert pings and let me tell you what to do, or else I report you, though I can barely press three buttons fast enough to control my own character. I know what everyone else on the team was supposed to do in that fight, in fact, if they had listened to me, my own character could've been doing nothing at spawn and our team would still have won, that's how good *I* am!

I know every reason the team lost, and understand everything about this game except how to win, that's how pro I am. I know the reason for our loss was our team composition wasn't as good as theirs, I know I lost my lane because his character counters mine, I know that their carry has a character is broken and overpowered, I know so much about this game; it is surprising that none of these things help me to win.

I pay no attention to a mini-map that shows me that I'm about to get jumped by their entire team, and no game sense to realize when it's coming - it's somebody else's responsibility. Watch where I'm going, why did nobody say anything? It's his fault, because he didn't ping early enough, repeatedly enough, or I was just too busy watching my lane partner play 1v2 while I do nothing to hear or see team communications.

Report this player. Why is this guy not listening to me? Report him. Report, report, report. This community is so awful. If everyone listened to me, we'd win every other game based on the 50% chance that 5v5 matchmaking puts the one guy who can play on my team.

I never improve at this game because the team aspect allows me to blame my teammates and the large number of playable characters allows me to blame game imbalances. Either I had noobs on my team, or their champions were overpowered.

It doesn't matter that their team is equally full of noobs, and I picked the most overpowered easy to play champion ever - because again, my opponent picked a hard counter to mine that is supposed to beat me so it means nothing that I lost my match-up, no matter how bad my opponent played. In fact, he is bad because precisely because he did beat me, and did not acknowledge how good I am.

When I lose, it was decided from the beginning just from the characters we have, so I force my team to surrender - why waste time? But when I win on a coin flip, off someone else's work the whole game, it's because I'm a legendary player. Clearly.

All these enticing psychological reasons make League of Legends the most played PC game in the world. "It isn't toxic, it's life." But pointing it out, somehow is.