A few weeks back, Riot released The Summoner’s Code, a set of guidelines aimed at improving the community around the League. Now that it’s been a few weeks, though, I wonder how “the Code” is panning out.
I’ve only played DotA and LoL as far as this particular genre goes, but I’ve spent countless hours on a slew of other games, none of which had a code. You know what all of them had? Assholes. Lots of them. And lots of forum posts about the assholes. And lots of forum posts asking people not to be assholes. None of it changed people, though.
I hate to sound like a cynic, but the reality of competitive environments, even casual ones like most LoL players experience, is that people don’t behave rationally when they lose. They lash out. They yell at teammates and opponents, friends and enemies. Some lash out more than others. Unfortunately, those are also the people that don’t care about the code. They don’t care about the community.
The good news is that there are loads of people playing this game who do care, about both the game and the community, and those people are a lot of fun to play with. It’s not that these people live up to the code – I know I don’t – but that they try to be generally good to the people they play with. To me, the code is a ridiculous standard, a plaque on the wall Riot can point to when someone is being a jerk. Worse, it takes credit away from people who were already a positive force in the community and gives it up to some stupid code that was likely the product of a two-hour lunch meeting.
Anyone think the code is doing good for the community?
