Today I wanted to discuss my journey with the game League of Legends.
If any of you are considering playing it, or noticed that I've been offline for a while, feel free to take this as a warning from me and a long-winded explanation of why I left.
LoL, a game that's beloved and hated by many has come and gone in my life. I started playing as a suprise gift for my Mom back in 2020 so I could connect with her and begin my journey in esports. All I really played were console games at the time. I started off as an Ekko main in the mid-lane and ended up an ADC- Kaisa, Jhin, Ashe main in the end (switching to supp when I got tilted). I loved the champs that could dash around the map like they were nobody's business. Having the freedom to leap around and do mad damage while collecting stacks was my favorite thing ever from a MOBA game. A part of me still loves the idea of League. It's a captivating, fantasy, capture-the-flag style game. You're constantly competing against others and yourself in a heated environment where everyone's egos are through-the-roof...
Ranking up always felt too grindy to me. I liked norms, playing in groups, and I played other things whenever I felt like it. But somewhere along the way, I developed a dependency on that environment. League is fun. It's addictingly fun. And it was a means of maintaining my social life for several years.
Temporarily, League got me through two years of being isolated and not knowing anyone here in WA. My League buddies were my only friends and they were supportive - in their own ways haha.
Yet as I began college, and started forming in-person relationships, both friendly and romantically, my addiction to League that had formed over these few years roared its ugly head and became more of a hinderance than anything else in my life. It affected my grades, my emotions, my ability to communicate, my pride... When I got frustrated, League was my outlet. When I wanted to feel good, I'd go run a few games hoping to see that bright blue victory or secure a penta-kill. Even just seeing my favorite skin and the fancy border I had worked so hard to aquire brought me joy when I should have been processing my feelings, or simply allowing myself room to think. League is not a replacement for genuine human connection... Nor is it a good substitute for healthy communication between you and others. It is also a terrible therapist. League unconsciously riles up your emotions and pulls you in with the promise of a short term goal that you can achieve. "Just one more game and I'll win" I'd constantly be telling myself.
I wasn't by any means good. I liked my bronze elo. It was sporadic and exciting. Sometimes you'd get insanely good players. And other times, you'd get players so bad that you wondered how they even managed to turn on their computer.
My friends in GM and Masters would get trainers, watch YouTube videos of experts, focus on the nuances of the game you don't learn from experience, and replay their worst moments to learn how to improve. And I loved watching them, but their intense fixation on the game brought me discomfort. Something interesting that I found is that the majority of them hated that they knew so much about the game. My mother too would always rank up to Gold then quit for the month because 'the game was bad for her'. And for me... egoing felt good in the moment. But at the end of the day, flexing my superiority in a video game never felt fully satisfying.
Almost everyone who plays League ends up hating the game or themselves to some extent. Yet every single one of my friends, my mom, my peers, seem to go back eventually.
Well. Hindsight is 20/20 and... I fell right into Riot Game's enticing trap. How did I get out, and will I relapse?
I played my final game in an Arena match with one of my League buddies, who thankfully lives close enough that I can visit in-person. His internet disconnected and I was left scrambling around the map as Malphite contemplating what goal I was trying to accomplish. After a few long discord calls and some encouragement later from him and my (not at the time) boyfriend, I decided that would be it. I ended the rest of my entire match history on a loss. Kind of poetic I suppose? I might've relapsed in the following weeks on a low-level alt account playing jungle to cope, but that arena game is where I difinitively mark the end of it all. That's the only account that holds real value. RIP all my beautiful Kai'sa skins.
My mom and friends kept asking me afterwards to play one with them. It would be fun! So why wouldn't I? I still liked the game. What was really preventing me from re-installing?
I didn't really know how to respond and often gave half-hearted answers, internally still wrestling with those questions on a deeper level.
My boyfriend and I were on a walk in a nearby park recently discussing the book Atomic Habits. One thing that struck me in particular was embodying the person that you want to be.
I would often complain that I needed ultimatums to prevent me from relapsing or going back to my old habits. Without something as equally strong in the opposite direction, there was no way I'd have the self-control to never play the game again. But Graham called me out and said it's not enough to say I'm a recovering League addict. That still directly attributes the game to my identity. League is still unconsciously an important part of me. This way of thinking is like fighting a losing battle with myself... and one day my willpower against myself would break and I could easily give in to the compelling call of that Accept button once a match is found. (You know the sound it makes :P)
Instead. I needed to shift gears and take that attribution out entirely.
Letting go of an entire community that I was a part of and all the achievements that I spent many hours working towards is not easy... I still flinch knowing how much time I spent decorating my profile to look as badass as possible. People had to know I was a Kai'sa player... Platinum in TFT, could secure first-bloods, pentas, and was pretty ok at playing ADC.
But ultimately. I was addicted to League. It drew me in and became an issue in my every-day life. So like an effective recovered Alcoholic... It's important to me to never go back the game again... It's not something I want affecting me regularly. And because of my history, it's not something I can trust myself to do in moderation. While it's cool to say I'm a gamer girl that plays esports, this is not something I want as part of my identity. I think there are so many better things I can be doing with my life. So I'm going to focus on that.
Now don't get me wrong. Despite not being a LoL player anymore, I still enjoy many aspects of the game. I'll still be watching worlds this summer with my family. Arcane is hands-down my favorite Netflix show of all time, and probably will be for a while. The champion paintings I've done are still hanging on my wall with quotes that hold deep meaning to me.
I just won't be coming back. My account remains active and stands as a totem to who I once was. The fact I haven't played a game since last July? stands as a testament to my conviction. I don't regret the friends I made, nor the mastery I achieved on my favorite champions. But maybe there's a way I could have partaken in the game with a bit more moderation so I didn't get to quite an extreme level of addiction.
Like a scar it's always there... And pangs of longing resurface whenever I see the fancy L-shaped logo. But I'm not a League player. I don't want that to be core to my identity. So I'm not going to play League.
If you're curious to see how avoiding League is going for me, feel free to peep the accounts if you know me well XD (Hint: I only have 2, my main and a lvl 22 one that's synonymous)
I'd post em here, but might be a slight security risk :P
Sorry fellow grey-hats. You're gonna have to do a little more digging.
That's all! Thanks for reading if you got this far ❤
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