Ego And Fear Of Failure In League Of Legends: Why We Flame

thegamer.com:

When I started playing League of Legends, I was a meek Lulu main who just wanted to keep the peace. I played around my toxic teammates, begged them to get along, and still got flamed in most of my games. Whenever someone flamed me, I felt like my brain was shutting off. I was infuriated that my team would dare blame me for their losing lane. After all, I’d done nothing but play around them all game. By sacrificing myself for the team, I thought that they couldn’t flame me.

Silly me. League players can always flame you.

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But eventually, by thinking about the people who flamed me and how I reacted to them, I gained the confidence to adopt a more aggressive playstyle and stop getting so tilted by other people. Whether you’re the flamer or the flamed, thinking about how flaming works can change the game for you.

In League and games like it, everyone is reliant on their teammates to secure a win. No one wants to be the reason the team loses. Everyone in the game (yes, even your 0/7/0 top laner) is under a lot of pressure to do well, which can actually make people perform worse.

That’s why these high stress team games can get so toxic. It’s a melting pot of stress, anonymity, and intense pressure to succeed. All of these factors culminate in a big threat to your sense of self—AKA an ego threat.

When the Masters ADC tells you to uninstall and you see red for the next five minutes, that’s an ego threat. You want to believe you’re good at the game, maybe even better than that guy in Masters. So, your brain comes up with an easy solution: that guy’s an idiot, probably got lucky in every promo game, and is also getting carried by a Challenger support. Right? Our brain