Open Letter to Parents of League of Legends' Players

[Thanatos2]

It's four and a half fucking hours man, because someone else did something entirely insignificant 30 minutes late. Yes, if you show disrespect to me to that fucking level, as a total fucking stranger: I do not give a shit about your property or a punch that you'll in all likelihood be fine an hour down the line from. Get off your high horse the pope says he'll punch a guy a black eye for talking bad about his mother. And I'm not going to say for absolute certain that you're a hypocrite and wouldn't seriously consider punching said person or keying their car 2 hours in if you thought you could get away with it, but, if I were a betting man..

I wish you were a betting man, because I'd gladly take your money. See where I grew up, we were taught violence is pretty much never the right answer. Extend that to being an adult, and having an idea of the cost of things, and I would never even fucking consider keying or slashing tyres. To consider those so flippantly, you must be
1: a kid with no sense of the cost of things,
2: a pure thug, with zero regard for anyone or their things
3: a rich asshole who doesnt understand how big of a cost things like keying cars and slashing tyres are to your average joe.

So I would never destroy people's costly property on purpose ever.
I also wouldnt punch someone in the face for wasting my time, whether it be 30 minutes, 4 hours or 12 hours. I would love to be a fly on the wall when you enter the real world and discover through inconsiderate behaviour and dumb mistakes, strangers and friends and co-workers will waste many hours of your life, in varied sized chunks.

Where are people getting 4 hours for a League game? Wasted time is still 30-45 minutes.

I remember being a kid. Heck, I know how I am now, chaining WoT battles effortlessly enough that, even with a reminder from my roommates as the last match ended, there's a non-zero chance I'm entering the queue for the next battle.

So yeah, if the kid has to bail out of a match because their folks say so, so be it. I'm not sure which school of parenting advises "if your child's playing video games when they shouldn't be, let them finish playing." That'd just about never fly with my folks, whether it was playing games alone or with friends.

The 4 hours figure is the combined lost time of the 9 players. An attempt that the sympathetic to this letter are drumming up to try and inflate their side of this. Its ridiculous, because thats not how time works. You'd think they could pick some public activity and make the comparison. Like say, a public go kart track for 10 people, with 5v5 teams and 45 minute round timers. Only gosh, little timmy's mum says he never had permission to start, and has to go home! What happens now?! Oh right, they call in just little timmy, and the game continues anyway. Because even in real life, people understand that a parent has the final call on what timmy does with his time, and its completely unaffected by what 9 strangers might think of that.

Violence is, without exception, always the right answer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_urWSSZgwU

 

[Someone Depressing]

The LoL community is so fucking serious. And people will usually respond to things like this with various forms of "dude its just a games chill da fuck out", which always ends up escalating into a situation similar to this one.

Either way, leaving a game and thus penalising your own team or neglecting your family life/basic human preservation/other actual responsibilities are both equally rude. This is out kids being unable to manage their time... though kids aren't the only ones at fault here. Adults are just as equally to fall prety to this.

Luckily for me, I hate children and adults! I only let people play with me on MMOs who are either non-humans or are good enough at the game for me to excuse the fact that they are human and thus shitty.

 

[Kameburger]

Kids need to learn that life is about being disappointed. Everything is disappointing things will rarely work out the way you think they should. Peoples plans and priorities and your plans and priorities are often different and overall you're in for 80 years of forced continuing and likely worsening disappointment. Kids should ultimately know that life is going to get continuously worse.

So I agree with PA. Kids need to learn that the ONLY PERSON(S) who will care for them unconditionally is their parents. When they ever get into trouble their parents are the only people who will help usually and every other person in their life is temporary.

Wow... I'm just a ray of sunshine today.

 

[Sansha]

Yep, sounds like the LoL community.

Their ranking is the ABSOLUTE MOST IMPORTANT THING, guys. So you can't screw it up by leaving a game to spend time with your family, or being bad at the game, or playing a character that they don't like, or playing a character in a sub-optimal configuration.

The League community is just gross.

It really is. I was interested in the game itself, but was almost immediately repelled by the toxic community, and it's exactly this self-absorption that I find so abhorrent.

 

[Subbies]

Either way, leaving a game and thus penalising your own team or neglecting your family life/basic human preservation/other actual responsibilities are both equally rude.

They're both rude, sure, but not equaly so (and one can argue about leaving a game). You're comparing penalizing a team of random dudes over the net and, I quote, "family life/basic human preservation/other actual responsibilities". One clearly has priority over the other.

For the record I don't really think that leaving a game is such a big deal. The fact that people think its rude or bad and shouldn't happen no matter what is more of a symptom of the community and that the game is badly designed. Real life responsibilities should always take precedence over a video game, even if it's something as trivial as the trash.

 

[CannibalCorpses]

Just how long do these games last that some pathetic bastards will write letters moaning about how the world doesn't revolve around them?

I lost 4 hours of gameplay on sunday because my game crashed and i hadn't saved...WHY DOESN'T THE WORLD CARE? THE WORLD SHOULD CHANGE TO FIT MY NEEDS!!

*wipes away the tears of mock indignation*

Ahhh, i wish i could remember what it's like to be 4 years old again...

 

[small]

i think im more shocked by parents letting their kids get involved with a community that nasty, entitled and toxic

 

[Subbies]

i think im more shocked by parents letting their kids get involved with a community that nasty, entitled and toxic

They don't necessarily know about either the game or the communities reputation.

 

[Lilani]

I agree with the letter.

while yes there are thing outside of your control that need you to drop you game(and are perfectly justifiable), there are thing mentioned that dont justify shitting on other people, basically ruining the fun of 9 other people, cause you coundt let your kid finish a game.


Penny arcade post makes no sense, since it doesnt take into account how it screws up 9 other people (who perhaps dont have the time to play another game, and just set up time aside for 1 or 2 games)

Hell an example could be why letting your kid finish his sunday football game? take him out of the field at the 10 mins of second time.

As a child, I grew up playing online games and had to deal with parental interruptions, and I disagree with the letter. If my parents had let me finish what I started in those games, I never would have eaten dinner, done homework, or even left the house. Nobody's gaming situation is ideal. Now that I'm older, I have friends online who get interrupted by having to put their child to bed or deal with a tantrum. I personally have to sometimes deal with work related calls or obligations. Shit happens, and no parent has any obligation to bend their life around a bunch of random LoL players. It's simply the nature of online games--sometimes real-life comes knocking, and real-life always wins out over the game. If anything, it's a good lesson in reminding them of that.

 

[Nikolaz72]

why doesn't league just allow new players to join as the leaver?

i'm sure in this day and age such technology is available to society.

_______________

Also 4v5 Isn't the end of the world, in my circle of friends we've always had the courtesy of surrendering if someone has to go. Yea 4 of us get a loss, but it's better than the system punishing the guy that had to go deal with RL.

 

[shatnuh]

Yes, that is how time works. For some reason we perceive shit differently when it's spread out but any logical weighting of priorities will rate 9 people wasting 30 minutes as roughly the same as 1 wasting 4.5. how can it not be?

Because each person is only "out" 30 minutes. This isn't like building a house, where each person puts in "manhours" so that nine people missing 30 minutes of work time is actually 4.5 hours lost. The game is only going to run the 30-60 minutes no matter how many people are playing. So I'm going to have to disagree with the wasting of 4 hours.

The only practical difference is that the number of "manhours" is lowered when people leave so if you have more afk's the number changes

Plus, I disagree with the whole idea that the time was wasted. Sure, the game may not have been as satisfactory as you would have liked, no matter if you are on the team that lost the player or not, but you still played the game, right? People usually play games for fun or escapism, and that should still be able to be had, despite someone dropping out. You may not win the game, but it can be a fun time to just try to survive as long as possible, or to try out new and crazy strategies in a game that you know you have already won/lost due to the loss of the player. How has your time been wasted?

I don't think multiplayer competitive games are ever about escapism, they're about testing your skill against other players and normally you're looking for a fair environment

As for the parents pulling the child out of the game, again as a gamer, I would cut some slack depending on why I want them to sign out. Trash can probably wait, some other things may be able to wait, but as a parent I am going to enforce certain things like dinner and bedtime. Dinner is a family gathering, and no matter that it happens every damn day, it is a time to be together, and the child can at least show his/her parents respect and gratitude by being to dinner on time. Game be damned. Family comes first, and I seriously will not believe you if you argue against that point. The given example that the kid having dinner at a friend's house breaks that gathering holds no water with me, as that would have been something pre-arranged, not suddenly decided upon right when dinner is ready. That would be the same as saying he/she is busy with a game and can't come eat. It's not equivalent at all.

Let me explain why I think the way a lot of parents handle bed time, by going apeshit based on their kids missing their bed time by the amount of time a game would most likely take: I think illogical affinities of the arbitrary and unadaptable as a bad thing. When I see someone defending the existence of the penny, even when I tell them it costs over 2 cents to make, and when they can't name an instance where pennies are a non-significant portion of a purchase, I see a person advocating against the single most important facet of life: adaptability, because I know the only reason anyone would ever defend it basically boils down to "Because it sounds right" or "because I'm used to it"

So with that in mind: what's the purpose of a bed time? To stop your kid from being uncomfortable and dull the next day. So: if your kid's bed time is 10:00, he starts a game at 9:25 and it turns out the game takes 40 instead of the 35 minutes he expected: what is the harm? I would say my father did it right, if my bed time was 9:00 he would never really care if I was up at 9:20, why would he? He knew the reason I had a bed time at 9 wasn't to make sure I'm not up at 9:05, the reason was to make sure I'm not up at 11:36. We all know that 9:00 is arbitrary, but even if I am up at 11:36 , there's a natural punishment for that, feeling like shit the next day, and it scales more or less linearly. So the way I see it, when you tell a kid to get off of something he's in the middle of that can easily be seen as an obligation to others, just because you want him to go to bed at an entirely arbitrary point, you are teaching your child to value the arbitrary even when doing so makes things worse for others. Also the person who will really suffer the consequences is your kid when he feels like shit in school the next day if he does go past a certain point. When I say "Don't ruin my game by taking your kid out because it's 10 minutes past his bed time" I'm not thinking at a surface selfish level, it hasn't effected me in years and with the same logic I'd tell you not to leave because your wife is giving birth. I mean , in high school I was always going to bed around 10 while my friends were going to bed at 12:30 and being absolutely wrecked during class and I think that has to do with the fact that I was taught not to under-sleep while they were taught arbitrary commands.

If you're going to assign that high of a value to dinner: whatever, I guess I can live with it, I still don't understand how you can prioritize something that that happens everyday that highly though. But here's the thing: to me, strangers need special consideration as to how your actions effect them because they didn't implicitly agree to anything

Also: I thank you for being reasonable, I really hate repeating myself at the same strawmen over and over again.

Your time has no value to anyone but yourself. If someone values your time, that's pretty neat. But no one in this world has to do so, unless they are paying you for work. You may think a parent making a decision that affects your time is inconsiderate, but they have no obligations to consider your time. You are nothing to them. You keep using this term arbitrary as well, in ways that makes me question if you know the definition. If a RULE or LAW is arbitrary, that doesn't mean you get disobey it without any consequence. While it may be true that your Father found 9:00 PM an arbitrary number, the fact is that bedtime is a parenting technique. While I fear linking wikipedia will be torn apart, the description given is a general idea of what bedtime consists of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedtime . You've presented your personal example as your reasoning behind your theoretical parenting decisions, which in itself isn't a bad example, but it does not provide enough data to make assumptions about parenting techniques across the board for younger LoL players. And it should be explained to you, that by deflecting attention from yourself by saying, "I'm not thinking at a surface selfish level" only lends to the believe that you have indeed considered this from a selfish surface level. Your example is actually the "strawman", here. It under-represents the demographics used. You and those who you went to school with are not empirical data.

TL;DR: Just because you have a hyper-inflated view on the worth of your time really means nothing to decades of results that this kind of parenting has produced.

Edit: Forgot an "S"

Edit 2: Period spaced out of link. Thank you for letting me know.

 

[2012 Wont Happen]

This letter is perhaps the stupidest, most self-entitled load of nonsense (not my original word of choice, but I'll keep it civil) I've ever read in my life. I don't have kids, but I can damn well tell you that when I do I wouldn't even begin to consider the mewlings of Internet doofusses with nothing going for them in life but a video game when deciding how to raise those kids. That this letter was even written seems to be proof positive that people can be just as psychologically addicted to video games as one can be to marijuana or any other appealing but not chemically addictive activity, as only an addict could simultaneously be an adult and possibly consider this a well-considered and reasonable request. This is like if I sent out a letter advising parents to keep their kids out of public so I wouldn't have to worry if there were children in the area when I go to light up a cigarette. That would be totally asinine, because I would be requesting others modify the way the go about raising a human being just so my own addiction would be more convenient, which seems to be the case with this open letter.

This is what happens when people forget the word "game" indicates an activity where the outcome doesn't truly matter and which is pursued for entertainment.

 

[COMaestro]

So with that in mind: what's the purpose of a bed time? To stop your kid from being uncomfortable and dull the next day. So: if your kid's bed time is 10:00, he starts a game at 9:25 and it turns out the game takes 40 instead of the 35 minutes he expected: what is the harm? I would say my father did it right, if my bed time was 9:00 he would never really care if I was up at 9:20, why would he? He knew the reason I had a bed time at 9 wasn't to make sure I'm not up at 9:05, the reason was to make sure I'm not up at 11:36. We all know that 9:00 is arbitrary, but even if I am up at 11:36 , there's a natural punishment for that, feeling like shit the next day, and it scales more or less linearly. So the way I see it, when you tell a kid to get off of something he's in the middle of that can easily be seen as an obligation to others, just because you want him to go to bed at an entirely arbitrary point, you are teaching your child to value the arbitrary even when doing so makes things worse for others. Also the person who will really suffer the consequences is your kid when he feels like shit in school the next day if he does go past a certain point. When I say "Don't ruin my game by taking your kid out because it's 10 minutes past his bed time" I'm not thinking at a surface selfish level, it hasn't effected me in years and with the same logic I'd tell you not to leave because your wife is giving birth. I mean , in high school I was always going to bed around 10 while my friends were going to bed at 12:30 and being absolutely wrecked during class and I think that has to do with the fact that I was taught not to under-sleep while they were taught arbitrary commands.

If you're going to assign that high of a value to dinner: whatever, I guess I can live with it, I still don't understand how you can prioritize something that that happens everyday that highly though. But here's the thing: to me, strangers need special consideration as to how your actions effect them because they didn't implicitly agree to anything

Also: I thank you for being reasonable, I really hate repeating myself at the same strawmen over and over again.

Bedtime in my mind would not mean my child is in bed at that time. It is the time needed to get ready for bed. Brushing teeth, showering possibly, changing for bed, all of which taken together does take a bit of time, after which I would expect them to be in bed. Sure, maybe read a chapter or two of a book before lights out, but basically a cool-down period before sleeping. By setting a relatively firm time for this process to begin, I can be sure my child will actually be ready to sleep at a reasonable time.

If, as in your example, I can tell the match is really in the endgame phase and it will only be a couple more minutes, I'd probably let that slide. If my child had just started the match a few minutes ago though, he's out. He should know better, and letting him finish the match, as suggested in the letter, is only going to let him know that he can get away with doing it again, even if some punishment follows afterward.

If you're going to assign that high of a value to dinner: whatever, I guess I can live with it, I still don't understand how you can prioritize something that that happens everyday that highly though. But here's the thing: to me, strangers need special consideration as to how your actions effect them because they didn't implicitly agree to anything

That goes both ways though. The parents did not implicitly agree to anything either, so they are under no obligation to the other players to let their child play through the whole match. Does it suck for the players? Sure. But it sucks for the parents if they expect to have their child available to them for whatever reason, say going out to dinner, but the child can't go because he is "obligated" to finish his game first.

In this case, going out may have been unexpected, so the child can't be blamed for their time management if they didn't know they were going out to dinner ahead of time. However, in the cases where the parents pull the child out of the game due to his or her own poor time management, I'd like to think a few bans from the game would help them to learn to manage their time better. If they know they are always going to be allowed to finish their game, then any future punishment will lose its impact.

*snip*

Your link is including the period, so it's not going to the page you want.

 

[mike1921]

Your time has no value to anyone but yourself. If someone values your time, that's pretty neat. But no one in this world has to do so, unless they are paying you for work. You may think a parent making a decision that affects your time is inconsiderate, but they have no obligations to consider your time. You are nothing to them.

Personally would call that analogous to sociopathy, not normal parenting if you think that how other people are effected is not a consideration in your decision making. Like, jesus christ, how can you make that claim? When you make decisions that negatively effect random people you don't take that into account? You are arguing against the very concept of consideration for others.

You keep using this term arbitrary as well, in ways that makes me question if you know the definition. If a RULE or LAW is arbitrary, that doesn't mean you get disobey it without any consequence. While it may be true that your Father found 9:00 PM an arbitrary number, the fact is that bedtime is a parenting technique. While I fear linking wikipedia will be torn apart, the description given is a general idea of what bedtime consists of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedtime . You've presented your personal example as your reasoning behind your theoretical parenting decisions, which in itself isn't a bad example, but it does not provide enough data to make assumptions about parenting techniques across the board for younger LoL players. And it should be explained to you, that by deflecting attention from yourself by saying, "I'm not thinking at a surface selfish level" only lends to the believe that you have indeed considered this from a selfish surface level. Your example is actually the "strawman", here. It under-represents the demographics used. You and those who you went to school with are not empirical data.

Given you don't question that anything I said is arbitrary actually is:I'm pretty sure I know the definition. My argument was against valuing the arbitrary, not to discard anything arbitrary regardless of circumstance.

Also, my father "found" 9:00PM an arbitrary number? Really? That's just his opinion? No, 9:00PM as THE TIME to go to bed IS arbitrary

And I am saying that enforcing an arbitrary bed time strictly is a bad parenting technique that encourages a lack of flexibility, independence, and criticality towards the arbitrary and fails as (to me) the main thing you're supposed to be doing as a parent: training your kid for the real world. If I need to get up at 6AM every day so my plan is to go to bed around 10 I set an alarm for 6 and I fall asleep at 10:08 , 10:30, 9:58 and 9:45. That's what a normal person should do.

People should question everything , and when kids are taught to negatively effect others in order to be at bed by 9:00 they are being taught that 9:00 actually matters, that what is actually on a continuum is a binary. In another context : Everybody thinks the cop who pulls you over for being 2 over the speed limit is an asshole.


Obviously it's not empirical data but anecdotal evidence isn't totally worthless as a starting point. And no, my personal experience is not my reasoning, logic is my reasoning. also if you feel like presenting empirical data it obviously over-rides my school. I am not however, a senator reviewing legislation nor a person likely to speak at a parenting conference in the near future so I'm fine arguing at the theoretical level, no one else has risen the bar above that.

Also , of course I have considered it from a surface selfish level, but that was out of intellectual honesty against the arguments presented here that were always phrased as if I were a person effected which I am not.

TL;DR: Just because you have a hyper-inflated view on the worth of your time really means nothing to decades of results that this kind of parenting has produced.

People that feel physically uncomfortable if I tell them we should abolish the penny because 1 is a pretty,arbitrary, number that we economically waste millions on? That's a small thing, but I think that is the most egregious example of Americans avoiding a change that has absolutely no negatives but removes something arbitrary and in the real world unimportant.. You know how you brought up empirical evidence, by the way? http://www.gallup.com/poll/166553/less-recommended-amount-sleep.aspx . Not going to claim that parenting techniques are the only reason people would undersleep, but I'm not exactly amazed by how good Americans are at sleeping because of bed times.

also, stop bringing up MY time, I haven't run into a kid like this in years.

SNIP

Bedtime in my mind would not mean my child is in bed at that time. It is the time needed to get ready for bed. Brushing teeth, showering possibly, changing for bed, all of which taken together does take a bit of time, after which I would expect them to be in bed. Sure, maybe read a chapter or two of a book before lights out, but basically a cool-down period before sleeping. By setting a relatively firm time for this process to begin, I can be sure my child will actually be ready to sleep at a reasonable time.

If, as in your example, I can tell the match is really in the endgame phase and it will only be a couple more minutes, I'd probably let that slide. If my child had just started the match a few minutes ago though, he's out. He should know better, and letting him finish the match, as suggested in the letter, is only going to let him know that he can get away with doing it again, even if some punishment follows afterward.

I think that's the definition of NOT getting away with it, punishment follows afterward. No one says "Oh he was sentenced with life imprisonment, he got away with it" they say "he strangled a guy and got an innocent verdict, bastard got away with it". I mean, in real life you're punished if you undersleep, you feel like shit the next day. That's what inconsiderate actions cause, consequences probably down the road. I don't understand in what context both nature and people punishing you for something is considered getting away with it.

That goes both ways though. The parents did not implicitly agree to anything either, so they are under no obligation to the other players to let their child play through the whole match. Does it suck for the players? Sure. But it sucks for the parents if they expect to have their child available to them for whatever reason, say going out to dinner, but the child can't go because he is "obligated" to finish his game first.

In this case, going out may have been unexpected, so the child can't be blamed for their time management if they didn't know they were going out to dinner ahead of time. However, in the cases where the parents pull the child out of the game due to his or her own poor time management, I'd like to think a few bans from the game would help them to learn to manage their time better. If they know they are always going to be allowed to finish their game, then any future punishment will lose its impact.

The parents implicitly agreed to take responsibility for their child. If your kid comes to my house and slams something enough to cause property damage, that's on you as well, so the way I see it your kid's obligation needs to be under your consideration.

Also, if they're going out for dinner and the kid knew before hand that's a different story than TAKE OUT THE TRASH, I WANT YOU TO BED AT 10 NOT 10:10. I'd still probably hold it.

Oh if only I trusted riot to ban people, not claming Riot's lack of moderation is on the parents.

Isn't that what you want your kid doing, considering negative consequences into his actions as opposed to just being stopped mid-way?

I say if anything your way is the one that's closer to getting away with it, they start an obligation to others that makes them undersleep and instead of letting them finish it out, and having their ass kicked later you just kick them off and what they don't really learn anything , because you stopped them from making a mistake to learn from.

 

[Fappy]

Here's my $0.02 as a parent and a lifelong gamer.

I'm really glad my son is into games. They've been a source of entertainment for me since I was young. I hope he finds as much enjoyment in them as I have.

That said....

There will never be a situation where I will base my parenting decisions on what someone else playing a video game thinks is important. You simply cannot constantly monitor what your kid is doing. It's not possible. I can go to his room, tell him "Dinner's in 10 minutes. Don't start any games!" and after I walk out, he'll start a game. In a case like that, I am absolutely turning the game off. Not because I want anyone else to suffer for my child's bad choice, but because one of my job as a parent is teaching him time management and listening skills. Hopefully, turning off the game will have the proper impact on him, and we won't have to have this object lesson again.

I'm perfectly aware of the implicit commitment and time required for these games. If I was playing, I wouldn't be quick to walk away. But in the case of a kid who's young enough to still be living at home, they don't always make the best decisions, and they sometimes have to be punished for them. That's just a fact of life.

Hey, I totally agree a kid who joins a game they know they may not be able to finish is in the wrong. I'm just saying the solution is to punish the kid, not the kid and 9 strangers. That's overstepping your remit.

Those nine strangers don't enter into the decision. It's my house, my kid, and my call. It's unfortunate that they're affected by the kid's bad decision, but that's life. Luckily, no one is hurt, and it's just a game.

I'm not a parent, but I imagine I'd be the same way.

In the end your kid is way more imortant than nine strangers playing a game. It's frankly shocking how many people seem to not understand this.