research-article

Open access

Understanding Tilt in Esports: A Study on Young League of Legends Players

Authors:

Constance SteinkuehlerAuthors Info & Claims

CHI '21: Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Article No.: 321, Pages 1 - 9

https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445143

Published: 07 May 2021 Publication History

All formats PDF

Abstract

Tilt as a gaming term is associated with frustration, rage, and deterioration of gameplay ability. In this exploratory study, we surveyed 95 esports players in a high school esports league on their definitions of tilt, triggers for tilting, responses to tilt, and perception of its malleability. We found that players are tilted most commonly by their own teammates rather than opponents, with their most negative tilt responses reserved for themselves. The majority surveyed believe that they can change how easily they are tilted and believing so was found to lead players to choose more positive responses to tilt. In contrast, perceiving tilt as malleable was found to increase the probability that participants respond with positive strategies. Implications for efforts to improve esports culture and community are discussed.

References

[1]

Craig Anderson, Kathryn Campbell, and Constance Steinkuehler. 2019. Building persistence through failure: the role of challenge in video games. In Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (pp. 1-6).

Digital Library

[2]

Earl Babbie, Wagner E. William III, and Jeanne Zaino. 2019. Adventures in Social Research: Data Analysis Using IBM SPSS Statistics, 10th Edition. Thousand Oaks CA: Sage.

[3]

Steven E. Barkan. 2015. Law and Dispute Resolution. Law and Society: An Introduction. Routledge.

[4]

Pierpaolo Battigalli, Martin Dufwenberg, and Alec Smith. 2015. Frustration and anger in games. CES Ifo Working Paper, No. 5258. Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute, Munich.

[5]

Basil R. Browne. 1989. Going on tilt: Frequent poker players and control. Journal of Gambling Behavior, 5, 1, 3-21.

[6]

Gifford Cheung and Jeff Huang. 2011. Starcraft from the stands: understanding the game spectator. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 763-772.

Digital Library

[7]

Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning. 2020. Core SEL Competencies. Casel.org. Retrieved from https://casel.org/core-competencies/.

[8]

Aaron M. Duncan. 2015. Gambling with the Myth of the American Dream. Routledge Research in Sport Culture and Society. Routledge.

[9]

Carol S. Dweck. 1975. The role of expectations and attributions in the alleviation of learned helplessness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31, 674-680.

[10]

Carol S. Dweck, and Ellen L. Leggett. 1988. A social-cognitive approach to motivation and personality. Psychological review, 95(2), 256.

[11]

Guo Freeman and Donghee Yvette Wohn. 2017. Social support in eSports: building emotional and esteem support from instrumental support interactions in a highly competitive environment. In Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play. 435-447.

Digital Library

[12]

Guo Freeman and Donghee Yvette Wohn. 2018. Understanding eSports Team Formation and Coordination. Comput. Support. Coop. Work CSCW An Int. J. 27, 3–6 (December 2018), 1019–1050.

Digital Library

[13]

Kiel M Gilleade and Alan Dix. 2004. Using frustration in the design of adaptive videogames. In Proceedings of the 2004 ACM SIGCHI International Conference on Advances in computer entertainment technology (ACE '04). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 228–232.

Digital Library

[14]

Thomas Gilovich, Robert Vallone, and Amos Tversky. 1985. The hot hand in basketball: On the misperception of random sequences. Cognitive Psychology 17, 3: 295 - 314.

[15]

Barney G. Glaser, and Anselm L. Strauss. 1967. The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. Chicago: Aldine.

[16]

Juliana M. Horowitz and Nikki Graf. 2019. Most US Teens See Anxiety and Depression as a Major Problem Among Their Peers. PEW Research Center. Retrieved March 2019 from https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2019/02/20/most-u-s-teens-see-anxiety-and-depression-as-a-major-problem-among-their-peers/

[17]

Daniel Johnson, Lennart E. Nacke, and Peta Wyeth. 2015. All about that base: differing player experiences in video game genres and the unique case of moba games. In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2265-2274.

Digital Library

[18]

Young Ji Kim, David Engel, Anita Williams Woolley, Jeffrey Yu-Ting Lin, Naomi McArthur, and Thomas W. Malone. 2017. What makes a strong team? Using collective intelligence to predict team performance in League of Legends. In Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, 2316-2329.

[19]

Yubo Kou, and Xinning Gui. 2014. Playing with strangers: understanding temporary teams in League of Legends. In Proceedings of the first ACM SIGCHI annual symposium on Computer-human interaction in play, 161-169.

Digital Library

[20]

Yubo Kou, Yao Li, Xinning Gui, and Eli Suzuki-Gill. 2018. Playing with Streakiness in Online Games: How Players Perceive and React to Winning and Losing Streaks in League of Legends. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1-14.

Digital Library

[21]

Yubo Kou and Xinning Gui. 2020. Emotion Regulation in eSports Gaming: A Qualitative Study of League of Legends. In Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, Vol 4, No. CSCW2, Article 158 (October 2020). 26 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3415229

Digital Library

[22]

Haewoon Kwak, Jeremy Blackburn, and Seungyeop Han. 2015. Exploring Cyberbullying and Other Toxic Behavior in team Competition Online Games. In Proceedings of the 2015 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 3739 - 3748.

Digital Library

[23]

Je Seok Lee, Minerva Wu, Diana Lee, Lee Fleming, Lindsay Ruben, Tom Turner, Kevin Brown, and Constance Steinkuehler. 2020. Designing an Interest-Based Integrated Curriculum Around Esports. International Journal of Designs for Learning. 11, 3 (Aug. 2020), 78-95.

[24]

Marcus Märtens, Siqi Shen, Alexandru Iosup, and Gernando Kuipers. 2015. Toxicity Detection in Multiplayer Online Games. 2015 International Workshop on Network and Systems Support for Games (NetGames). IEEE. 1-6.

[25]

North America Scholastic Esports Federation (2020). “Locations “ Retrieved March 2020 from https://www.nasef.org/clubs/locations/

[26]

Andrew K. Przybylski, C. Scott Rigby, and Richard M. Ryan. 2010. A motivational model of video game engagement. Review of general psychology, 14(2), 154-166.

[27]

Natasha Dow Schull. 2016. Abiding chance: Online poker and the software of self-discipline. Public Culture. 28 (3). 563-592.

[28]

Yuri Seo, and Sang-uk Jung. 2016. Beyond solitary play in computer games: The social practices of eSports. Journal of Consumer Culture, 16(3), 635–655. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469540514553711

[29]

Catherine A. Spann, Valerie J. Shute, Seyedahmad Rahimi, and Sidney K. D'Mello. 2019. The productive role of cognitive reappraisal in regulating affect during game-based learning. Computers in Human Behavior, 100, 358-369.

Digital Library

[30]

Michael G. Wagner. 2006. On the Scientific Relevance of eSports. In International conference on internet computing, 437-442.

[31]

Xingjie Wei*, Jussi Palomaki*, Jeff Yan, and Peter Robinson. 2016. The Science and detection of tilting. In Proceedings of the 2016 ACM on International Conference on Multimedia Retrieval, 79-86.

[32]

White and Daniela M. Romano. 2020. Scalable Psychological Momentum Forecasting in Esports. In SUM '20: State-based User Modelling. 10.13140/RG.2.2.21224.21769

[33]

Emma Witkowski. 2012. On the digital playing field: How we “do sport” with networked computer games. Games and Culture, 7(5), 349-374.

Cited By

Białecki AXenopoulos PDobrowolski PBiałecki RGajewski J(2024)ESPORT: Electronic Sports Professionals Observations and Reflections on TrainingPhysical Culture and Sport. Studies and Research10.2478/pcssr-2024-0021Online publication date: 18-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.2478/pcssr-2024-0021
Donner F(2024)Structures that tilt: Understanding “toxic” behaviors in online gamingNew Media & Society10.1177/14614448241270446Online publication date: 19-Aug-2024
https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241270446
Yu VChen V(2024)Transgressive play or playful transgressions? Dynamic interpretations of toxic behaviour in multiplayer online gamesInformation, Communication & Society10.1080/1369118X.2024.2388073(1-17)Online publication date: 13-Aug-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2024.2388073
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Understanding Tilt in Esports: A Study on Young League of Legends Players

Index terms have been assigned to the content through auto-classification.

Recommendations

Testing men's hormone responses to playing League of Legends

Esports, or competitive video gaming, has rapidly increased in online play and viewing. The popularity of esports such as League of Legends may derive in part because it features skills-based coalitional competition. Whereas a sizable literature focuses ...
Esports Governance: An Analysis of Rule Enforcement in League of Legends
CSCW

Esports, like traditional sports, face governance challenges such as foul play and match fixing. The esports industry has seen various attempts at governance structure but is yet to form a consensus. In this study, we explore esports governance in ...
Emotion Regulation in eSports Gaming: A Qualitative Study of League of Legends
CSCW

Today eSports gaming is enjoying growing popularity in the world and much attention from various research areas, including CSCW. eSports gaming is a highly competitive environment commonly associated with negative emotions such as anxiety and stress. ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

CHI '21: Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

May 2021

10862 pages

ISBN:9781450380966

DOI:10.1145/3411764

General Chairs:
Yoshifumi Kitamura
Tohoku University, Japan
,
Aaron Quigley
University of New South Wales, Australia
,
Program Chairs:
Katherine Isbister
University of California Santa Cruz, USA
,
Takeo Igarashi
The University of Tokyo, Japan
,
Publications Chairs:
Pernille Bjørn
University of Copenhagen, Denmark
,
Steven Drucker
Microsoft Research, USA

Copyright © 2021 Owner/Author.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial International 4.0 License.

Sponsors

SIGCHI: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 07 May 2021

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article
Research
Refereed limited

Funding Sources

Samueli Foundation

Conference

CHI '21

Sponsor:

SIGCHI

CHI '21: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

May 8 - 13, 2021

Yokohama, Japan

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 6,199 of 26,314 submissions, 24%

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

16
Total Citations
View Citations
11,159
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)3,113
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)170

Reflects downloads up to 30 Aug 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Białecki AXenopoulos PDobrowolski PBiałecki RGajewski J(2024)ESPORT: Electronic Sports Professionals Observations and Reflections on TrainingPhysical Culture and Sport. Studies and Research10.2478/pcssr-2024-0021Online publication date: 18-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.2478/pcssr-2024-0021
Donner F(2024)Structures that tilt: Understanding “toxic” behaviors in online gamingNew Media & Society10.1177/14614448241270446Online publication date: 19-Aug-2024
https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241270446
Yu VChen V(2024)Transgressive play or playful transgressions? Dynamic interpretations of toxic behaviour in multiplayer online gamesInformation, Communication & Society10.1080/1369118X.2024.2388073(1-17)Online publication date: 13-Aug-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2024.2388073
McLinton SPascale S(2024)Tilt in esports: Understanding the phenomenon in new digital contextsComputers in Human Behavior Reports10.1016/j.chbr.2024.10042514(100425)Online publication date: May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chbr.2024.100425
Vealey RWright E(2023)Using imagery to build confidence in esportsJournal of Imagery Research in Sport and Physical Activity10.1515/jirspa-2022-002318:s1Online publication date: 8-Mar-2023
https://doi.org/10.1515/jirspa-2022-0023
Horbiński TZagata K(2023)The Cognitive Skills in Interpretation of Spatial Situations in the League of Legends gameSimulation and Gaming10.1177/1046878123116561654:3(322-347)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1177/10468781231165616
Beres NKlarkowski MMandryk R(2023)Playing with Emotions: A Systematic Review Examining Emotions and Emotion Regulation in Esports PerformanceProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36110417:CHI PLAY(558-587)Online publication date: 4-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3611041
Ortmann TMaute SHeil FHildebrandt KJorshery PPutzar L(2023)Tiltometer: Real-Time Tilt Recognition in Esports2023 11th International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction Workshops and Demos (ACIIW)10.1109/ACIIW59127.2023.10388192(1-3)Online publication date: 10-Sep-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/ACIIW59127.2023.10388192
Esperanzate ALatosa A(2023)Clutch or Gay: Experiences of Gaymers in Valorant PhilippinesEsports in the Asia-Pacific10.1007/978-981-99-3796-7_9(185-206)Online publication date: 25-Oct-2023
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-3796-7_9
Ma RGui XKou Y(2022)Esports Governance: An Analysis of Rule Enforcement in League of LegendsProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35555416:CSCW2(1-28)Online publication date: 11-Nov-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3555541
Show More Cited By

View Options

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

HTML Format

View this article in HTML Format.

Get Access

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Table of Contents