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Playing with Streakiness in Online Games: How Players Perceive and React to Winning and Losing Streaks in League of Legends

Published: 21 April 2018 Publication History

Abstract

Streakiness refers to observed tendency towards consecutive appearances of particular patterns. In video games, streakiness is oftentimes inevitable, where a player keeps winning or losing for a short period. However, the phenomenon remains understudied in present online game research. How do players perceive streakiness? How does it impact player experience (PX)? How should streakiness be taken into consideration for the design of PX? In this paper, we address these questions through a qualitative study of player discussions about streakiness in League of Legends. We found that players developed various ways to describe a streak. Both winning and losing streaks negatively impacted PX. Players devised numerous strategies to manage streakiness, among which disengagement was a primary means. We analyze streakiness as a social construct through which players coped with complex game systems. We discuss design implications for managing streakiness in online games.

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  1. Playing with Streakiness in Online Games: How Players Perceive and React to Winning and Losing Streaks in League of Legends

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    CHI '18: Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
    April 2018
    8489 pages
    ISBN:9781450356206
    DOI:10.1145/3173574
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    Published: 21 April 2018

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    Author Tags

    1. competitive online game
    2. league of legends
    3. losing streak
    4. matchmaking
    5. multiplayer online battle arena (moba)
    6. player experience (px)
    7. streakiness
    8. winning streak

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