There are plenty of different ways to make money on the internet, but League of Legends players have quickly found a “new meta” that involves holding lobbies hostage on the Summoner’s Rift.
Over the last week, players on the official League of Legends subreddit have reportedly run into teammates who ask for money while in champion select. They preface the request by saying they are either looking for a meal or won’t have any until a certain day and that they’d accept Venmo or PayPal.
If they aren’t acknowledged or people rebuff their request, they essentially take the lobby hostage by threatening to intentionally feed during the match. Once they are sure that no one will donate some cash, they lock in an obvious troll pick like Nunu or Yuumi with Smite, which forces one of the other teammates to dodge.
In League of Legends, there has always been a problem with intentional feeders and griefers of all kinds, whether people are angry that their pick was banned or taken or they are simply deranking their account for their own purposes. This, however, is a hilarious form of trolling where players are forced to donate or risk losing the game.
Although Riot Games is still trying to actively fight against toxicity and other forms of trolling, there will always be a problem with intentional griefing that the developers will need to address. It is still very hard to detect and punish guilty players without having some innocent players fall into the same net.
Should these “donate or lose” type griefers become rampant in the community, the League fanbase would have to worry about yet another danger to their ranked games in the future.
