Electronic sports (esports) is said to have existed since 1972 (Li, 2017). By definition, esports is the competitive play of video games; yet, performance, training, and player development have relatively recently emerged as central features of the industry (Pedraza-Ramirez et al., 2020). Current research suggests that a range of stressors and demands associated with esports training and competition exists (e.g., Leis et al., 2022; Poulus et al., 2020; Smith et al., 2019). For instance, esports competitors face challenges, including competition pressure, negative communication and social interaction, technical/logistical problems, and lifestyle management (Leis et al., 2022; Smith et al., 2019). As the professional level of esports continues to grow, there are increasing calls for the involvement of sport psychologists (Watson et al., 2021) who may be well equipped to support competitors with these challenges (Cottrell et al., 2019). However, the support of applied sport psychology practitioners is likely hampered by the paucity of evidence around training practices in esports (Pereira et al., 2019).
Similar to noncomputerized sports, playing video games competitively draws on physical (fine motor control), cognitive (strategy and planning), emotional (investment into the game) and social skills (teamwork; Bowman, 2019). For instance, “League of Legends” places technical demands on players by means of execution of fine motor skills, via keyboard and mouse operations, and psychological demands in that players must regulate emotion, train regularly, maintain motivation and self-confidence, make decisions under pressure, utilize problem-solving skills, and work with teammates effectively to achieve a common goal (Kim et al., 2017).
While esports is gaining traction in both the popular media and research (Geyser, 2022), there remain significant gaps in our knowledge and related scientific literature on the psychological and performance-related aspects of participation. This includes the experiences of players across esports titles, their approaches to training, and the use of support staff (Pedraza-Ramirez et al., 2020; Reitman et al., 2020). Perhaps one reason for this is that much existing research within esports treats the domain as a single entity without acknowledging the varying and complex demands that different games and different competitive levels place on the player (Nagorsky & Wiemeyer, 2020; Pedraza-Ramirez et al., 2020).
Esports games are complex and can differ significantly from each other both within and across genres. As such, for us to understand training in esports, we must first understand training within individual esports games. Here, we have chosen to focus on League of Legends, which is one of the most played games worldwide, boasting over 150 million players (Galov, 2022). There are also frequent and alarming accounts of negative psychological consequences associated with League of Legends training practices in both popular media and research (Khan, 2020; Kou, 2020). One training approach that appears particularly culpable in these accounts is that of playing as many games as possible as frequently as possible, which has propagated a widespread "Grind Culture" in amateur and professional esports (Cooke, 2021; Newbury, 2021). A recent high-profile example of this is the case of professional player “Doublelift,” who quit League of Legends in part due to feelings of burnout associated with grinding games (Bosch, 2021). Indeed, preliminary research by Smith et al. (2022) investigated university-level esports competitors and found that specific categories of stressors (e.g., game-specific uncertainty) predicted subcomponents of burnout, specifically a reduced sense of accomplishment and exhaustion, with the same burnout subcomponents predicting measures of mental ill health. While detailed examination of grind culture in esports is missing, it is evident in other domains and broadly encapsulates an approach in which work is heavily prioritized over other aspects of one’s life (Løvestam, 2019). The concern here is that "grinding" and related behaviors are linked to worse performance, burnout, and early career termination (Brenner, 2007; Gustafsson et al., 2008).
Emerging research suggests that the training and health behaviors of players, particularly excessive periods of time spent gaming, may be suboptimal for maintaining a healthy lifestyle (Faust et al., 2013) and be linked to burnout (Madden & Harteveld, 2021). However, while there is research logging training quantity across various esports (Pluss et al., 2021), no research evidence yet exists that examines current or alternative training approaches and their respective effectiveness for performance improvement and well-being support in esports. An important first step, therefore, is to draw on the perspectives and experiences of League of Legends players themselves to identify current training methods, why these are used, and where support and further research may be required.
A pertinent theoretical framework from which to consider training practices in any context that involves the development of skill and expert performance is that of deliberate practice (Ericsson et al., 1993). Deliberate practice comprises activities that require cognitive or physical effort, demand attention, may not necessarily be enjoyable, do not lead to immediate personal, social, or financial rewards, and are done with the specific purpose of improving performance (Baker & Young, 2014). Despite the contrast between esports and the initial area in which deliberate practice was studied (music), there are numerous aspects of the deliberate practice framework (Baker & Young, 2014) that are relevant to the current study. For instance, performers are required to sustain motivation for long periods (years) to reach and maintain an expert level, yet the aforementioned anecdotal reports from esports suggest that this is threatened by burnout as a result of maladaptive training approaches. Similarly, effortful training must be balanced with appropriate recovery time (Baker & Young, 2014), an aspect that is at-odds with the prevailing grind culture within esports. Related literature in sport also suggests that a variety of types of training is necessary to achieve an expert level of performance, such as team practices, individual sessions with a coach, and video training (Baker et al., 2003). Given the paucity of literature on training in esports, these aspects will be important to consider within the current study. As such, this study will use deliberate practice as a guiding framework to explore current training practices and perceptions of those practices in esports.
In summary, research is needed to advance our understanding of training in esports, particularly regarding potentially maladaptive practices such as “grinding.” Such research may have applied implications for practitioners and coaches working within the area in terms of promoting practices that are more adaptive for both performance and health. We sought to illuminate what training is completed within the context of League of Legends, why particular training activities are undertaken (or not) and how effective these are from a player perspective. A qualitative approach is particularly suitable as it provides rich insights into the “world” of professional League of Legends training (Neergaard et al., 2009). The purpose of the current study, therefore, is to provide insights into professional players’ experiences and perceptions of training within the context of esports.
Methodology
Philosophical Assumptions
Philosophical assumptions concern epistemology, the nature of knowledge, and ontology, the nature of reality. Calls for a greater awareness of these assumptions in sport psychology research have been made (Culver et al., 2012) as they determine key aspects of the methodological approach, data analysis, and thus the quality of the research design. Of numerous positions that may be assumed (e.g., realist or constructivist, positivist or interpretivist), the current study aligns with a critical realist perspective, which posits that there is a true external world that we interact with, and that this world existed prior to our language, ideas, and concepts about it (Bhaskar, 2013; Pilgrim, 2019). This perspective embraces epistemic relativism, in that knowledge of the world is deemed relative to historical context, our own perspectives and interests, and the influence of others on us and that, as a result, any accounts of our understanding of reality are fallible (Archer et al., 2016). This perspective also embraces ontological realism, which deems that at minimum parts of reality are independent of the human mind, yet we may never know the true nature of this reality. From these epistemological and ontological standpoints, a qualitative interview-based methodology was deemed appropriate in order to explore players’ perceived realities, experiences, and perceptions of what may cause such experiences (Wiltshire, 2018).
Design
In line with a qualitative explorative approach, our study used semistructured interviews in order to elicit in-depth descriptions of participants’ experiences and perceptions of training. Questions also aimed to capture detailed information about the esports training context, which is particularly important when little is known about the topic area (Neergaard et al., 2009) and in light of calls for greater understanding of esport-specific training phenomena (Nagorsky & Wiemeyer, 2020).
Participants
Following ethical approval, participants were recruited via purposive sampling. An infographic and brief description of the study was sent out to players over 18 years of age, who currently play for or had played for a professional or semiprofessional team within the last 2 years. Participants were contacted via social media platforms (LinkedIn, Twitter) and online messaging applications (email, Discord). Using personal contacts and shared networks allowed us entry into what can sometimes be a private environment, leading to the potential for discovery of much richer data (Devers & Frankel, 2000).
Ten semiprofessional/professional League of Legends players agreed to participate in the study, which was conducted during the off-season in the Autumn–Winter of 2021. All participants were currently active players or had been within the last 2 years and were aged between 18 and 25 years old (M = 22.4, SD = 2.2). All players at the time of interview had most recently competed within the European region and had experience in semiprofessional/professional play within Tier-2 (n = 7) and Tier-3 (n = 3), ranging from 1.5 to 9 years (M = 4.1, SD = 2.3). At the time of interviewing, all participants held the rank of “Master” or higher, representing the top 0.24% of the playing population (Milella, 2022). Specifically, the sample included “Master” (n = 6), “GrandMaster” (n = 2), and “Challenger” (n = 2) ranked players. All participants identified as male. Several nationalities are represented with British/English (n = 5), British-Pakistani (n = 1), Swedish (n = 2), Danish (n = 1), and Dutch (n = 1). To protect the identity of the participants, pseudonyms were assigned along with the removal of certain names and places during transcription.
Procedure
Semistructured interviews with the 10 participants were conducted by the first author over a period of 2 months. Interviews lasted between 33:29 and 90:05 min (M = 54.58). An interview guide was created according to thematic analysis guidelines (Braun & Clarke, 2021a; Smith et al., 1995) and incorporated questions developed during extensive discussion between the three authors, utilizing shared knowledge and experience of esports research (Leis et al., 2022; Smith et al., 2019), esports performance coaching, and sport psychology within esports (Watson et al., 2021). Questions were designed to gather information about participants’ experiences within esports, with the interview guide serving as a prompt to aid discussion. In line with Braun and Clarke’s (2021b) recommendations, ice-breaker questions (e.g., “how did you get involved in esports?”) were used to build rapport with participants. Interviews then proceeded with questions connecting to the study aims (e.g., “Can you tell me about your experience of training in League of Legends?” and “Can you describe to me a moment when you felt your training was going really well and why that was?”). Follow-up questions and probes (e.g., “what do you mean when you say . . .”) were used during interviews in order to elicit detailed responses. The recorded audio files of completed interviews were saved under pseudonyms, transcribed verbatim, and anonymized to ensure confidentiality (Braun & Clarke, 2021b).
Data Analysis
In line with the exploratory nature of our study, transcripts were analyzed via inductive thematic analysis (Clarke et al., 2015), and coding was driven by the data rather than any existing theory. Initial analysis was undertaken by the first author and supported by the second. Here, each transcript was read several times and codes were developed manually, initially 263 codes were developed, and 29 subthemes generated around these. Here, we recognize that themes did not “emerge” but were generated based on the data itself alongside the knowledge, assumptions, and experiences of the researchers (Braun & Clarke, 2021a). At this point, in accordance with recommendations (Sparkes & Smith, 2013), the third author was invited to “sense-check” and challenge whether the generated sub themes provided an accurate representation of the data. These reflexive discussions and feedback by the “critical friend” encouraged further reflection and a refining of the interpretation of the data. Following this, results were distilled into three core themes and nine subthemes.
Rigor
Following Smith and McGannon’s (2018) calls for “universal criteria” when proving qualitative study rigor, we considered Tracy’s (2010) “big-tent” criteria throughout data collection, analysis, and write-up. For example, the “worthy topic” criteria are addressed within our introduction and primarily met with the unique environment of professional esports at a time when it is experiencing unprecedented growth/popularity (Gough, 2021). To provide transparency on any potential bias, the second author has published work (e.g., Watson & Kleinert, 2019) on motivation and self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1980) yet made every effort to minimize the impact of these works on the current study (e.g., by keeping a reflective log throughout the study process). Additionally, the primary author made significant efforts to mitigate the impact of any preconceptions built up over 3 years of applied sport psychology practice within esports through self-reflection, mentoring, and supervision.
Throughout the coding and interpretation process the third author was employed as a critical friend (Smith & McGannon, 2018) to review and challenge where necessary. In line with calls for more rigorous member checking procedures (Birt et al., 2016), participants had the opportunity to engage with and feedback on the study findings. All interviewees confirmed that the findings accurately reflected their experiences.
Results and Discussion
Three themes and a number of subthemes were constructed within the inductive analysis (see Figure 1 for an overview). These themes, coupled with illustrative quotes and their discussion in relation to the deliberate practice framework, are presented below. In order to inform applied practice (Keegan et al., 2017), data are intended to be both informative and practical in nature.
Overview of themes and subthemes generated from interview data.
Citation: Journal of Electronic Gaming and Esports 1, 1; 10.1123/jege.2022-0011
Theme 1: The State of Training: “I Just Do What the Schedule Tells Me”
This theme was constructed from players’ descriptions of the structure and type of training undertaken, as well as the underlying reasoning and perceived benefits or costs. The subthemes of standardized structure, utility, and social learning were generated from the data.
Subtheme 1A: A Standardized Structure
I just do what the schedule tells me . . . . I would say it’s just passed down between all the teams. And it’s just like mutually been agreed that this is when people scrim. This is the amount of games that people like to scrim and everyone just sticks to them. —James
Chris highlighted this lack of rationale around training approaches, stating that “there was never any sit-down workshops. There was never any lectures, there was never any classroom sessions where we were like let’s approach this in a structured way.”
Few deviations from this structure were evident. Some players, like Courtney, indicated that their team would hold a prescrim meeting to establish general aims and set goals on “what we’re gonna practice this scrim, like focus on, like the early game, for example, like playing around Herald . . . things that we want to focus on to improve on.”
Subtheme 1B: Utility
We would call it Blitz scrims. So we played the first 14 minutes of the game. And then after like 14 minutes, like the last player, after 14 minutes it’s the last play, you know, ending the game, like everyone just leaves the game. And you do like a quick review. —Kyle
If you wanted to learn a lane specific match up, you’d probably go into 1v1s. If you wanted to get a feel of a Champion’s damage, you’d probably go into “Summoners Rift” [solo queue], if you want to just have a bit of fun, relax, but . . . stay warm then ARAMS. —Owen
Some reasoning behind engaging in these different forms of training was given, with each method differing in perceived utility. “VOD” reviews tended to be used for reviewing previous matches and the matches of other professional players considered the best in the game, primarily as a learning tool. As Chris noted, “you put your gameplay up against their gameplay, and then you spot the difference.”
Further, Josh noted that it could also be helpful in identifying areas to work on when guidance was absent as “you can’t just make ideas out of thin air. So either you’re playing against someone, and they’ll do it to you. And then you try and figure out and then you do it. Or your watch someone better than you.”
1v1s, in which a player typically organizes a private match against an opponent who plays their position, were discussed primarily in terms of goal-directed practice. Owen noted that these can be valuable in learning how one champion performs against another “if you’re playing against a good player” and that “the best ones [1v1 sessions] I’ve had have been where we, he, we want to play specific matchups, and we want to play for specific things.”
if you’re playing a new champion, going into practice tool and just learning all their combos and making it muscle memory, that’s super valuable. Because you can’t play the game, if you have to think about your champion, it’s impossible. —Josh
if you played like a tournament, you would not necessarily try these things [new ideas] . . . so solo queue is definitely like mostly a place where you try limits and try to improve as an individual player with like mechanics. —Ronan
Interestingly, and perhaps a unique phenomenon exclusive to esports, players felt that a benefit of the solo queue training method was that they could be matched with and play against other professional players if they had a similar rank: “That’s the coolest thing about esports. In the highest ranks, you’ll play against the best players. Whereas you’ll never get to play football against Cristiano Ronaldo unless you make it.” —Josh
So usually for me, like that’s like a good thing to do is just have like presentation on something you want to focus on. Yeah. And then like going into the scrim. The scrim is only effective if you, you like, you work on that. That concept. —Kyle
Subtheme 1C: Social Learning
Reviewing . . . solo queue is quite standard within most people. But if you, if you watch any of the top pros’ streams, like “Rekkles” and “Perkz” and all of them, well especially “Rekkles” . . . . I take a lot of inspiration from him . . . the fact that after every single solo queue game, he’ll review it quite intensely compared to most people . . . . I learned that from Rekkles’ stream. —James
I used to idolize a player called “Hai” . . . . He was known very much for being like a really vocal Shot-Caller . . . . I tried to like mirror the way that “Hai” was in a team . . . . And mostly that kind of shaped my beliefs on what made a player good. —Josh
I’ve actually liked vod review with my, my lane partner . . . reviewing like people that are that are the best at the game, like the Chinese or the European scene as well; they are really good and like we just watch their vods and discuss that. —Sam
Overall, the state of training theme highlights a standard pattern of training that involves a high volume of games with little variety or rest. While a significant time investment is expected within training for expert performance, the lack of variety of training activities regularly undertaken appears to contrast with the approaches of expert athletes in sport (Baker et al., 2003). The primary means of training was to play full games, either with a team or individually, and review one’s own or other’s game play. While training in game-like situations is thought to be beneficial by researchers in sport (Ericsson, 1998), some degree of isolation and repetition of game scenarios and technical skills is seen as necessary to experience mastery and develop expertise (Baker & Young, 2014), suggesting that if this could also be implemented in esports, perhaps higher levels of performance may follow. Further, forms of non-game-specific training that might be expected in sport, such as strength and conditioning training, were rarely mentioned as part of players’ training programs. Similarly, in contrast to the deliberate practice framework, planned rest and recovery were not prominent features of players’ training regimes.
Literature on deliberate practice and expert performance advocates for a variety of training approaches and methods (Baker et al., 2003), such as the use of goals, periodization, task constraints (Farrow, & Robertson, 2017), and interleaving (Carter & Grahn, 2016). An intentional goal-directed focus prior to playing games was seen as an effective means of training, yet this was not universally implemented, perhaps due to the perceived complexity of the game or a lack of support in setting personal goals. The use of task constraints, for example “blitz scrims,” were used sporadically but did not appear to be intentionally applied to couple actions to key information and develop learning (Farrow, & Robertson, 2017). Concepts such as interleaving (i.e., concurrently alternating between practice tasks) were absent in players’ experiences yet may be a beneficial alternative to the predominant blocked practice approach (Carter & Grahn, 2016). However, players did not indicate that they had decision-making power over the training activities undertaken in the team environment, thus team coaches are likely to be more appropriate targets for education in this area.
Theme 2: Training Experiences: "That Was a Bit of a Waste of Time"
A significant portion of discussion for each participant was dedicated to exploring player experiences of training. This often included their perceptions of effectiveness for different types of training, the emotional and physical impact training could have, and perceptions of more effective approaches.
Subtheme 2A: A Lack of Perceived Effectiveness
it’s weird because everyone, every comp team scrims . . . four times a week, five times a week five games, but scrims aren’t really like a good way to improve. It’s like even like traditional sports, you play football, you don’t go and play like a 90-minute football game training, like you practice on like shooting, or like drills, or even like tactics or something like that. —Kyle
I could explain this to anyone who doesn’t play League is, in football . . . . You can set up free kicks to practice free kicks . . . you can set up your set pieces however you want. You cannot do that in League of Legends there is, there is no functional way for me as a League of Legends player to choose a portion of the game and set up a game in a state where I can then practice. —Chris
Sometimes you’re stomping the other team, and you’re like “that was a bit of a waste of time,” because there’s not always ((pause)) you can’t really gather data reliably when there’s such a high level in skill difference. —James
The issue of others’ skill level was even more problematic in solo queue, as both one’s opponents and own teammates are randomly assigned. Although the level of the other players is matched to some extent through ranking systems, Chris highlighted that “you are with random teammates, who you don’t know the value of, you don’t know whether they’re going to try, you don’t know whether they’re going to allow you to have a consistent game.”
So, a lot of the time, you’ll end up playing scenarios in the game that are not realistic in a competitive game . . . nine out of 10 times, you’ll be playing a scenario, which, if it came up in a in a competitive game, the coach should pause the game and tell everyone off, right? —Josh
like an embarrassing amount of teams, in ERLs [European Regional Leagues], they will look at a player, player and their rank, and that’ll be like 70 or 80% of their like idea of the player, or like what they think, like make player good. —Kyle
Subtheme 2B: Emotional and Physical Toll
A pattern that stood out across multiple transcripts was the prevalence of emotional and physical challenges players experienced due to these conditions, constraints, and training volume. For some players, the lack of meaningful alternatives to solo queue represented a source of frustration, and as Owen identified, it can be “pretty upsetting to be honest, because it’s the only thing you can do . . . . And also there is such an emphasis on that solo queue rank.”
There was a clear desire from all players for more tools and options to be available for training. For instance, Kyle suggested, “like one thing, which would be like amazing, but isn’t even possible right now is if you could just like set a game, from like a certain point, or just like rewind the game even.”
In addition, some players felt pressure to play frequently with minimal time off, as the game can “de-rank” players it deems inactive, as Owen explained, “like I spent the last, last month probably climbing up to 250 300 LP [ranking points], and I’ve lost it all in 2 days because I forgot to play . . . . It’s just such a grind.”
it can take you like 30 minutes to 40 minutes to even find a game, and I work eight hours a day. I come off I have scrims from six till nine . . . . And it was also mentally draining to sit there for 40 minutes, not being able to do anything but wait for a game . . . . —Owen
my smurf [secondary account] went up to like close to challenger, but I decided to decay it [leave inactive] because I didn’t want to keep two accounts. I mean, I had some wrist issues, so I decided to drop one account . . . . But I couldn’t really take a lot of rest 'cause . . . . I still had a competition, and I still needed to play so I just used some tape for four weeks. —Conor
They’re [other pros] playing a game where they don’t feel like they have control . . . . They don’t feel like they control those 10 hours in the day they’re playing, but yet their job is tied to it . . . . It just destroys you mentally, and you just check out. —Chris
It’s basically said that you should like, if you’re playing League, you should like spam the game like 12 hours a day, you should play like every waking hour, you should play like 15 games, of solo queue per day, if you want to be the best. —Sam
[I’ve] been finding myself like in a really bad place mentally, when I tend to do that, like I spam the game . . . . I tend to play worse for every game, you know, because you cannot keep up the focus for like eight hours plus . . . . I’ve been telling myself when I feel tired, like there is no excuse . . . . I’m telling myself in my head that I’m not good enough. —Sam
You’re physically allowed to play 12 games a day. Whereas, if I go out and try and play 12 hours of football, I will die ((laughs)) . . . [it’s] very dangerous to my practice, in the long run ((pause)) short term . . . if you can find like if you are two to three percent better than the next person, that is enough to get to springboard your career . . . it’s a new industry and, you know, just the nature of trying to get on teams, the short-term seasons . . . it really incentivizes short-term gains over long-term growth . . . the team cares about results now. —Chris
And then you’re like, “what would I have done here?” To have one step forward, one step back. If I go one step forward, do I still die? If I go one step back, do I live . . . you have to do this at least like once in a while . . . . But it is a bit like hard for the psyche sometimes. —Ronan
I think the reason why I was so blasé about everyone telling each other to like kill themselves and stuff like that in solo queue was because I was just numb to it . . . . That’s why whenever or any of my friends like ask whether or not they should start playing League, I say no, because they won’t enjoy the community at all. —Rory
I remember one of the games I died, like level two in lane, and my top laner literally like sighed, and he was like, “oh, what’s the point in playing if Owen is gonna troll” [Intentionally throw the game] . . . and then I had this like, sort of like grew this mentality of play safe, play consistent . . . . I think it affected me and my proactivity quite a lot . . . for a long time I had that sort of like “don’t be the reason we lose” mentality. —Owen
Subtheme 2C: More Effective Approaches
I would say, spamming . . . spamming games without a thought or like . . . there’s no benefit to it in terms of improvement at this, like you don’t gain anything to get better. You can still win, but you won’t necessarily be improving as a player, I think. —James
Like if you’re gonna play like three games of solo queue a day, which are like fully focused, and you’re actually like being a bit more cognizant, then they’re actually going to be 10 times better than just spamming 15 games a day, aimlessly. —Kyle
What I did to train better than what I previously used to do . . . . I stopped playing 10 hours of League of Legends a day. I stopped playing 10 to 12 games a day. And I played three to four games a day when I was fully focused and ready to go. —Chris
The more productive scrims were generally where you had a goal in mind, like, “Okay, let’s try and let’s try and work on this part of our game” and then actually have some sort of key, some sort of way of measuring that part of your game after. —Chris
But if you go into solo queue, and you understand that the only thing you should care about are the things that you can control, then you’re gonna have like a lot better time of it . . . you kind of can’t really get that angry about it. —Kyle
If I get a bad night’s sleep, I might be able to endure it for like two or three hours . . . . But when, for example, we have tournaments, that’s like five hours of gaming . . . . I can definitely feel like I get exhausted, then if I have a bad sleep, if I have like wrong food to eat. —Ronan
In addition, Chris noted from personal experience that other players were “skipping meals to play those games a day. Therefore, they don’t sleep well, therefore, they don’t exercise . . . and then they play more because they think they need to make up for it.”
I think the most effective [inaudible] have good slept [sic] . . . uh sleep schedule. Have a good breakfast . . . . Before you play, do some exercises or maybe meditate . . . for 10 minutes. Then you just like play some solo queue games, I would always say what’s probably the best for most people’s play like three games then take a break for like 30 minutes, and then you can move on to, to play more. —Conor
This subtheme captures several approaches that participants felt were able to improve the effectiveness of training. For example, some participants recognized the need to focus on what was in their control and to engage in goal setting, which can play a key role in self-regulation and has been shown to be positively related to esports performance (Trotter et al., 2021). Furthermore, participants recognized the importance of a balanced lifestyle and the need for breaks, which aligns with the favorable associations between physical activity and cognitive function in esports players (Difrancisco-Donoghue et al., 2021) and rest and burnout in sport (Kellmann et al., 2018). While such approaches are considered by sports athletes to be beneficial and are common in sport psychology support for noncomputerized sport (Harmison, 2006), they were not common features of players’ training regimes here (Theme 1). As such, greater promotion and implementation (e.g., by practitioners or appropriately qualified coaches) of these practices throughout the industry is needed.
Overall, this second theme appears to underpin all other themes and subthemes and contains important messages for the industry. Specifically, current approaches to training are generally perceived by players to be suboptimal in terms of effectiveness, and in some cases, appear to be detrimental to player health and well-being. This theme appears to corroborate media reports of the negative psychological consequences associated with the prevailing grind culture in esports (Khan, 2020; Kou, 2020) and echoes findings from recent research on burnout and mental ill-health in esports (Smith et al., 2022). Players often expressed frustration and that they felt hampered by the inability to engage in deliberate practice due to the technical constraints of League of Legends (e.g., not being able to recreate a game state and replay/rehearse scenarios). This is in stark contrast to the possibilities available in noncomputerized sport, where in-game scenarios can be (re)created and (re)played in training, with control over parameters, such as opponent positioning, score, and match time, affording the possibility of creating "representative learning designs" where practice can better simulate competition conditions and demands (Pinder et al., 2011). The lack of control over training situations and the significant time required to play full games conceivably heightens this frustration and may predispose some of the abusive and "toxic" behaviors encountered in the training environment (Theme 2b).
Theme 3: Motivational Change: "The Litmus Test for Every League Player Is Their Rank"
All participants highlighted a gradual change in sources of motivation over their careers. What typically started as an autonomous and social endeavor appeared to shift toward an externally regulated process, with some participants highlighting the mediating role of staff and peers.
Subtheme 3A: Autonomous Beginnings
And I climbed very quickly . . . this was with my friends, friends at school . . . . And it was just a hobby at that time. But I would play every other day when I came back from school. And I eventually got to the point where I had climbed to high enough ELO that I thought I was going to be able to win world championships. —Chris
Few players mentioned that it was their aim to become a professional or pursue a career in esports at this stage: “So I went to like the [Name Removed] one-on-one tournament in like this university event that my friend dragged me to . . . I thought it’d be really silly . . . and I just won” —Rory
For some players such as Sam, the professional scene found them: “since I was so high up on the ladder [rankings], then I got contacted by a Turkish team. So when I graduated, I flew out to Turkey, and that’s kind of where it all began.”
Subtheme 3B: External Regulation
Having entered the realm of professional esports, players like Rory expressed how they had to adjust to the structured team environment where “everything that was being taught to me was brand new.” Ronan noted that part of this adjustment involved learning to communicate with a full team, something that involved a “really hard process of learning how to speak while playing . . . like only saying necessary stuff while like being on top of the mechanical master- mastery.” However, as Chris mentioned, tensions between teammates could often impact perceptions of training effectiveness: “An argument between these players and the rest of the team. That was probably the worst experience of training. Every scrim felt like an uphill battle to get something productive out of it.”
It was notable that the role of friendship and positive social interaction in players’ participation became increasingly sparse—if not completely absent—as they ascended the professional ranks. Instead, the influence of game rank became prominent. Players were often acutely aware of their own and their teammates’ rank and the impact it could have on their training. In Owen’s experience, “it [current rank] had a negative impact on like a lot of things, down to like we couldn’t get good scrims because of it. But teammates always expected me to do worse.”
Well, the litmus test for every league player is the rank, they, everyone looks at the rank and just goes, “Is it higher? Is it lower?” That’s the, you know, very results-based way of saying we are improving in terms of consistency . . . in terms of short term, looking at your rank is not a good idea to gauge whether you’re improving or not . . . [because] it’s a random game, there are four random teammates and five random enemies. —Chris
This perceived importance of rank is further highlighted by the use of “smurf” accounts by some. Josh explained this point further: “a lot of players will go into practice tool . . . . Or they’ll go on a smurf, and they’ll only focus on getting as much CS [‘creep score’] as possible.” Here, players create a second account to play on and practice certain aspects of the game in solo queue without the risk of losing their rank on their main account.
I wouldn’t have eaten anything, and I would just be playing solo queue . . . but if I lose, then I’m also really sad for the entire day . . . . And so that’s like obviously a really toxic way of like going about it . . . ‘cause it’s not like I was learning from the losses. —Rory
one of the best players in the world, “Faker,” has like 50 52% win rate or something in solo queue. Like, so it’s like literally impossible to win every game. But I told myself for years . . . that every game I lost, it’s, it’s my fault. And I’m bad. And I should like do something about it. Which is, in a sense, it’s good, right? Because then you tend to like improve. —Sam
Well, I remember . . . we had, ah, some scrims that were going very well . . . the reason I felt they were going very well was because we were scrimming . . . the league above where we were, and we were actually beating them or like going even with them in the overall scrim set . . . . I think everyone was like motivated by that and, uh . . . made people think that, oh, we’re actually quite a good team. —James
“I think comparing yourself to teams in scrims might not be the best thing, but it’s hard to notice improvement if it’s not based on teams around you.” —James
Subtheme 3C: The Role of the Coach
I think it’s, um, mostly what coaches do to show that you’ve improved like throughout the scrim session, they’ll be like, “Oh, you, you wouldn’t have done this at the start of the split. But now you’re doing this rotation.” —James
So . . . you’re just reviewing your games, it’s one on one with your coach, or it could be I want to get better at like a concept in the game. So, like, he’ll go away, like do some homework. And like find it from like pro games . . . . And you would sort of like run through it. —Kyle
Beyond these instances, the role of the coach and their impact upon player motivation was not described in detail. Some players spoke favorably of their coach and indicated they contributed to the team climate, such as with Ronan who felt that “just having a coach around in every team you play. . . [is] such a big resource,” while others like Kyle were more skeptical and felt that “there’s a lot of like posers . . . . And a lot of people who like, like to talk but don't really like to put in the effort.”
Overall, this motivational change theme could be seen as an antecedent or consequence of the nature of training in League of Legends as described in Theme 1. In terms of the former, players spoke of the importance of their personal playing rank, the desire to win against opponents even in training sessions (scrims), and the potential career-limiting consequences of not maintaining a high-level rank (via wins during solo queue) even in season. From this perspective, alternative training approaches and activities that interfere with the game (e.g., task constraints) or require time away from it (e.g., fitness training, rest or playing with friends) could be perceived as detrimental to their chances of climbing the ranks or career ladder. Conversely, the emphasis on results, grind culture, and entry into the professional (as opposed to amateur) playing environment, where relatedness no longer plays a part in participation, could be theoretically expected to provoke a shift from autonomous (e.g., intrinsic) reasons for participation to more controlled (e.g., extrinsic) reasons (Deci & Ryan, 1980). Other factors captured within Theme 2, for example, the lack of effectiveness, lack of choice, and lack of perceived control over their training (particularly in solo queue), would also be expected to contribute to this shift in motivation. Importantly, a more external “quality” of motivation and performance/ego-orientated climate is strongly linked to athlete burnout in sport (Ingrell et al., 2019). Therefore, current training practices could undermine the sustained motivation and involvement needed to attain an expert level of performance, as outlined by the deliberate practice framework (Baker & Young, 2014).
Practical Implications
The results of our study have several important practical applications for European League of Legends esports and those working within the area. First, interventions are needed to promote the more effective training practices identified in our findings and alleviate the negative emotional consequences of the current “grind” approach (i.e., high-volume low-quality practice). Applied sport psychology practitioners are well-placed to achieve this by, for example, enhancing feedback mechanisms via the regular incorporation of goal setting in training, a core pillar of expertise development (Ericsson et al., 1993). Coach developers, organizational psychology specialists, and human resource practitioners will also have relevant expertise to embed effective and sustainable practice approaches across organizational levels. Encouraging organizations from the top down to promote more mastery-oriented training climates that emphasize self-referenced improvement over other-referenced metrics could be an effective approach here, for example, by reducing the importance placed on player rank during training in-season. Second, applied practitioners and researchers have an important role in educating key stakeholders on the importance of numerous psychological (e.g., well-being, burnout) and pedagogical (e.g., deliberate practice, autonomy support) topics relevant for esports performance. Equally, the present findings may represent a “call to action” for more health, coaching, and psychology practitioners to enter esports to bolster these educational efforts.
Limitations and Future Research Directions
An important limitation of our research is that the participant group comprised an all-male-identifying population of players currently competing in European League of Legends, and as a result, our findings are both gender and culturally limited. Further research is needed across different demographics and regions of professional League of Legends play. Additionally, our research interviewed players only and did not include the perspectives of coaches or team staff, which may differ. The findings of this paper highlight several important areas for future research. Research needs to demonstrate the value, across a host of performance metrics, of alternative training approaches and methods that are likely to reduce the potential for negative psychological consequences among players and increase both career longevity and personal health and well-being. From our findings, the existing methods of training often place emphasis on ego-oriented measures of performance and quantity over quality of practice. Future avenues could benefit from exploring how best to encourage mastery and expertise development within the constraints of League of Legends where the opportunity for scenario replicability and skill repetition is limited. Attention should also be given to understanding more individualized training approaches, as players’ individual paths toward expert levels of performance are likely to be distinct (Ericsson, 2003). Equally pressing is research into the role of the coach as a key decision maker in the training environment and, more specifically, in educating and supporting them in the use of alternative training practice, pedagogies, and well-being support (Watson et al., 2022).
Conclusion
To conclude, our research represents a first attempt to develop an understanding of training practices and their perceived effectiveness in professional and semiprofessional League of Legends players. This novel study was necessary in light of the paucity of scientific literature in this area and concerning reports of negative psychological consequences that have arisen in media (Khan, 2020; Kou, 2020). In terms of our findings, our first theme "the state of training" indicates that highly standardized and socially reinforced training practices exist within League of Legends, while our second theme "training experiences" highlights the equivocal views that surround the function and effectiveness of these practices and the prevailing “grind culture.” Given the associations with poor well-being, research is urgently needed to identify training approaches that support both performance and personal health. Education is likewise necessary to inform players and coaches about such approaches as well as existing evidence-based health-promotion strategies (e.g., rest, self-care). Our final theme, “motivational change,” captures how an overarching performance-oriented climate culminates in the degradation of players’ motivation and experience. Therefore, autonomy support, achievement goal, and motivational climate interventions for teams, as well as related education for coaches and organizational staff, may be particularly beneficial here. Further research is critical to increase the evidence base from which to inform interventions at both the organizational and individual level.
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