Feeding

The purpose of this entry is to better understand what “feeding” is to the esport and gaming communities. The reason to do so is because there are many different definitions out there which cover other forms of toxic behavior. To begin, we will review all the different definitions and categorisations out there. Firstly, as defined by the British Esports (the national governing body for esports in the United Kingdom) feeding is, “when a character dies repeatedly to the same enemy or team. This normally results in the enemy being more powerful than the rest of the players in the game, and can result in them being labelled ‘fed’” [1].

In the research there are examples of feeding and the mechanisms to report it. Work by Adinolf and Turkey[2] titled “Toxic behaviours in esport games: player perceptions and coping strategies” did not define what feeding is, however, it did reveal that in DOTA 2 players can report another player for “intentional feeding” and they provided an image of how to do this in figure 5.0. During their interviews feeding came up under the theme of “dealing with toxic others” as players can be accused of feeding and they may want to diffuse the situation if their friends are being accused of this act as it is hard to tell if someone is intentionally feeding which brings in the next paper.

This was shown in another research article by Aguerri, Santisteban and Miró-Llinares [3] titled, “The Enemy Hates Best? Toxicity in League of Legends and Its Content Moderation Implications”. Pertaining to LOL end user license agreement (EULA) defines conduct of the players that are deemed unacceptable by Riot Games (the developer of LOL). One of the criteria that is not approved is feeding which players can be reported for.  Here the EULA define feeding under the theme of, “Intentionally ruining the game for other players with in-game actions such as griefing, feeding, or purposely playing in a way to make it harder for the rest of the team”.

The researchers go on to categorise feeding in their Table 1.0 as a “non-expressive behaviours” and this is classed as an action under type of conduct which by their standards as an affected interest would class feeding as “disruptive behaviours”. They class feeding as disruptive as by their writing they state, “Actions such as going “AFK,” “intentional feeding,” “negative attitude,” and “cheating” are disruptive in the sense that they can negatively affect a player’s gameplay, that is “the actions performed by the player when involved in a challenge”. LOL developers Riot Games published a video[4] highlighting what feedings is to make it easier for the community to understand. This video was first advertised on GameBoost.com[5] specific to the LOL community regarding feeding.

Another researcher describes feeding more in-depth. Kou[6] published a paper titled, “Toxic behaviors in team-based competitive gaming: The case of league of legends”. Kou states that feeding comes under a theme called Sabotaging. The paper states, “sabotaging is to play poorly with the intention to lose the game. It covers the official categories of leaving the game/AFK, intentional feeding, and partially negative attitude (i.e., griefing). It includes two subtypes: blatant and surreptitious sabotaging”. The author goes on to expand what intentional feeding is within blatant sabotaging. Kou says, “intentional feeding is a major type of blatant sabotaging, meaning to intentionally get killed by the opponent team. Intentionally feeding is an official category by Riot and is abbreviated as “inting” within the LOL community”.

Then there is the surreptitious sabotaging which has a variation of feeding within it. Kou states, “this type is perceived as “soft inting.” A player explained: Soft inting (intentionally feeding) is to intentionally throw by getting ganked, ignoring team fights, or deliberately missing abilities… It can ruin the game, but you cannot say it’s intentional feeding, because it looks like poor performance. According to the player, surreptitious sabotaging is similar to poor performance, with the only difference being the intent”. This work around intentional feeding is also supported by Wang[7] who used a similar definition as well. However, depending on the game and player base, feeding may be viewed in different ways and the community can debate on the finer details of what is feeding. This can be shown best from the Overwatch Reddit forum[8] as an example. Here the forum members debate how one character may be unintentionally feeding and what they consider to be feeding based on a type of character class.

There have been many examples of players experiencing feeding in their matches across LOL articles and how they define it. Then there are the experiences of those playing Overwatch on the reddit forum pages and their negative experiences on feeding. However, as a cheating case there has only been one major scandal of feeding that caught the cheater.

1. In 2015, during the Halo 5 “Free-For-All” tournament a player by the name of “Ryno” was accused of feeding. The tournament had a small prize for the winner which was $300. Specifically, feeding kills to another player and was highlighted by members of the community posting game clips to X (formerly Twitter). Ryno admitted he was feeding his kills and colluding with others. His suspension was 1 month from the event organisers from all of their premium events. The tournament was replayed without his participation[9].

Bringing it all together, summarising the many definitions and aspects of feeding, what is clear is that it is done either intentionally or unintentionally. Either as a new player who is not very good and is learning the game and their scores during a match is simply classed as a poor performance. Alternatively, it is done intentionally (or as “inting”) as a form of blatant sabotage, to troll their own teammates, throw the match away by engaging in disruptive behaviours. What is consistent is that regardless of the intention, it can disrupt the game and hence why there are mechanisms to report it.