Ragequitting

Quitting a game instance due to anger or frustration without regards to how this will affect gameplay for others.

Playing games are typically a voluntary activity. In most cases players continue playing even when the gameplay is unfavorable, frustrating, or boring for them even so because they do not wish to appear as quitter or because they do not want to ruin the gameplay experience for other players. Ragequitting is what happens when players do become so frustrated or angry that they stop caring about these things and simply leave a game instance to avoid having to experience it any more.

TV Tropes has an entry for "Rage Quit".

Examples

Online Games such as League of Legends, the Counter-Strike series, the Left 4 Dead series, and the Team Fortress series are well-known for producing Ragequitting since they all require team work under pressure. When teams do not manage to coordinate, agree, or succeed this may become extremely frustrating for players and make them want to quit.

Intrigue and So Long Sucker are games that are noted for causing players to become irritated at each other. This makes them candidates for Ragequitting although this has not been documented or discussed as much as for the games above. There are however several depictions of players Ragequitting games of Go in Japanese art; the covers of the books in the "Get strong at Go" series depict these (see for example "Get Strong at Tesuji"

Sometimes Ragequitting is applied to players that are actually continuing to follow the rules of a game but clearly not trying to win. One such example is the Soccer game between SO l'Emyrne and AS Adema where the former team got so upset with a ruling that they scored a 149 own goals resulting in the other team winning 149 to 0.

According to TV Tropes, NPCs in Sid Meier's SimGolf can ragequit if their mood value becomes too low.

Using the pattern

Ragequitting is nearly always seen as a Negative Pattern and for that reason game designs tend to try and minimize the risk for this to occur or at least mitigate the effect it has on other players. A perceived Predictable Winner or an identified Dominant Strategy is typically not enough to provoke Ragequitting since this might just be due to others playing well. Ragequitting depends on players feeling frustrated to the point where quitting regardless of consequences for other players gameplay experience becomes the least bad alternative. This is typically happens to players either on due their own performance when meeting Challenging Gameplay or the inability of succeeding with Cooperation. The latter cause makes Betrayal a potential reason for Ragequitting, but only when players are not emotionally prepared for it. Pubstomping is a typical example of emergent feature that can be frustrating to experience since one is thrown into a disadvantageous gameplay situation with a strong possibility of being killed quickly and then have to experience the exact say thing directly again.

The risk of Ragequitting and its effects can be affected by several different patterns. Designing for Spectacular Failure Enjoyment is a way to design against Ragequitting since the two experiences are mutually exclusive. Supporting Drop-In/Drop-Out doesn't remove Ragequitting but its effects on others but may even so not be a good solution if the intent is that players should be committed to play through whole game instances together. While also not directly countering the reasons for Ragequitting, punishing people that do it by negatively adjusting them in Ranking Systems for this behavior can help players control their behavior; the Please Don't Quit is similar but more literal in making people think twice before leaving an ongoing game. Achievements can be added to a game as a form of patch for parts which are especially prone to players Ragequitting; TvT gameplay in the Dead Air campaign in Left 4 Dead 2 is an example of this where players that play the Campaign from beginning to end get the "Connecting Flights" Achievement for not having quit at any point. Team Fortress 2 does the near opposite, it provides an Achievement to players of the "Pyro" class if they make designated opponents leave the game prematurely under certain circumstances. The Possibility of Own Goals can let players deflect their Ragequitting into taking out their frustration by working against themselves or their own Teams, but this may do little to provide other players with meaningful gameplay.

Togetherness has a dual relationship with Ragequitting. First, people are less likely to ragequit if they are experiencing Togetherness with some of the other players since this typically would negatively affect these other players. Second, if Ragequitting does occur it will break Togetherness related to that player. Since Togetherness can be achieved through Social Interaction, the addition and encouraged constructive use of Communication Channels in Online Games can work against Ragequitting.

NPCs can be designed to do Ragequitting. This can be motivated when they are supposed to behave like players do in real-life, e.g. in Sport Games such as Sid Meier's SimGolf.

Consequences

The direct consequence of Ragequitting is of course that a player Surrenders. Since this was due to anger at what had happened during gameplay, Ragequitting is a good indicator that the quitting player had Emotional Engrossment. Scapegoats are created whenever a person blames other players for the problems that result in Ragequitting.

Relations

Can Instantiate

Achievements, Cooperation, Emotional Engrossment, Scapegoats, Surrendering

Can Modulate

NPCs, Teams

Can Be Instantiated By

Betrayal, Challenging Gameplay, Pubstomping, Unwinnable Game States

Can Be Modulated By

Please Don't Quit, Possibility of Own Goals, Ranking Systems

Possible Closure Effects

-

Potentially Conflicting With

Achievements, Communication Channels, Drop-In/Drop-Out, Social Interaction, Spectacular Failure Enjoyment, Togetherness

History

New pattern created in this wiki.

Acknowledgements

-