GG Go Next... Lobby: How Players Use Queue Dodging to Anticipate and Avoid Negative Experiences in League of Legends

“Queue dodging” in League of Legends—the act of leaving a match during Champion Select—is characterized as problematic behaviour that increases lobby wait times, reduces the quality of matchmaking, and results in penalties for players. Although game companies try to eliminate queue dodging, it persists, raising the question of what motivates players to continue dodging in spite of repercussions. Through a thematic analysis of 2,932 Reddit posts and comments, we highlight four main motivations for dodging: 1) Avoiding toxic teammates, 2) Evading unfavourable matchups, 3) Exploiting system mechanics, and 4) Reacting to external circumstances. Our findings suggest that queue dodging is as likely to be a proactive strategy players use to avoid toxicity as an aggressive strategy to enact it. We discuss implications for the design of game systems that would support players to anticipate and avoid negative experiences while still preventing queue dodging as a toxic act.