You and me, we got this! Exploring the Relationship Between Cooperative and Competitive Presence in League of Legends

Abstract

Playing competitive matches in cooperative teams is a key feature of some of the most successful online games. Though both the within and between team experience of presence (copresence and compresence respectively) are likely to influence the overall experience of the game, research typically considers neither both types of presence together nor their relationship with other player experience measures. In a survey study with 137 League of Legends players, compresence and copresence were found to correlate, and this relationship held regardless of other factors, with meaning and challenge acting as covariates in this relationship. No player experience factors were found to moderate the relationship. These results paint a rich picture of social dynamics and individual player experience influencing each other and highlight it is necessary to consider both compresence and copresence in understanding how team-vs-team games build up the wider player experiences.