Some games of League of Legends I know I’ll love even before the loading screen appears. Take last night, for instance. I logged in to find a couple of fellow Rioters available to play, and while we queued together in a pre-game lobby we had a great discussion that led to smart role choices and an intentional team composition. That connection and strategic communication doesn’t guarantee victory — we lost — but win or lose that’s my favorite way to start.
League of Legends players collectively send millions of messages every day. They're asking friends to duo-queue, suggesting a team comp on the champ select screen, and thanking opponents for a good game. On July 21st of this year (I picked a day at random), players forged 1.7 million new friendships in the game—that’s a lot of love! And each time players send a message they trigger a number of operations on the back-end technology that powers Riot chat.
Playing League of Legends for years now, I’ve formed a meaningful network of social connections with other gamers around the world. Whether they’re friends from work, former classmates, or players I’ve been matchmade with, they all have an important place on my friends list. The ability to easily play with these friends greatly enhances my experience with the game. It would be disastrous if something ever happened to that social graph—trying to remember and re-friend all of my 200+ friends would be as bad as losing my phone and all of its stored contacts.