League of Legends Rewards Good Behavior with Free Skin

League of Legends is a MOBA, and like any multiplayer game that requires a lot of teamwork, players tend to be total assholes when playing it. There’s nothing mysterious about it; nobody likes it when their success or failure hinges on the performance of a total stranger, and when that total stranger really screws you over it’s easy to feel like the game’s a 9v1 rather than a 5v5.

Riot, the developers of League of Legend, has been attempting to curb it’s toxicity problem through a number of ways—more strict, immediate punishments for bad behavior, the honor system and ribbons, the tribunal and loading-screen tips… but perhaps one of the most enjoyable ways they’ve tried to encourage good behavior is through surprise presents for its good players—and in a recent blog post, Riot announced its most generous surprise yet to positive players; a free “Mystery Gift” (A randomly selected skin from the store) for anyone who was able to go the length of 2014 without any chat restrictions or bans. Riot explains:

"Because players aren't sure what the next reward is (or when it is), players will strive to be sportsmanlike in a larger range of games to try to get all the surprises… it isn't some kind of achievement system where you are sportsmanlike for your next 10 games, then directly unlock a mystery gift. If you design a system like this, players will simply behave for 10 games, unlock their mystery gift and go back to their normal ways.”

Speaking as a League player who qualifies for the free mystery gift, I can say I completely support this initiative. It’s one thing to punish bad people and give consistently good people cool (but useless) ribbons, but when you offer someone something like this—something that costs real money and might net you a skin you’ve really wanted for a while now—it means a lot more.

Of course you could also work really hard to keep your emotions in check and be a good player, only to get Lollipoppy. That’d be a slap in the face.