AUSTIN, Texas — Judge Ellen Beatriz sentenced a man to play 200 hours of “League of Legends” in what legal scholars are calling a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments.
“My lawyer was shocked when they handed down the sentence,” said convicted shoplifter Tony Asmana. “I was sort of confused. I Googled it, and it’s apparently the most popular game in the world? What could be so bad about it? I checked out a couple of streams, and I immediately realized what I was in for. If the people who play this game all day are like this, what chance do I possibly have? And they’re good at the game too. My lawyer says I should appeal the case, that way I might get the sentence reduced to prison time or Fortnite.”
Judge Beatriz is known for their particularly creative punishments and drew upon their life experience for the sentencing.
“I used to play the game, and I can’t think of anything better to teach someone a lesson,” explained Judge Beatriz. “Mr. Asmana is going to be getting an education in what happens when you break the rules of polite society: you play League of Legends. I wish him the best of luck trying to clear his jungle camps while he gets spam pinged by his teammates and told to kill himself in ways that avoid the language autodetection. Sometimes you need to use the harshest measures available to you, and it was either this or a bare bottom caning.”
Representatives for Riot Games had mixed feelings about their game being used for civic punishment.
“I swear someone actually enjoys playing this game,” said Riot co-founder and modern monster Mark Merrill. “We get like ten million players a day, are they all just playing because they’re masochistically addicted to this game? Probably, yeah. We designed the game to be fun, but less fun every time. I got the idea after I became addicted to cigarettes: what if we made cigarettes a game that was somehow worse for you than actual cigarettes? Thus, LoL was born. It’s not great PR for us that it’s being used as a legal judgment, but at least this guy might buy some horny skins.”
At press time, Asmana was already being told he needed to neck himself in the pregame lobby of his first game.
