Riot Games, developer of popular games like Valorant and League of Legends, announced on Thursday that it will be imposing stricter regulations on toxic player conduct.
Valorant Studio Head Anna Donlon addressed the issue in a seven-minute video posted on her X (formerly Twitter) account.
This development comes after recent videos that show Valorant players harassing women via in-game chat went viral, sparking a debate on social media.
A message from @RiotSuperCakes about the current state of player behavior and upcoming changes to make our community a better place pic.twitter.com/eiwoGsB930
— VALORANT (@VALORANT) May 30, 2024
Many of these incidents involved female streamers being bullied or degraded.
An incident saw streamer Joona get harassed by a male streamer for "having an attitude."
In one extreme case, streamer TaylorMorgan was violently threatened during a match while broadcasting her gameplay.
I have never made a more desperate plea that what I am about to say right now. @riotgames@RiotSupport I need you guys to fucking do something. I am an incredibly strong person and I have been streaming for a very, very long time. But absolutely nothing prepares you for someone… pic.twitter.com/Gr77uBsBrT
— TaylorMorgan (@TaylorMorganS_) May 13, 2024
Donlon highlighted the Valorant team’s responsibility to protect players, acknowledging the limitations of its current systems when policing abusive behavior.
She also condemned toxic players, absolving victims who may otherwise feel guilty or be made to feel guilty.
"At the end of the day, there are people who want to take out their insecurity, or their bad day, or their hate on some stranger through their computer screen," Donlon said.
Donlon further addressed the misguided sentiment that victims of harassment should simply mute abusive players.
"When you tell someone to just mute comms to avoid harassment, you are essentially putting the harassed person in a position to not communicate, to compromise how they want to play the game to accommodate you," she explained.
Valorant’s Plan of Action
According to Donlon, the company’s current safety measures depend on constant attention and players submitting reports to be effective.
In light of this, Riot Games reportedly plans to update its existing policies within 30 days, enforcing stronger and faster penalties for severe behaviors such as hate speech, severe sexual harassment, and threats of violence.
New penalties, including temporary and permanent account bans, will also be implemented, with hardware bans reserved for the worst offenders.
The studio also plans to hire more staff to increase the size of the teams that manually review reports. Riot's voice evaluation system will also be rolled out to different regions.
We also rolled out a few improvements to our player behavior systems in patch 8.10:
— VALORANT (@VALORANT) May 31, 2024
👉🏽bystander feedback - if anyone in your match is actioned on, you'll receive a notice when they are penalized, even if you didn't report them yourself
👉🏽text filtering - when zero tolerance text…
Finally, a one-time review of top suspected offenders from the previous Act (a two-month competitive period) will be conducted, with penalties being issued accordingly.
Donlon made the studio's non-compromising stance clear, stating that there is no room in the game's community for egregious behaviors.
"If you need to make truly evil statements under the guise of regular shit-talk to enjoy gaming, then please play something else. We won’t miss you," she concluded.
While Donlon hopes that the measures will help players feel safer, plans to implement a more proactive approach are in the works.
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Editing by Katherine 'Makkie' Maclang
