Gamer culture has no place in fast paced competitive games.
In response to widespread calls to address “toxicity” and in-game issues like “sexism,” Riot Games released a video featuring Anna Donlon, the studio head of Valorant. In the video, Anna Donlon explains various types of bans, including temporary, permanent, and hardware ID bans for repeat offenders.
In a recent video, Ana Donolon, the studio head of Valorant, acknowledged that Riot Games has long been aware of harmful in-game voice communications, where players often use slurs and insults. This issue is common in many competitive online games.
Valorant, a free-to-play competitive shooter that combines elements of Overwatch and Counter-Strike, features various heroes in a straightforward format of defenders and attackers who plant or defuse a bomb. Its low barrier to entry has made it popular among diverse player bases, particularly in impoverished regions such as South America, Southeast Asia, and Russia.
However, Valorant has faced significant privacy concerns, especially given that Riot Games is owned by the Chinese conglomerate Tencent. The game’s invasive anti-cheat system has been a point of contention. Especially considering how Valorant’s anti-cheat system has kernel level access to your PC.
The studio has openly stated that in-game voice communication is constantly monitored and recorded for “evaluation purposes” when a player is reported for misconduct. This has raised concerns that Riot Games could use this data to proactively ban users for inappropriate language.
The recent social media outcry for banning problematic users was amplified by female streamers sharing clips on Twitter of moments when they were subjected to insults and profanities.
In competitive titles like Valorant, where players are constantly matched with random people, there is always the option to mute individuals in-game to avoid hearing offensive language. However, some individuals, such as Taylor Morgan, admit they deliberately refrain from muting problematic players to create “content.”
Often, content creators like Taylor will antagonize or “bait” disruptive individuals to provoke a strong reaction. They then portray themselves as innocent victims and use clipped interactions to highlight issues of sexism in gaming, garnering significant attention on social media.
For example, Taylor’s posts have received over 90,000 likes, emphasizing the supposed prevalence of sexist behavior among male gamers in online gaming.
Of course, there’s bad apples everywhere. Considering the competitive nature of games like Valorant and other socially online competitive titles, individuals when under pressure or when provoked will likely lash out and berate another.
This has been going on for decades but only now it’s considered a problem as gaming has seemingly gone mainstream, to the point where sensitive individuals opt to refrain from muting those that are offensive or are insulting them, purely to farm a reaction and post it online for sympathy and to stigmatize male gamers.
The situation is further complicated by the presence of certain female streamers who use their appearance to attract an audience on platforms like Twitch, often without needing to develop a strong personality. These streamers, who frequently emphasize their tits attract a predominantly male audience.
Despite claiming to support other women, their actions often seem designed to provoke reactions from players.
People play competitive titles like Valorant and Call of Duty for the straightforward goal of winning, enjoying the pick-up-and-play nature of these games. However, some streamers, like SummerSlays, assert that they use their voice in game lobbies to combat racism, transphobia, homophobia, and sexism.
She has stated that she hopes her presence, particularly her appearance, makes angry men uncomfortable so she can “humble” them in-game. This implies that she intentionally engages with male gamers to provoke a reaction out of them.
This tactic is unusual. Rather than playing the game normally and muting individuals she doesn’t want to hear, it seems she derives satisfaction from confronting problematic players or eliciting a response, possibly playing the victim card if she does encounter an individual who goes off the deep end.
The issue at hand seems to revolve around the stigmatization of male gamers, with some individuals berating them and lamenting that toxic men are ruining the gaming community. It’s worth noting that gaming culture has traditionally been male-dominated, with products primarily targeted at this demographic.
Attempts to inject modern-day ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) or DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) principles into gaming often result in financial failures, suggesting that these products aren’t resonating with the broader consumer base.
The reality is that it’s unrealistic to expect everyone in the gaming community to conform to certain standards of acceptance and tolerance. Gaming has long been dominated by men and will likely continue to be so. Criticism from morally righteous streamers whose main personality trait seems to be their physical appearance only exacerbates tensions. Demanding praise and support while simultaneously vilifying male gamers for toxicity.
For years, men have engaged in banter and insults on the internet without much fuss. However, when a woman enters the server, suddenly everyone is expected to adhere to different standards. Despite ample tools available to block or ignore problematic users, some individuals seem unwilling to utilize them. It’s akin to how modern liberal women have access to various forms of birth control yet still opt for abortion.
In typical fashion, people have quickly discerned the true nature of individuals like Jhanna.
In a recent stream, she openly expressed her preference for having a daughter over a son, followed by her plans to indoctrinate any potential male child from birth to embrace homosexuality or transgender identity. She went as far as to state that she would not accept having a “cisgender” straight son.
Despite her efforts to reshape the gaming community to align with her beliefs without resorting to muting or blocking players, the response was predictable. Given her controversial statements about grooming children, insults directed at her were unsurprising.
It’s ironic that she condemns men for making threats of rape against women in video games, yet shares screenshots of hundreds of DMs insulting her appearance. These messages include derogatory remarks like “get those fat ugly tits out of here, you fucking whale” and imply that her outspokenness makes her automatically unattractive.
While these insults are hurtful, they don’t constitute threats of rape. In fact, they are the opposite of such threats.
Despite this, it seems she and other sensitive female streamers on Twitch, who often struggle to navigate the in-game scoreboard to mute, block, or report abusive players, may finally have their victory with Valorant, a game that already monitors in-game voice communications.
In her video, Anna Donlon mentioned that telling someone to “mute” another player can put them at a disadvantage by limiting their communication options. She emphasized that mute functionalities are not intended to justify bad behavior. Donlon stated that Riot Games will not stand by as Twitch streamers provoke reactions from men who are simply seeking escapism.
She made it clear that there is no compromise for Riot Games, asserting that players should not be forced to develop a “thicker skin.” If a player feels the need to make harmful statements in-game, then Valorant is not the game for them, concluding with, “we won’t miss you.”
Ironically, Riot Games, much like Activision Blizzard with its messages of tolerance and acceptance, has its own history of sexual discrimination and harassment. The company paid a $100 million settlement in 2021 to resolve a class-action lawsuit filed by current and former female employees over gender discrimination and sexual harassment.
It is somewhat ironic that a company with such a background is now enforcing strict behavioral standards on its players.
Riot Games is updating their approach to monitoring in-game voice communications. They plan to implement stricter and more specific policies regarding prohibited hateful rhetoric.
This change aims to expedite the review process and issue reprimands more swiftly. Additionally, Riot Games will introduce new penalties for players reported for offensive behavior, including temporary and permanent bans, as well as hardware ID (HWID) bans for the most egregious offenders.
A hardware ID (HWID) ban enables a game developer to ban an individual at the hardware level. Valorant, for instance, already has kernel access to your system. An HWID ban blocks your unique system identifiers, from your storage, graphics card, and motherboard to even your display.
This method is more effective than traditional account bans because it makes it significantly harder for the average user to return to the platform without either obtaining entirely new hardware or going through the effort of spoofing serial numbers and HWIDs for all their components.
A hardware ban is the most extreme form of punishment that any online service can impose, highlighting the significance Riot Games places on combating hateful rhetoric in online games, even more so than cheating. Riot is also trialing a new voice evaluation system designed to penalize players for “toxic speech patterns.”
The potential flood of false reports that could descend upon Riot Games following this transition raises concerns. Riot’s commitment to increasing the manpower needed to manually handle these punishments will undoubtedly be costly.
Efforts to force gamers to stop using offensive language have historically been unsuccessful, and this move could provoke even greater backlash, especially as the definition of “hate speech” continues to expand.
Modern society struggles to define basic concepts, such as what constitutes a woman, just as “hate speech” often becomes a catch-all for any disagreeable speech. It’s likely that players will soon be punished for microaggressions, as Riot Games appears to be lowering the bar for what constitutes hateful behavior to ban more users.
For my part, I’ll continue to avoid Valorant and effectively “ban” myself from the game.
