PC Gamer
Earlier this year, a community survey of nearly 3,800 League of Legends players found that 79 percent of them had been harassed after a match, in manners ranging from outbursts of obscenities and repeated friend requests to, almost exclusively for players who identify as women, sexual harassment. Unsurprisingly, while slightly more men than women reported being the target of "general abuse"—flaming, racist slurs, or friend invite spam—women were far more likely to be the target of sexual harassment: 32 percent reported receiving "sexual remarks or propositions" after a game, compared to just three percent of male players.
Also unsurprisingly, it appears that those bad habits are carrying over into Riot's new game, competitive shooter Valorant. Last week, League of Legends and Teamfight Tactics UX designer Riot Greenily shared a clip of Valorant gameplay in which she was repeatedly propositioned by a male player, saying that "it's like this most of the time on solo queue voice comms regardless of the game I'm playing."
The tweets prompted Valorant executive producer Anna Donlon to say in response that due to her own experiences with online toxicity she doesn't play solo at all—quite a statement from someone who, prior to her five years at Riot, spent a decade at Treyarch as a producer on the Call of Duty series.
"With any competitive game, we expect spirits to get high and things to get tense—we're not going to ban someone just because they got passionate about winning or losing. But I also know that some experiences can go beyond enthusiasm; sometimes they extend into harassment. That's what I'm not okay with. The reality is that, for the harassed, it can be challenging to play a game competitively because you need to first protect yourself from 'inviting' harassment, and so you mute someone because they're screaming slurs into the mic, or you mute yourself because that seems to keep the peace," Donlon said in a statement.
"We know this is a hard problem to tackle, and will take time, but I'd feel irresponsible accepting this as the status quo. It's why we prioritized developing non-voice communications, like character voice callouts for game events (like seeing the enemy with the spike) and the in-game ping system. But that's just the start, we will continue to prioritize and invest resources into this space. I hold myself accountable to leading a game where anyone can safely compete to their full potential without fear of being bullied out or yelled down. It's a very aspirational goal, but please check back in with us down the road and we'll keep the conversation going."
More at Link above
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Awful reality and something I hope devs keep trying to fight even though it seems like an incredibly hard battle.
Earlier this year, a community survey of nearly 3,800 League of Legends players found that 79 percent of them had been harassed after a match, in manners ranging from outbursts of obscenities and repeated friend requests to, almost exclusively for players who identify as women, sexual harassment. Unsurprisingly, while slightly more men than women reported being the target of "general abuse"—flaming, racist slurs, or friend invite spam—women were far more likely to be the target of sexual harassment: 32 percent reported receiving "sexual remarks or propositions" after a game, compared to just three percent of male players.
Also unsurprisingly, it appears that those bad habits are carrying over into Riot's new game, competitive shooter Valorant. Last week, League of Legends and Teamfight Tactics UX designer Riot Greenily shared a clip of Valorant gameplay in which she was repeatedly propositioned by a male player, saying that "it's like this most of the time on solo queue voice comms regardless of the game I'm playing."
The tweets prompted Valorant executive producer Anna Donlon to say in response that due to her own experiences with online toxicity she doesn't play solo at all—quite a statement from someone who, prior to her five years at Riot, spent a decade at Treyarch as a producer on the Call of Duty series.
"With any competitive game, we expect spirits to get high and things to get tense—we're not going to ban someone just because they got passionate about winning or losing. But I also know that some experiences can go beyond enthusiasm; sometimes they extend into harassment. That's what I'm not okay with. The reality is that, for the harassed, it can be challenging to play a game competitively because you need to first protect yourself from 'inviting' harassment, and so you mute someone because they're screaming slurs into the mic, or you mute yourself because that seems to keep the peace," Donlon said in a statement.
"We know this is a hard problem to tackle, and will take time, but I'd feel irresponsible accepting this as the status quo. It's why we prioritized developing non-voice communications, like character voice callouts for game events (like seeing the enemy with the spike) and the in-game ping system. But that's just the start, we will continue to prioritize and invest resources into this space. I hold myself accountable to leading a game where anyone can safely compete to their full potential without fear of being bullied out or yelled down. It's a very aspirational goal, but please check back in with us down the road and we'll keep the conversation going."
More at Link above
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Awful reality and something I hope devs keep trying to fight even though it seems like an incredibly hard battle.
