I have a lot of criticisms to direct towards Riot Games, for a myriad of reasons. I also used to spend far too much time playing League of Legends (breaching past 2k hours in about 2 years, off and on) and have been following the release of Valorant closely. I have, and continue to be, rather impressed with the systems Riot has implemented in order to stop rampant harassment.

The article “How League of Legends could make the internet a better place” is one with a title that is perhaps too ambitious, which bothers me slightly, but the sentiment is understood. This piece even concedes that a vast majority of online harassment comes from people who are just having a bad day. I would argue it is fundamentally immoral to punish people who rarely lash out in the same way as those who do it all the time. We must not forget nuance, lest we amplify the problem.

First, Riot’s honor system is a good idea. You identify rewards that players want, gatekeep it behind a system that rewards good in-game behavior, profit. It is extraordinarily simple, and yet effective. It also serves as a bit of a social stigma. When you click on someone’s profile and see honor level 0, that serves as a black mark in the eyes of the community. People always fear rejection and being judged, and putting it on their public profile is a good way to tap into that fear. Fear sometimes works better than punishment.

There is no perfect solution to stopping people from harassing others online. To imply that you had a perfect solution to stop all of it would be incredibly bold.  You will not be able to stop a person who is generally fine from lashing out online after having a bad day.

Also, more broadly speaking, I am not a fan of banning accounts for typing in chat. I much more ascribe to chat restrictions and removing ability to type or use voice chat than I am to ban accounts. I think account bans should only be held for people who use cheats, who trade/sell accounts, and who are caught boosting (paying someone to raise your rank).

Harassment in chat and voice is one of the reasons most often cited by people who don’t play  online games as to why that is. I love some of these games, and wish more people would be willing to get in there, and this is just one stupid and unnecessary barrier that is stopping this from happening. I find these games beautiful, and I hope we one day get to a state where these issues are managed, but it is a slow process and it seems unlikely to be fixed anytime soon.