Valorant Developer Comments On Player Harassment

In a new developer blog post, the team behind Valorant at Riot has touched on the subject of player harassment, an issue rife in the gaming industry. Anna Donlon, the executive producer and leader of the Valorant development team, has written about how the developer will be approaching the issue.

"I’ll be super real here: harassment and bullying in games is not a status quo I’m comfortable accepting," Donlon said. "I replied to a colleague’s tweet last month about my fears of solo-queuing, a problem I’ve had for many years of multiplayer gaming. And I’m not alone. We’ve learned to mute others who are harassing us. We’ve learned to mute ourselves in order to keep the peace. And as a result, we have a competitive experience that can feel compromised. We often find ourselves at a disadvantage," she continued.

Quelling the issue of player harassment is not something Riot has been able to accomplish in the past, with their main game League Of Legends being infamous for its toxic player base. In the past, Riot has even had to ban professional players over their behavior in-game. The company itself is not much better, with various lawsuits directed at the company from ex-employees over their mistreatment while working at Riot.

Nevertheless, Donlon seems to understand the gravity of the situation and is ready to take the issue head on: "This is a very hard space to take on. I can’t solve society, and some of these issues are really, really deeply entrenched. But what I can say is that Riot takes this seriously—it’s why we established a dedicated 'Central Player Dynamics' team to tackle the science and research of what promotes fair teamplay (it’s not always punishments!) and it’s why we formed the Fair Play Alliance with our partners in the gaming space."

To accomplish this task, the development team is looking to publish the code of conduct as soon as possible. The code of conduct will act as a baseline of expectations for the players, with the developers using it as a code of law to establish the community on.

Once the team has more to show on the matter they will release an update, but for the time being that’s all Donlon has to say on the topic.

Valorant is currently in closed beta and is slated for release in Summer 2020. For how to get a key to the closed beta, check out our guide.