Riot Aren’t Playing Any More

[@predatorkaneky6686]

As a player, I genuenly cannot fathom paying $500 for something like this

[@Sinaeb]

Don't you have a couple of streaming services to cancel ? /s

[@Sas-ym4gg]

For real. Just buy this skin for the cost of a console.

[@Ilyak1986]

Ah, a fellow rice eater I see =P

[@olencone4005]

@@Ilyak1986 Wait... you can still afford rice? Lucky!! :P

[@Kuromario]

As a player I genuinely cannot paying $500 for anything other than a console or pc part.

[@Joos2000]

I’ll continue to honour Faker by continuing not buying skins.

[@Gildorify]

This is based.

[@darugdawg2453]

i play dota so i dont really know him.

[@Joos2000]

@@darugdawg2453 to be fair, this is the first time I hear of them also. But from their non skin buying antics, they seem nice.

[@Bellicosy]

@@Joos2000 For those not in the know, Faker's reputation centers around him being humble, hard-working, respectful; that he follows the rules and keeps his nose clean. But pertinent to this topic, he doesn't use skins. On only a handful of times has he ever used skins throughout his 10+ year career. Some are by mistake, some are using his own skin - an award for winning the world championship.

[@saltywings41]

This shit is going to start requiring fucking loans.

[@RDSRELOADED]

Too late, apparently an owner? Of a website reported on twitter having a large influx of payment plans for this specifically.

[@TankyCrobat]

I hate. Absolutely Hate, when Price is correlated with "Rarity." To be more clear.... calling something rare BECAUSE you choose to price stamp it so high. Something is rare because a limited amount exists. This skin has a limited time, but there is no limit to how many people can buy it. It's not rare. It's expensive. It's high quality, but not high quality enough to be worth five hundred smackaroos, and riot can shove it right where they deserve it.

[@olencone4005]

But... they can only make just so many of this completely digital skin before they run out of electricity or pixels or something something something :P

[@steel5897]

The problem is digital scarcity. I'm in no way a socialist or anything of the sort, capitalism is the natural evolution of what came before it and is the best system to create prosperity and more importantly to attribute value that we've ever had, but digital scarcity in particular is one of those things where it makes you wonder if we need to intervene a little bit more, because holy shit it breaks the very foundation of the entire concept of attributing value and it does so in very exploitable ways.

[@BrotherAlpha]

It's 'rare' because very few people will be stupid enough to buy it.

[@Catspirit123]

I’ve said it before but it feels like there’s so much more venom in people’s words in games these days. Back in my halo 3 days people usually were extra nice whenever a girl was in the game. It was a rare encounter and people were welcoming. Trash talk in general felt a lot less personal than it does now.

[@olencone4005]

People used to know there was a line and (usually) tried to push it, but not cross it... today the line seems to be more of a "challenge accepted" thing :(

[@Hunter_6601]

It’s just the streisand effect from these companies and people constantly trying to censor language

[@dragonriderabens9761]

@@olencone4005 I blame clout addiction lines got blurred by people looking for their 15 seconds of fame, and younger people saw that and went "oh, so that is ok then" and the line got moved further and further that way until we wound up here

[@Bodharas]

Definitely a symptom of the times. Never use to hear the things I do now. It used to be some friendly banter, maybe a well timed jest, a clever joke maybe, but always congratulatory at the end. Now, people make it their whole personality to be as toxic as possible.

[@IOverlord]

More players, more sources of trashtalk, more degrees of it. It's just normal. What's annoying are people who just can't press mute and play. They gotta drag the whole drama for clout and content while being the professional victims that they are

[@vinnythewebsurfer]

Pretty funny coincidence of timing that just as Riot started receiving so much bad press, all of a sudden HEY PIGGIES! ARCANE SEASON 2 IS COMING! kinda like how the original release of arcane did a lot to kill and bury all the negative press riot was dealing with when all those sexual harassment stuff was going around.

[@Toonrick12]

Ah, the Blizzard method.

[@dogsbecute]

@@Toonrick12 What did blizzard do to distract from the fact sexual harrassment was built into the culture and someone literally killed themselves over the harrassment? I dont remember, besides them also trying to fuck the QA teams from unionizing around the same time.

[@Surkk2960]

To be honest, it just proves they know they are doing wrong and know how many keys to place in front of the audience so they can hide it.

[@JC4Stuffs]

This probably more convenient timing than anything else. We've known about the impending release of season 2 since the start of the year

[@Dan016]

@@JC4Stuffssure. But a convenient update during this controversy? Once might be a coincidence, twice looks sus and thrice is just taking the piss, so to speak, and most of the community are more than willing to leave their mouths open

[@tombosley3048]

Toxic players are 90% of their player base, and 95% of their sales.

[@ZombieSlayerTakashi]

There's Toxic and then there's acting like a Sex Offender.

[@TheMrDewil]

@@ZombieSlayerTakashi it seems like a key word here is "acting". Someone wanted to get under someone else's skin and succeeded so swimmingly that the target lost its marbles. Isn't extremely thick skin a requirement for being an internet personality? The deep understanding that anything that others say to you don't really matter, unless it's real harm, like doxing, swatting etc. The swamp that is competitive multiplayer games have their own unwritten rules, same goes for going public. If you can't handle that, you should stick to living among the gray mass and enjoy your single player games. I'm not trying to downplay or dismiss the whole thing, it's just if you choose a certain lifestyle, you should be ready to face some difficulties that comes with that choice, because others will not make it easy for you, it's not how it works.

[@grayearly3116]

Bruh mute the person talking to you and move on.

[@Gigawood]

@@TheMrDewil​​⁠​⁠or…and hear me out here…we can stop making excuses for people who want to be asshats and tell *them* to knock it off, instead of continuing to just tell the victims of harassment to “shut up and deal with it?” Telling victims to shut up because you don’t wanna hear about it not only won’t fix the issue, it will also choke out the game (he literally addressed this in the video). Getting rid of the toxic asshats means there won’t be victims interrupting your day with their frustration AND the game won’t slowly die. Win/win. So why not just put in a teeny bit of effort to clean up the trash and make things better instead of lecturing about “the way it is?” Because it’s not just famous players and streamers with a lot of reach who have to deal with this shit. It’s everyday people just trying to have fun. I’ve seen that shit firsthand in Valorant. It’s ridiculous.

[@The_Purple_Sun]

@Gigawood or hear me out. How about this? Mute and report the offender if your offended go for a walk or take a nap you'll be okay I promise.

[@giantlizard9158]

With 500 dollars you could buy at most 5 copies of elden ring and the DLC 💀

[@olencone4005]

Could be worse... Star Citizen is releasing a 175-ship bundle that will cost a mere $48,000 -- but only for players who have already spent $10,000... so the total price is technically $58k. For a game that still isn't even finished after around 13 years of development. 😵

[@grandbean9031]

You mean at least. Since ER gets discounts and there's second hand stores.

[@Waterspells]

And a few steam games on the side

[@steel5897]

League players couldn't care less about Elden Ring, they're not like you and I

[@Nataz06]

@@olencone4005 Holy hell, for real?!?!?! I can't believe people pay that....... that's insane...

[@Golden_Ghoul]

Riot games: "If your broke don't bother."

[@judgedrekk2981]

also Riot "if you're toxic play something else" me "oh I am a very toxic man and I do play other stuff pfft"

[@bleh-v8q]

If you're broke there are literally hundreds of skins you can buy. Just not the Signature Faker Skin. What's the big deal?

[@judgedrekk2981]

@@bleh-v8q F that if yer broke pirate everything eve if yer rich pirate everything....

[@chrisosborne4731]

At $450, I expect Riot to ship me a high quality 1:7 figure to my house. I can't imagine paying this for a purely digital offer.

[@Talon97]

Fine by me lol. Haven't touched ANYTHING Riot games in years along with Ubisoft. I'm perfectly content not playing their games.

[@Xport9]

Yeh. Add EA to the list. Haven't bought any garbage from any of these companies.

[@kesamek8537]

Nothing digital is rare.

[@Xastabus]

It's artificial scarcity. An effectively unlimited supply intentionally limited to exploit FOMO.

[@Roxor128]

Fake scarcity should be illegal.

[@Swagbastian]

@@Roxor128 TRUE THO

[@lemond2007]

When someone tells you they don't want your business, don't give them your business. Very simple.

[@michaelthomas5433]

I think that was the point of what RIOT said.

[@mohammedghanem9228]

If it’s that hard for you to not be a garbage human being and sabotage games because not everyone has all day to play until getting a fun match then good I hope you don’t play the game

[@JustiniZHere]

@@mohammedghanem9228 Thats the funny part, what defines a "garbage human being"? Because everyone's definition is going to be different. Every single time companies try this it always results in massive losses in players and a slow abandonment of the policy, Riot will be no different.

[@TheGerrok]

@@JustiniZHere I feel comfortable that a fairly loose definition of "garbage human being" in this context is someone who is abusive to other players for being unskilled at the game. Getting dunked by players than you is part of the game, and there are matches where your teammates will struggle, so don't be a jerk.

[@mohammedghanem9228]

@@JustiniZHere Threats, Sudden toxicity for no reason etc, I understand what you’re saying but It’s riot responsibility to maintain and keep updating these things

[@stevenphillips3506]

A fool and their money are soon parted.

[@garryarganis5801]

well, to them you're the fool for not buying it.

[@vron-re6oi]

old volibear taunt reference

[@nhagan001]

A person being a fool does not make the conman less of a criminal.

[@Toonrick12]

A morally neutral action.

[@JackieLombardi]

​@@nhagan001 I really wish more people had this line of thinking in regards to this quote. The existence of foolish/gullible people shouldn't be used to justify hitting licks just because it will work

[@IridiumKarra]

I went back to league once a few years ago just to see how its come along... and a player in my team called me a feeder and a troll before the match even started because i dared to pick an off meta character. Throughout the match i was harassed and at one point they even threatened to R word my mother. So i left the game and reported the player.... a day later i got a message from riot warning me that i would face action for intentionally being a detriment to my team and leaving the match. I have no faith at all they will do the right thing.

[@Dajova]

Best you can do in that situation is to pre-mute and pre-report that player before you can actually send the report after the game is over. Dont let other people dictate your enjoyment of a game, especially if they do so publicly, because then they are just hurting themselves and can be banned on the spot.

[@inyobase127]

@@Dajova or, hear me out, do as the OP did, leave the game and not come back. the simple fact that the player was threatened by support for leaving the toxic situation is appaling.

[@BAGG8BAGG]

Maybe this is because I was brought up in the early online spaces with next to 0 moderation, but I'm not sure why people are upset about horrible things random strangers say on the internet... I've been told by random teammates they will r my family... hell one time they threatened to r and kill my dog... I've also been racially abused because I sounded like some big influencer and I'm not even the same skin color as that person, which really made me chuckle. If you are offended, just mute and report and move on, it's just words in a video game right? I feel like trying to silence 'free speech' in voice comms, just makes life harder for the majority, not being able to maybe swear or criticize or trash talk should not be the norm in competitive player games.

[@eran3161]

@@BAGG8BAGG People are just different. What's easy for you to ignore, might ruin the day of the next person. While yes some people should probably grow a thicker skin for their own sake, other people should maybe work on their self control. I don't see why it shouldn't be possible to swear and trash talk while still having some boundaries. But either way, it's well within the rights of Riot to enforce rules in their game. Be it a penalty for leaving even if you got harassed or banning someone for their horrible behavior.

[@TheSebi99p]

And Riot was 100% correct to admonish you

[@TheLexikitty]

Never understood the appeal of MP voice chat with strangers, always seems like there’s people competing to be rude for no reason with zero expectation of consequences. “Talk shit get hit” in my grade schools kept us pretty civil, but now you’re expected to just ignore people which doesn’t do anything to stop it. A ban is more than reasonable.

[@korcommander]

I'm playing a multiplayer team action game. The default expectation is that you have a mic. If words hurt your feelings, you should not play multiplayer games.

[@Person01234]

@@korcommander Nobody cares about you or your expectations. People should grow up and realise that a mean person on the internet is not relevant to their life, but also the attitude of "obviously everyone in multiplayer games is toxic" just just dumb af, I see a direct correlation between frustrating game design and player toxicity tbh. It's useful for me that bad games produce bad players, but if for some reason I am in a game with someone annoying or toxic that I just don't want to listen to (not "hurt feelings", I just have no need to listen to people swearing in some cringe accent and calling everyone else garbage, or their stupid TV in the background) then the voice chat will be getting muted. Also I am never actively participating in voice comms with a bunch of randos in an online game, if that makes you sad then you can suck it.

[@korcommander]

@@Person01234 You, and your ilk, are dragging down the whole rest of the team. You are making the active decision of playing a game about team coordination, and being the MOST toxic person possible, by refusing to communicate effectively. It doesn't matter how "toxic" other players are, the priority is the team. If you don't like it, then me and my teammates will stomp you out of ever playing the game again.

[@Person01234]

@@korcommander cry more

[@DasIllu]

I played my last UT²°°³ LAN tournament 20 years ago. All the sponsors, the prizes to win and everything by that point had shifted so far towards the "insane" end of what is possible that i just quit. I wanted to have fun in my spare time, meet people, have a few too many drinks, load a silly map and play against other dorks. E-Sports kills genuine fun. It was born out of the wish to capitalize on people playing games. Rake in more money, foster unhealthy competitive behavior, more money, more sponsors, more, more, more. People say broadband killed the private LAN parties, while that is true to some extend, i think that shift towards E-Sports, and meta gamification, and the unfulfillable promise that every gamer can become a millionaire if they just aim hard enough, is what dealt the death blow. Something beautiful was lost.

[@Eckythump]

Mike. Sexism and harassment of women online is a serious issue. However, with the story you told, context matters. The Valorant streamer knew this guy was a problem. She had him muted for that reason. She said on stream that she was going to "unmute him for content". What the guy said was disgusting and he deserves a permanent ban for what he said. There is no justification for that. However, her reaction was performative. She shared the incident and framed it without including the context that she was baiting him for content so she could milk the maximum amount of sympathy.

[@erfarkrasnobay]

You know there is another technology like voice and chat bans? Idea of "anything wrong is permaban worthy" is in same basket as "all criminals should recieve death penalty" If there is no difference between toxicity and for example cheating penalty, then why not to cheat while you toxic?

[@freya1548]

I walked away from Riot over their toxic fan base and them doing nothing about it, got called some pretty fucked up shit when I played LoL. They are firmly on my “won’t touch” list.

[@lyledal]

There are people willing to pay for this stuff. People with more money than sense, but.... Anyway, this will keep happening because it makes the company money.

[@JackieLombardi]

I know intellectually that this isn't true, but sometimes it feels like you can either be intelligent and broke, or wealthy and stupid

[@YaddaGrl]

I haven't played much recently but earlier in the year I played a lot, and I actually saw someone with the $200(?) chroma-gacha skin for Echo. It was only one, but still.

[@aiodensghost8645]

Riot saying "Please play something else, we wont miss you" is a blessing AND a curse. If Riot dies, all those toxic players will migrate to other games. We dont need LoL and Valorant toxicants in Destiny 2, we have enough of our own toxicity in PVP ALONE, let alone what we as a community rightfully aim at Bungie.

[@Flutter8utter]

Ban ahri every game :)

[@blkwng]

This is the way 😂

[@dogsbecute]

kinda wild yall didnt see this coming when yall let riot bend you over with vanguard.

[@RobotMasterSplash]

Just quit already, if a cosmetic makes you this upset, you're too immature for the PvP environment.

[@RobotMasterSplash]

​@dogsbecute Microsoft, Google, Apple, and others are doing the same thing, so the scope of your complaint is a little narrow for the current day.

[@dissidius13]

​@@RobotMasterSplashuh Vanguard literally caused computer crashes. I don't see Google Chrome doing the same? You ok? How's that Riot 🐔 tasting?

[@Captain.AmericaV1]

I purchase multiple copies of games most of the time for friends and family, but wouldnt ever spend four hundred on cosmetics purely out of principle.

[@ImmacHn]

I've always been a non toxic player, but this reaction from RIOT would have me stop playing if I hadn't stopped playing their games ages ago.

[@doltBmB]

You've always been a toxic player, toxic positivity is what causes discimination/bans based on thoughtcrime.

[@vetreas366]

"I've always been a non-toxic player but Riot taking action against people who are toxic would make me stop playing" Could you make it make sense, please?

[@Artician]

What a way to completely contradict your own comment

[@ImmacHn]

@@Artician There's not contradiction. You don't need Riot to be parenting you, making a storm in a glass of water, mute the aggressor and move on, sticks and stones will break my bones, words can only hurt you if you let them.

[@KimFromTheCrypt]

@@ImmacHn empathy level: 0

[@CaiRobinson]

The worsts parts is that these skins are coming to other games that is for sure

[@Baldeagle-tw2nv]

Funny they're telling the "toxic" players to leave when im reality those players are the ones who spend ALL the money on the game. They become toxic because of the amount of time and money they've put into the game.

[@reedk2402]

Ya but they know if they ban the toxic player they will make a new account and re buy things. Most toxic players like that are addicted to the game and will simply take the steps to come back while riot gets to take in positive pr

[@HawkHPG]

Riot: "Hey, we got this awesome skin/ui/announcer/visual/etc package for $500!" Cloud Imperium Games: "Hold my beer. We got this shiny jpg that comes with a promise of indefinite time for only $2500."

[@custos3249]

So the corpo version of "if you're a brokeboi, just say so!" Here's to hoping gamers don't drop the ball.

[@Matizicov]

The thing you can almost always expect them to do.

[@Ehh.....]

No group of people are known more for dropping the ball than gamers.

[@warhammerguy]

In the US, Europe and parts of Asia resisted and had a high ban rate for Ahri. Unfortunately Korea and China didn't care and many bought it.

[@lastnamefirstname6621]

Bellular leaving out important context for that harassment story. I thought the point of a lot of these videos is he does a deep dive. He left out the part she literally admitted she kept doing this to players to gaod them into finally getting a reaction like this out of one for content. Not that that excuses his comments, but this was her searching for this commentary to try and monitize victimhood. Which hurts REAL victims. I hope his deep dive videoos behind his paywall are better produced.

[@aninverse]

It's so nice to be outside of the core live service demographic. Cosmetics without in-game unlock criteria are just really expensive flip phone custom ringtones imho.

[@olencone4005]

A $500 skin would be quite the surprising choice in most modern new titles, much less in a game that's almost 20 years old. Tho at the same time, I imagine that might be a part of why they're making this particular choice as well.

[@RobotMasterSplash]

Some people have a lot of money and just genuinely want to support the game they've loved for over a decade. I don't think it's unreasonable at all and I bet a lot of the complainers would do it for their own favorite game if they were rich.

[@olencone4005]

@@RobotMasterSplash "If they were rich" -- that's kinda the whole problem, right there.

[@RobotMasterSplash]

​@olencone4005 That's just reality my friend. Some players can't afford even $5. If you want to fight capitalism, you can't do it by complaining about a video game.

[@olencone4005]

@@RobotMasterSplash Nah, it's not about capitalism with this one -- this is just plain old greed. Capitalism would be selling this skin for 10 or 20 bucks, like we see in a billion other games... but $500? In a game that came out in 2009? That just reeks of blatant cashgrab to me....

[@YaddaGrl]

@@olencone4005 I'm not really excited to defend Riot, but Riot has already made it clear previously with their gacha, what was it... $200(?) CHROMA skins (essentially recolors, but with some minor flair) that they want to make more cosmetics targeted towards whales because the vast majority of their playerbase is largely free to play. Not to mention, I've spent money on league of legends over the years sure, but I've also got a *TON* of free skins just by playing the damn game, especially in recent years. I could go to my recent skins right now and at least half of them (it might be more tbh, but I haven't logged in much this split) I paid only with my time, not my money. Besides FOMO, which I understand yes that's a problem and it's manipulative, these skins are still completely optional.

[@smellthensing2221]

Let's be honest, this is all to create a safe space for whales so they don't get clowned on for having bought $500 skins.

[@mykoladavydenko3578]

so freaking true

[@IOverlord]

And the idiots who'll defend Rito

[@Gronmin]

You forgot to include that in this Riot admitted to recording people's voices and using AI to go through them, despite previously saying that they weren't

[@SlowChemicalXV]

Where, who

[@lucasLSD]

I didn't see that at all, source?

[@themonkeycatcher7326]

On the Valorant streamer, I would've like it to be mentioned that she said, "The only reason I have him unmuted is for content." Now I don't know when it was said in relation to the incident I'd assume it was before the incident, but she was fishing for something. Wherever she as expecting this being said for "content" I haven't seen the stream so I don't know the entirely situation, but I don't condone what he said. I don't think she is entirely innocent in this situation and guy is responsible for the things he says but both are responsible for their actions prior and during the incident.

[@THE16THPHANTOM]

one of the most annoying thing about those riot games is the punishing for leaving a game. i know most pvp games/game modes do that. and its why i never bother with them, but also the toxicity, aholes feeling the need to PM you just to start framing you. and pvp is just not good for your health. most of the time i came out feeling terrible compared to when i went in, even if had won most of my matches. i will play multiplayer where i cooperate with other gamer to achieve a goal like in Hell Divers and MMO raiding, but vs other humans is just not my thing.

[@SeralyneYT]

21:18 - The worst part is, Riot is no strangers to human review. Back in the olden days of Season 2-Season 3 of League of Legends, they had the Tribunal. Which allowed the players to act as a jury.

[@MrWilliGaming]

which didn't work back then and would work even less today. the amount of players is just way to large and separating an inter from an idiot is nigh impossible without reviewing multiple games. I know for a fact that if the tribunal existed today language that isn't acceptable by riot standards would be ruled as A-OK by the tribunal.

[@Artician]

@@MrWilliGaming It's the same reason that Valve disabled the community's access to the CS2 Overwatch system and instead handed it over to "trusted partners".

[@robinporter8481]

I think the words you were looking for is "social contract". You play a game not expecting to be harassed, but, each person can have a different level of tolerance as to what is harassment.

[@dragonriderabens9761]

there are some pretty universal lines though, is the thing and what Taylor experienced 100% crosses those universal lines the real problem is enforcement. how do you actually enforce bans on such people without being even more invasive than the CCP? finding that balance is...almost impossible

[@Shiirow]

@@dragonriderabens9761 logical people know where there is a line that everyone can agree on, its the illogical that keep shifting the goal post in an attempt to police and silence their opposition.

[@RobotMasterSplash]

​@@ShiirowYou got some real "I wanna call people slurs" energy, my boy.

[@digidevil4]

@@dragonriderabens9761 There is no clear universal line, there is a clear universal lowest acceptable bar. (i.e. dont use racial slurs) but beyond that its totally circumstantial and cultural.

[@SigridKroon]

What you’re saying in the last part is literally true. I have been in the exact same position a couple of time in Valorant. One time these guys on my own team were doing stuff like body blocking me, and using area denial from like Deadlock to lock me in a place. I had gotten an accidental leaver penalty the day before and I think this was my 3rd day playing Val so I wasn’t familiar with their policies. So I just refused to play. And I was the one that got in trouble. I’ve also left a game because of voice comms toxicity and gotten a leaver penalty. One thing I will say is that, at least from memory (haven’t played much lately for other reasons) but you can’t see your account status, unlike say r6s where it is very clear when you are disciplined

[@AntonsVoice]

The companies only seem to care about "get money now, now ,NOW", instead of having an actual brain and getting money over time

[@ruinition737]

This has everything to do with the death of the middle class. There is no money in selling to anybody other than the super rich.

[@Lenoix85]

I have largely given up on playing anything with people I do not know very closely due to the highly toxic players across all platforms. Not even cooperative games are free from this, and it largely means I no longer play many of my favorite games because I do not want to experience the toxic environments anymore. Glad to hear Riot taking this seriously, I hope those players are perma-banned and that do not get the chance to appeal it. Here is hoping more studios take this stance as I would love to get back into online gaming, but I am not holding my breath...

[@rssdydstydyydyd]

we need to figure out who the shadowy figures forcing players to buy this skin are!

[@maso96001]

cant u mute spesific people`?

[@spazmagoog]

Yes

[@shinjay5882]

$500? I paid that for my Rivendell Lego Set. It’s been 3 weeks and I’m 40% there. For a skin? No!

[@cablefeed3738]

If I own a game and I get banned. I wanna refund for everything I spent period end of discussion.

[@rosaecrux]

You own nothing. You got a licence to use the game. It was always like this. The explanation in the video was clear enough.

[@cablefeed3738]

@@rosaecrux That's the way it is now. That's not the way it should be. I should own it

[@rosaecrux]

@@cablefeed3738 It was always like this. It is even written on the boxes of any game I got as a child, like StarCraft 1, WarCraft 3 or Castlevania 3. No one cared back then because these games were either for single players or used by a niche player base able to use a modem.

[@szymonrozanski6938]

You need to live in Japan. Japan does that.

[@dieyng]

Also, I'm from German, but my English is very much British so from one CLINT to another, I get your point and agree. In many European countries, swearing is way less seen as a taboo than in the US, European players will feel too restricted if you apply these US rules to them, when it comes to cussing. I admit, if I find a community too toxic, I just don't play the game, but that is me losing interest in a game, where I have to deal with too many idiots, when there are so many others available with a better player base. In general, there definitely have to be clear rules, though I would say, that if you get too strict and ban everyone who says a specific word, even once, that will miss the mark. So a complete ban should definitely only happen to repeat offenders.

[@powerfist1340]

The issue with the Valorant trash talk situation is that, with full context of the streamers clip - she already had him muted due to normal trash talk beforehand, unmuted him and specifically goaded him into going too far. You can literally see her holding back a smile during parts of the trash talk.

[@MyUsualComment]

They still said what they said.

[@LaserLlamas]

@@MyUsualComment Correct, the easiest conclusion to come to are both are a bit scummy. The girl shouldn't have goaded him on, but that guy definitely shouldn't have said what he did. She said flat out she was trying to get a reaction out of the guy, and she got what she wanted and then some.

[@117haseo3]

Very curious how Bellular left that part out.

[@BennyLlama]

​@117haseo3 between this and his dishonesty with the Sweet Baby Inc controversy earlier this year, I'm starting to question if he's worth listening to. He acts like he's a neutral reporter of the news but his bias is there and it does effect his work

[@Lilysongs0]

Dude, idgaf what she said to “goad” the guy, there is no excuse for saying what he said. If I piss someone off and they shoot me they are still guilty of assault with a deadly weapon. It’s the same concept, you are In charge of your own actions.

[@vert2552]

I would have hard time paying 500$ for a collectors edition no matter how cool it is, yet alone for a game YET FCK ALONE for a damn skin Im all for it for banning people from entering with this skin for rewarding such practices

[@gingerbeargames]

10:00 it's not good to ignore the clip just prior to this where she's egging him on 'for content' and doesn't mute him. We have the tools to deal with these situations, people choose not to use them. Should be following ff14's commendations, reward good behavior rather than just punishing negative.

[@Marvin-mq9rk]

Working 30+ hours pf a normal job to buy a video game bundle,i expect a ps5 to be part of it for that price

[@louiemimis598]

You were being too leniant towards that "streamer". She unmutted and was trashtalking to the dude to make his say something crazy and get her views. And now Riot will use this oportunity to LITERALLY record your vc. GJ defending insane behaviour like that. First time you are completely wrong on a situation......

[@spazmagoog]

I would have a lot more sympathy for her if I hadn't seen her unmute the guy and taunt him after saying she recognised him and knew what he was like. It doesn't make what he said any less inappropriate but I just don't have it in me to feel sympathy for someone who makes herself a victim on purpose.

[@Merinzify]

the streamer that asked riot to do something, clearly said that she was letting him speak "for content", shocked or not, she knew she could mute him but decided not to. We all know there are toxic players ( and it's not only against women ) but there is a mute button, report him of course, but don't let that moron speak, especially if he has an audience... That story is gray, at best, that streamer is baiting people too, and that's not helping her narrative. edit : to be clear, i'm completely for the permanent ban of this guy.

[@erfarkrasnobay]

You know there ban is not single possible penalty ? There are also voice/chat bans technology

[@BritBox777]

When I was a kid I bought Pulsefire Ezreal for 20 bucks and everyon thought I was insane (it was a very bad financial decision). But seeing this? Something needs to be done about THIS. Especially if kids are playing it.

[@cyclonegye]

4:33 I wouldn't say it's "good work", more like the bare minimum for any paid skin, especially at that price.

[@ShaiM182]

Didn't Riot say they want to perform Hardware bans? As in, you get banned on Riot, and if you use Epic or Play on PS5, both accounts are banned, and you lose everything you own.

[@Schinak]

Shhhhhh don't spoil the delusion of Bellular that this is something to defend Riot's nonsense on

[@Hoigwai]

This is ultra-greed and I will never endorse something this obscene.

[@armandominotti]

I'm italian and i cannot think about a bad 4 letter word that begins with R. I agree with your cultural examples; a "bad world" in the USA is not so "bad" if you say it in Australia or in England. Also here in italy if you want to turn heads and get people to rally you curse at the gods directly. The "bad words" here are often simply esclamation points...

[@erfarkrasnobay]

4 letter start with R... Riot? They are mostly illegal in Tencent country

[@sunderkeenin]

In the case that there is client-side persistent mutes which can be targeted per-user/per-account(not muting VC entirely) which are maintained perpetually over multiple games I don't particularly care for policing voice, but some things are certainly worth banning for anyway. Client mutes mostly justify take ir or leave it stuff preference like swearing or micspam.

[@qlum]

I wonder if it would be viable to crowdsource moderation, approach some of the more engaged players, offer them in game credits and such for moderation, check if they are making good calls. That way easing the burden a bit. Of course, they would not work full-time, just get a number of cases to look at. And there should be actual employees making sure the system works. But to me that sounds like the kind of thing that could work quite well.

[@Lethoras]

It's very silly in the videogame space. But what they are aiming for is the sport memorabilia space. Signed sneakers... signed ball...

[@Sniperbear13]

i mean with the Sports things, at least they are Physical items.

[@mykoladavydenko3578]

@@Sniperbear13 and you will not lose them if you for some reason will be banned from event

[@ReaperRudra]

Yeah the dude said some wild shit but maybe do a little more digging next time because she had him muted before and unmuted to rile him up. You want to go the "your house your rules" like blizzard did policing (Hell I got banned on OW2 for git gud) then no one would want to even utter a single word in your game.

[@dragonriderabens9761]

would love a source for that

[@Jacob-gq9kk]

if someone can be so easily goaded to say the kind of shit that that guy did, they should still be permanently banned. it's insane that you're making excuses for him. your argument follows the same logic of the "well what was she wearing" excuse made for rapists.

[@Skrallizar]

I'll bet they'll make the next skin in this line cheaper, so people will go "look, it's not AS bad, so I'll buy this one!"

[@0isnan730]

You can't compare with sneakers since there's 0 resale value for your skin and your account

[@ericm5315]

Be very careful about the whole banning thing, a ToS isn't automatically enforceable and certain clauses...or the entire thing may not even be legal in the civil sense. So if you're going to ban someone with paid purchases you better damn well make sure it's the correct move. Automation struggles with this and incurs legal exposure and potential legal costs. Developers suck at some things. One of them is contract law. Consult proper lawyers and do not rely on gut feelings.

[@Asin24]

You should be able to mute an individual player in game. It's really that simple of a way to combat at least verbal harassments. Muting 1 person doesn't suddenly mute the entire lobby. Hell, add an option of a blacklist as well in cases where someone actively is toxic that will have it so Matchmaking will sort you out to be far less likely to be in the same game as that person. There are just so many ways to deal with it without greatly restricting the game and making it into a policing nightmare just by giving users the individual power to ignore specific players. Going beyond that is just asking to cause trouble and likely cause others to try and specifically abuse the system or even take away the fun by making it so sterile due to the threat you might compliment or just joke in just the wrong way that it gets you suspended for something innocuous.

[@dudebruh8534]

You'd think with how hard they're talking about "toxic gamers" that they'd just spend some development time making these anti-harrassment mechanics, but nope. They can instead spend that time selling 100+ dollar skins.

[@Lenoix85]

Did you not listen/watch the video??? The aspect of putting the onus of the non-offending player is the entire problem with this whole statement. The offending player shall be the one punished, not the one being offended who is now forced to change their playing habits/style just to avoid offending players. This why toxic communities are able to thrive, as it is not the toxic players who are punished, but the players who are not toxic are.

[@ragnarokaftershock]

​​@@Lenoix85 shouldn't the offended player have some sort of option to not hear the person for the rest of the match after reporting them? No matter what is done someone's playstyle is going to suffer when one person is crappy in a team game. What would you consider a better solution?

[@Asin24]

@@Lenoix85 That's not fair at all though. I can take your response itself as aggressive to me by how you responded. So according to your logic, you should be silenced for it from everyone? Yes, people are THAT petty. It's why having a strong system to ignore people works. What about ignoring some harasser punishes the person? You are literally stopping ONE person from speaking to you. It's not as if you suddenly silenced the entire lobby for the sake of stopping one person. Why wouldn't that be enough? Not to mention if someone is getting many ignores and is causing that much trouble that in itself could spark a red flag that could potentially have things looked into more if its really THAT bad. It would be like saying "X bothers me, so they get put a court ordered restraining order. Therefore, X should not be permitted anywhere in public whether I am there or not".

[@RobotMasterSplash]

​@@Asin24Feigning ignorance isn't an excuse or defense, kid.

[@JohnSmith-zh2fi]

'Fools and their money are easily parted'

[@SquishyRogue]

Hey, have you seen what's happening with the EA App forced switchover for Mac users because it's been an even bigger mess than when it was forced for Windows. Or any of EAs recent disastrous moves within the Sims community? Both could be really interesting topics to see your take on

[@SamuraiMotoko]

The trash talk is wrong, but when people is saying that kind of stuff in a bar, or an University, you dont have the power to just mute them... Unless you cut their tongue If the other person is in a position of not sharing good information, if he gets muted or not doesn't matter

[@LordReginaldMeowmont]

The "It isn’t **** if I like it" comment would start fistfights here.

[@kacpadestro8086]

Remember they only made a stink because women where affected.

[@Emmelive]

They should just have done merch with high price and quality. Not a single person wish riot to go and sell to two complete markets on their main game. Oil prince dreams

[@CHILLERNICKELLS]

at least smites over priced hundred dollar skins gives you like 3 high quality skins merged into one with vo and effects for all 3

[@BFBeast666]

I recently bought a synthesizer for 500 bucks and it is the "okay, it's instant noodles for the rest of the year" item. How are 500 dollar costumes desirable?

[@monsterbox1308]

I don’t know either, mostly for showoff and flexing 🤷‍♂️

[@jdfreality]

Every single game with a public voice lobby should be rated at 18+ by default. It should be easier for users to mute people from their game session if they are disturbing them. The 18+ rating might seem excessive but developers have no realistic way of regulating everything. People with verbal sensitivities should not play a game with voice functionality. Simple as that. You can all pontificate about the way we think things should be in a perfect world but things are what they are and realistic options to deal with them are very limited.

[@originaldarkwater]

Player toxicity: Yes, you don't want TOO toxic a community that will push new players away, but on the other hand, if new players also feel like they have to watch every word they say lest the be reported to Big Brother, that can also have the effect of pushing new players away. You want to make sure you give players the tools (mute, block etc.) to take care of issues themselves rather than being overly reliant on browbeating your customers. That having been said, the example here goes FAR over the line. They just have to be careful about the way they communicate this. "If you don't like it, leave" is all too often being said when gamers have legitimate complaints about how games are run, these days.

[@mavencore3557]

Look at overwatch, I got silenced for saying "Fucking lag spikes". If you leave a game with a hacker in it and you get penalized immediately while it takes 1-2 months for a hacker to get banned. Then you have other types of cheaters who gets promoted because account boosting and exploiting match making. If anything, blizzard promotes toxicity.

[@Overonator]

I don't understand she alt+tabbed out of Valorant and then she opened up task manager? Why did she open up task manager?

[@SPASKEDODASKEXYZ]

I don't support that guy from the valorant clip, but there is also another clip where she says that she is not muting him for content she could have muted him but she didn't for content and the got buthurt and left the game instead of muting the guy.

[@Shiirow]

they tell people to go away we dont want you, until the game doesnt sell well then you call them bigots and racists for not buying the thing you told them not buy. tale as old as time.

[@SiodogRehane]

Right because they did something over the last decade. Press X to doubt

[@fools_opinions]

My first motorbike cost £500 and lasted me 4 and a half years. Think I'll keep spending my money on stuff like that rather than some pixels.

[@emmacjw]

There's a social contract in the real world and why on earth doesn't it apply in the digital space? Trash talking with friends has a set of internal unofficial rules of acceptability. Common decency is forgotten far too easily and once that line is crossed then the steep slope into targeted verbal violence. I've been targeted many times and frankly the response of the publisher will define if I stay or quit very loudly.

[@BellularNews]

100%

[@MrVicodin]

You forgot to mention the part where the streamer unmuted the guy she already muted previously to encourage him to say worse stuff.

[@shodanargie1574]

Toxicity kinda makes those games. Imagine these crybabies on Xbox Live for 360 in 2007

[@ironman1458]

That's competely subjective, if the only reason you play a game is to be toxic that just sounds like a pretty sad / pathetic life idk lol. Most people just play games cause they are fun, you probably just have several mental issues if you do it for the toxicity. And thats not intended to be an insult towards you or those people I just can't understand the logic

[@shodanargie1574]

@@ironman1458 Oh, i Dont toxic out. I just accept that its part of it given that its a competitive game and people feel cheated when someone doesnt pull their weight. I see it as part of the game and dont mind it. Its just virtual words from a stranger that can be muted with a click. It doesnt have a real impact

[@kpny8484]

I mean maybe, and I mean maybe, I could see paying this if you got a statue of Arhi, with a display case, a plaque. and an autograph.

[@cognozzle]

I uninstalled LoL the moment they demanded that I install their kernel level spyware and I'm not going back.

[@mykoladavydenko3578]

I honestly don't get it, why crying on social media for someone to fix it for you, if you can literally mute anyone you want with one click? You can literally fix it yourself, why you don't want to do it? I playing for more than a decade since dota1, my friends are just casually muting people who are saying smth useless. Take about not being able to communicate is just mad, you are still communicating with other people who want to communicate.

[@Thisstuffagain]

They unmuted for the clip

[@philritter9042]

I’m all for perma bans for something like that as long as it is 100% manually reviewed. Nothing would suck more than banning innocents

[@FeatherP]

As a player my stance on this will never change Making content for the sake of locking it away into the 'forever prison' is self defeating long term but if your objective is to maximize short term profit, by all means, go for it. No new players come into the game because of how bad and newb unfriendly it is and we're just going to see this game slowly burn out from the lowest ranks up

[@LeBoogieman]

IF YOU ARE IN A VIDEO GAME, YOU HAVE A MUTE BUTTON

[@Nathan-qc4gz]

My one comms ban from any video game was on valorant calling someone a c*nt a few times for throwing the game on purpose. I got justifiably muted for a month. You make the bed you sleep in, whether you're a game dev, streamer, or your friends, it's up to you to cultivate a community that is positive and respectful. It really baffles me that people like "I show speed" (how ever tf you spell it) are able to cultivate such a horrible audience filled with hate and bigotry

[@OhNoTheFace]

OW said that too. It's useless talk unless they actually do something about it

[@SearNRivers]

As far as the harassment goes, uncool and unjustified as it is, I do think "just muting comms" is indeed a viable solution-IF the game has the ability to allow players to *selectively* mute those comms. As in, choose a single player profile that's being a pain to you and click ignore, blocking any messages, text, or voice chat that one specific person makes. This is the best solution in my opinion, as it doesn't trample the instigator's ability to play a game they paid for and speak whatever nonsense crap they believe, whilst also not forcing people who don't want to associate with them to have to hear / read anything they have to say. It's a very elegant solution and I know when I was in high school this was a feature in most games at the time. Now days, I've noticed less games let you selectively mute individual people, but really if that was made a more common feature in gaming this would be a non-issue.

[@Seoul_Soldier]

Trash talk has definitely changed. Growing up, the worst thing someone could do was claim to have relations with your mother. Or if you're a woman, tell you to make them a sandwich. It's so, so much worse now.

[@XionEternum]

In regards to the "online game toxicity" discussion: I've personally tried very hard to maintain the ethical standard of, "if you wouldn't say it to someone in person, why would you say it online?" Because unlike in-person, there's no risk of getting your teeth knocked out.

[@SamWulfign]

Decency got thrown out the window years ago. Specific groups spouting freedoms and so on then becoming the most hostile groups starting a vicious cycle effect. Don't want to do a old man moment shouting at clouds here, but back in my day if parents caught their kids talking like that they would get beaten raw. It's amazing how no one thought that this wouldn't cause a problem way later.

[@digidevil4]

2 main thoughts here: 1) Speaking as someone who when I was a child made all sorts of edge remarks and used slurs online. Trash talking culture in games is really unhealthy. When I was younger I was fully convinced that people should be able to make jokes around whatever they wanted. As I've gotten older I've played with various groups on various games and you see in many instances there are 1-2 individuals in those groups who are still using those edgy slurs online liberally, they are generally always white men and often do so in settings where they think they are amongst other white people. In a wider group of friends, it will be tolerated, then next thing you know that person is calling someone in all chat a Jew or a N word. We had a random friend of a friend join our discord a while back, immediately start making race jokes and then get banned for posting n word slur in memes. That friend wont condemn his behaviour and just writes it off as "well hes edgy and hasn't really grown up" but still plays games with him regularly. Ive personally had to have OW voice/text chat switched off because people comparing doomfist to a monkey and spamming n word to be edgy. 2) Riots MO has always been to do the bare minimum when it comes to resolving actual issues in their games. They will implement a cool sounding AI infused system to weed out bad actors and it will work 10% of the time, then nothing else will happen until the next social media outrage. Their matchmaking is atrocious (at least in LOL), their cheat/troll detection ai is atrocious, they actively encourage smurfing. But dont worry just when everyone gets angry enough to kick up a fuss, they've implemented some new fancier code which will solve all our problems! (It wont)

[@tee_es_bee]

1:30 I have no idea who "Faker" is. Nevertheless, $450 is the cost of a new console or a used car. 3:35 "they will never return" ... unless the company is going to need a small boost in which case they will come with a tremendous 90% tag that would still be an obscene $45. 10:30 Yeah, that's brutal. The player should be removed permanently from being able to play the game. 17:00 Wasn't this already being discussed earlier. Have a very strong feeling of déjà vu. 🧡💛🧡

[@ShellBulletNinja]

People need to start waking up, if companies do this, they need to come together as a collective and make a statement and stick to it. Or else you're all going to get walked over and brushed off. Its not hard to walk away.

[@captainblackmane7413]

I've said this multiple times on different videos, and I'll say it again here: Riot has come under pressure in the past for making limited time skins. The Worlds Riven skin was a limited event skin, and Riot eventually re-released it years later due to player demand (read: they saw how much money they could make off it). They had promised it would only be for sale once, and never again. They broke that promise by releasing it again, and as an apology gifted original owners a small pittance by giving them a variant of the skin. Regardless of if you think the re-release was a good idea or not, Riot soon after had a statement concerning limited skins and their thoughts on the matter. They said they probably wouldn't do limited skins again. Yet, here we are.

[@RobotMasterSplash]

I can't trust this story because every League player sees every off hand twitter comment as a "promise" when they have a personal complaint.

[@captainblackmane7413]

​@@RobotMasterSplash "Trust this story" What story? The one being covered by Bellular? Or my statement? Bellular might be covering a biased perspective, but what he's saying is true. My statement's true as well, just look into the history of "Championship Riven", and Riot's official statements when they decided to re-release it. Maybe your comment is simply a statement that a years-old Riot statement can't be upheld as a promise going forward and expecting them to stick to it is ludicrous. Well, yeah. You can't expect Riot to stick to any promises they make. In writing or not. A deliberate hard promise (with the word promise written), or just a vague blanket statement. That's my point. They released a product that was marketed as limited time only. Championship Riven. Many bought it because of the FOMO. Riot backtracked and sold it again later because they were missing out on revenue. The same is going to happen here with this product. I'd be shocked otherwise. It'll be "limited" for a period of time. Years down the road, it'll get a re-release and original owners will get some small consolation prize.

[@HelloKittySGTC]

All terms of services break the human constitution.