In a frank discussion about the “current state of player behaviour” in Valorant, Riot Games’ head Anna Donlon has outlined upcoming changes designed “to make our community a better place”.
Though Donlon acknowledges that the development team had no plans to “sanitise gaming” or suppress harmless banter, she said players should not be expected to “grow a thicker skin” when playing video games.
“There’s no room in our community for the most egregious behaviours, and we’re not going to compromise on that point,” she said.
“Since launching [Valorant], especially with the addition of voice comms, we’ve known that fighting in-game harassment was going to be both something we needed to prioritise, and also would be one of the most challenging issues that we would face,” Donlon said.
“We’ve been working on systems and technologies, and we actually have been making a lot of progress. But having large global player communities presents unique challenges – evolving challenges.”
After explaining that she’s spent the last few weeks reviewing player logs, looking at penalty escalation paths and discussing “player behaviour philosophies”, Donlon says Riot “absolutely needs to do better”, not least to better protect the people who play the game – something she thinks the studio has essentially “failed” at so far.