In League of Legends, one of the most prominent developers has now withdrawn: David “Phreak” Turley no longer wants to be active on social media. He has received death threats and the atmosphere has become extremely hostile. The little positive feedback on social media simply isn’t worth the burden of the death threats. The death threats apparently arose after changes to the “Ping” system in LoL.
Who is the developer?
- David “Phreak” Turley (36) is a former caster who became a developer in 2022. He has been with Riot Games since 2009, so he has been around for a long time. Before his career at Riot Games, he was a Warcraft 3 player.
- Phreak acts as the spokesperson for Riot Games and serves as a link between the development team and the community.
- Time and again, it was Phreak who gave players a behind-the-scenes look and explained why certain changes were made or not. He speaks frankly; for instance, he explained in July 2023 that LoL players apparently are incapable of understanding patch notes.
Some news in LoL can really make you sad:
Developer plans to temporarily withdraw from social media
This is what he says now: In a YouTube video serving as a preview for patch 13.23, Phreak explains:
I will more or less withdraw from social media for the foreseeable future. The amount of toxic behavior has increased so much that it’s not worth sifting through the few useful comments among all the death threats. It is what it is.
Why is he getting so much hassle? According to players on reddit, it apparently has to do with changes to the “Ping” system in LoL that Phreak defended.
The “Smart Ping” menu is a wheel menu with 8 signals that players are supposed to use instead of typing. Through pings, signals like “retreat,” “help me,” or “enemy missing” can be communicated.
The idea is that players mute the normal chat, where there is often flaming, but can still communicate through pings. Riot Games can also revoke the chat rights of flamers, but still allow them to communicate through pings.
Opponents of the system want everyone to read the chat and insist that chat is incredibly important for coordinating in a team game.
At Riot, they believe that the pings are sufficient for exactly the coordination. It is enough just to ping that you now want to do Baron – there is no need to insult a teammate’s mother.
However, as Dotesports points out, the ping system is also used to harass teammates, which can degrade the player experience.
Phreak defended the system on YouTube: It is designed for when players are not together in voice channels. While communication is necessary, typing is often too cumbersome.
He was countered: In a team-based game, you should be able to communicate reasonably. The ping system oversimplifies that. Riot Games should strive to create a safe space for players and not limit their ability to communicate.
This discussion, which sounds quite reasonable as presented, was apparently misunderstood by some, leading to these death threats against the developer.
How is it being discussed? On reddit, a difficult atmosphere can already be seen as people discuss Phreak’s decision to withdraw.
Some say he shouldn’t be so sensitive. Death threats are normal in video games. People receive them all the time.
Others say, however, that there is a difference between receiving death threats while being anonymous and being a “visible person” known to everyone and then receiving such threats.
The LoL community rightly has its bad reputation.
This is what’s behind it: The ping system can be hotly debated, and both sides can be understood. But that’s not what this is about anymore; the factual discussion has been replaced by a discussion about how to treat each other.
Ultimately, players who act so toxically cut their own throats: For one, no one likes to listen to upset, yelling flamers, and on the other hand, no one wants to engage in conversation and stay calm while being yelled at and insulted.
Reasonable arguments are much more helpful than emotions like anger and rage. When it comes to threats, every limit has long been crossed.
The discussion in LoL strongly resembles that in Destiny. There, the community manager who spoke to the players received death threats and even resigned. Since then, Bungie has largely stopped communicating with the players, about which they are now outraged:
