At Riot Games, the Executive Producer, Anna Donlon, has now spoken out about the global outrage surrounding Valorant . A Twitch streamer publicly lamented how severely she was harassed in the shooter and demanded harsh consequences for the perpetrators.
This was the outrage: The incident occurred on May 13. We reported on it at MeinMMO:
- The Twitch streamer TaylorMorgan shared a very unpleasant, possibly even criminally relevant encounter in Valorant.
- A teammate asked her if she knew how it felt to be raped. When she replied no, he asked if she wanted to find out. She repeatedly asked if the teammate was threatening her with rape.
- For the streamer, a line had been crossed, she left the match, accepted a penalty for it, and made the issue public. She demanded harsh consequences for these players from Riot Games. It couldn’t just be a slap on the wrist and a 3-day ban.
Tweet highlights toxic behavior towards women, goes viral
What waves did this issue create? The tweet from TaylorMorgan went viral and reached 39 million views.
Gaming sites worldwide reported on the incident.
“The most important thing on our minds right now”
This is what Riot says now: The responsible person at Riot Games, Anna Donlon, says that “Riot needs to do better” at responding to in-game threats. The current punishments for such behavior are “not enough”.
The producer states that the incident has been the most important issue on her mind for days. This applies to other employees at Riot as well.
It is important to take action here. Therefore, she did not want to respond immediately but to wait for an answer until she has “pressed the right buttons” and not just given empty words.
How is this to be understood? It seems that she acted afterwards, permanently banning the corresponding player and also ensured that internal vigilance at Riot Games increased before she spoke out about it now, 2 days after the incident.
Valorant boss hints at permanent ban and stricter measures
What happens now? The boss assures the Twitch streamer that “actions will be taken against the corresponding account.” She also says: She knows that this is not enough. She apologizes to the streamer for her having to experience such things.
Donlon promises: The issue is of great importance and high priority for her.
She says they will not disclose exact details about how they will deal with the account – but it sounds like a permanent ban has occurred.
Bans for all accounts are “definitely an option in the future” for Riot
In addition, Donlon assures that they take the topic of “in-game threats and harassment” extremely seriously and will soon explain in a longer post how they plan to tackle it. The post will be published when she has gathered her thoughts.
A permanent ban for all accounts of such a perpetrator is “definitely an option in the future”, even if there are some technical difficulties to overcome.
Apparently, the fate of the streamer has triggered some movement at Riot Games. We reported extensively on the case of the streamer on May 15: “They should never be allowed to play the game again” – Twitch streamer has a desperate plea to Riot
