Riot Games is having issues with its program ‘Game Changers’ in the shooter Valorant (PC). They caught a male player who pretended to have a different gender identity in October 2022 to participate in a tournament that was exclusively for women and other marginalized genders. The player drew attention because he was accused of cheating. He denied it but admitted to lying about his gender identity.
What kind of tournament is this?
- Riot Games launched the ‘Game Changers Championship’ format in Valorant in 2022.
- The tournament aims to provide a way for women and individuals of other marginalized genders to enter the e-sport of Valorant.
- In 2022, 8 teams competed in the championship. In the end, G2 Gozen won the tournament and $180,000 in prize money.
8 years ban for gender deception – 5 years ban for accomplice
This is the verdict from Riot Games: On February 9, Riot Games imposed long bans on 4 individuals due to an incident. The individuals are prohibited from participating in events organized by Riot Games for one to eight years. Essentially, this is the end of a potential professional career:
- Player Alex ‘Dsylexic’ Luong is banned for 8 years for participating in a match in October 2022 and violating the ‘gender’ rules.
- Player Jennifer ‘nabiichu’ Choe was banned for 5 years.
Riot Games states that player Dsylexic identifies as ‘he/him’ but offered player ‘nabiichu’ to deceive the officials by pretending to be a ‘non-binary’ player to be able to play against team ‘CLG Red’.
The player agreed to the proposal and helped her team and the tournament officials accept Dsylexic as non-binary.
Riot Games has also banned two players for one year who posted a ‘discriminatory meme’ in a Discord channel. That was racist.
This is what Riot Games says: They say they do not tolerate discriminatory behavior, anything related to race, gender, age, or any other personal attribute. The investigators found nothing during the investigations that would suggest a mitigation of the penalty (via riotgames).
Player caught cheating – denied it but admitted deception
How did the case come to light? The player’s team, EQ Cerise, was disqualified from the tournament in October 2022 because Dsylexic was accused of using cheat software.
Dsylexic denied cheating but admitted that he actually identifies as a man and faked being non-binary to participate in the tournament (via dexerto).
How do the punished respond? The player says she deserves consequences for her actions. While the length of the ban could be debated, she accepts the punishment.
She will now play Valorant “only for fun” and stream.
The player who was banned for 8 years has apparently deleted his Twitter account. However, in a statement from 2022, he apologized to his team and opponents for his behavior. He also asked the Game Changers community for forgiveness, stating he had “ruined the integrity of the scene”.
Here in the video you can see the tweets from 2022:
Why is Riot Games so harsh here? Riot Games has an infamous past regarding “sexism.” For years, conditions like those in a fraternity were reported at the LoL developer, and women were allegedly treated sexist and poorly.
However, there seems to have been a strong change of thinking in recent years. Especially with Valorant, they have emphasized the role of female developers prominently during the development phase and repeatedly stated that they want to create a safe environment, especially for women:
After 86 terrible seconds, Valorant permanently bans a hot YouTube star
