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No one should have to “grow a thicker skin”: Valorant studio commit to harsh penalties for harassment
(www.rockpapershotgun.com)
this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2024
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You said you don't play many online games with Randoms because there aren't games that moderate their communities. But there are plenty of games that moderate their communities so how is that hindering you from playing? It seems you just prefer to play single player or multi-player with friends. Which is fine but you are speaking about distrastically changing the culture of a community you don't even interact with on the slim chance that they entice you to join.
To your point on sportsman ship. Yeah I would prefer if every good player was not a dickhead but I care about teammate skill before team mate attitude. When you are playing competitive games it wastes everyone's time to play dumb or play wrong. If someone joins a ranked cs lobby and tries to only knife they deserve to get flamed. As long as people aren't breaking the rules regarding hate speech I don't care how mean or rude players are in competitive play. I personally don't flame but I don't mind that others do it raises the stakes and puts pressure on players which is a good thing. When I get flamed and I feel it's annoying I just mute the person and continue.
I've played games that overly moderate the communities speech and it leads to not one talking and it feels like playing single player as everyone may as well be a bot.
Hate speech and threats of violence are what the article is about.
So if you agree that rape threats and certain words (that constitute hate speech) are ok to ban, then you're in agreement with the article and other people saying "People shouldn't need to grow a thicker skin".
Unless you're against hate speech, but in favour of threats of violence, but I don't think you are just because you didn't explicitly say it, haha
I'll try to be more specific about why I disagree cause I think my original comment did a poor job.
The article is basically someone tweeting an extreme situation at riot games acting like they so nothing about that kind of behavior. That's not true I'd bet my left nut that guy would have been banned if the player had just muted him and reported him. They say oh i cant mute because then i need to communicate as if they have any need to communicate with a player making those kind of threats. It doesn't make sense even with 100% perfect moderation you should would still need to mute the player and report.
Riot then is forced to respond by increasing how much they moderate speech. Introducing a bunch of new moderation and saying trust us guys we understand banter and won't go overboard. But that's exactly what will happen with all these extra tools and people start moderating. the bar for what is considered mutable will keep lowering. As long as this mentality of "never mute anyone and ban anyone who upsets you" continues then moderators will cater to their thinnest skinned players. At some point you need to realize you have to mute players who upset you and not engage with them.
In league of legends you get banned for saying anything remotely offensive it's why no one talks in-game anymore. For a real life example ive been muted for saying "ok sex havers". Here's a reddit thread where many people have experienced the same over the top moderation that I describe.
If you want to kill communication in your game this is the right step to take. Reactionary measures are never a good sign. At someone point people need to mute and move and let valorant moderate their game without every toxic moment treated as common.
League is not toxic in communication anymore it's toxic in players mentality and intent to ruin the game but it will never outgrow the toxic rep it earned thus people will treat every instance of toxicity like a common event.
After writing this all out I think I've convinced myself out of my position but I'll leave the rough draft of what i wrote. Maybe you're right that more moderation is a good thing. I can see chat being over moderated from the increased scrutiny. I can't see a world where competitive multi-player games are a safe space for all types of people. Muting will always be necessary to curate your online experience.