In the last few weeks, the conversation of the highly toxic community surrounding the massive MOBA League of Legends has soared to higher levels than usual. We recently discussed the opinions of the popular figure Voyboy, who took to social media to call on Riot to finally take action to help fix the community, accusing the developers of not caring about the community at all.
As time moves on towards that, though, the League of Legends player base has come up with a solution of their own: ban the streamers.
Not all streamers, of course, but the toxic streamers are being targeted by the player base as the next thing that needs to be addressed. In a Reddit post that’s now grown to the top of the League of Legends subreddit, the community seems to be rallying around the tactic of removing the toxic streamers that serve as representatives and role models for a large amount of the player base.
Part of this is fueled by a statement recently made by Riot’s own Rivington, who responded to Voyboy’s message, claiming that Riot hears the criticism and is working towards a fix despite seeming to show they don’t care. Speaking in the latest Riot Report, Rivington expressed admiration for Voyboy and understanding of his message:
“We can assure you here at Riot that’s something that is taken very seriously,” Rivington stated. “Be sure that we are on the case and that, hopefully, it’s something that brings a better quality of life in the future. So, Voyboy, we hear you, man, and thank you so much.”
Rivington’s statement was kind, and it’s nice to know that Riot is at least acknowledging the issue regardless of anything else. However, it comes across as hollow to much of the player base that sees no sort of change and has nothing more than a “we’re on it” to go off of.
The solution that many want to see is for Riot to aggressively suspend, ban, or otherwise punish streamers that livestream their own toxicity, showing their moments of griefing to their audiences as well as their own toxic attitudes. By removing these common mouthpieces from their pedestal, Riot would be able to cut down a few toxic players while also sending the message to the community that this sort of behavior won’t be tolerated.
Will this happen? Almost certainly not, though it’s nice to think that Riot may take such actions. Is it fair for toxic streamers to be targeted specifically for disciplinary punishment just because they’re showcasing their toxic actions to a broader audience, sullying the game’s reputation and sending a message that toxicity is a perfectly acceptable thing to bring to the table? Yes. Yes it is.
