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8 months
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VALORANT
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| 0s | Hey everyone, I'm Anna and I'm the studio head for VALORANT, |
|---|---|
| 4s | and I'm here to chat a bit about player behavior in the game. |
| 8s | Since launching VAL, especially with the addition of voice |
| 11s | comms, we've known that fighting in-game |
| 12s | harassment was going to be both something we needed to prioritize, |
| 15s | and also would be one of the most challenging issues that we would face. |
| 20s | We've been working on systems and technologies, and we actually have |
| 23s | been making a lot of progress. |
| 25s | But having large global player communities presents unique challenges. |
| 30s | Evolving challenges. |
| 32s | So we have to be ready and willing to reexamine things and hold ourselves |
| 36s | accountable when things are not meeting our community's expectations. |
| 40s | And that's exactly what we've been doing. |
| 43s | I've spent the last couple of weeks reviewing player logs, |
| 46s | looking at penalty escalation paths, discussing player behavior philosophies, |
| 51s | seeing where they're working and where we absolutely need to do better. |
| 56s | It's not the first time I've had to do this. |
| 58s | It will not be the last. |
| 60s | It's important work, but it's not always easy work. |
| 65s | I'm a human and a parent and a caregiver |
| 68s | and a team lead, and in almost every aspect of my life, |
| 72s | I feel this deep responsibility to protect people. |
| 75s | And this is no different. |
| 77s | The responsibility of protecting our community of VALORANT players is one |
| 81s | I take it very personally, and I can tell you that very often |
| 84s | it can feel like we've, like I've, failed in that responsibility. |
| 90s | Player behavior is a complex problem space. |
| 92s | Our systems cannot catch everything. |
| 94s | They require constant attention and tweaking and improvement. |
| 98s | Sometimes it has to be painfully manual |
| 101s | or dependent on our players reporting things and our processes |
| 105s | staying well tuned, and sometimes tech that has the potential |
| 109s | to be a game changer takes longer than you want to work. |
| 113s | All the things we say at Riot on the topic of player behavior are true. |
| 117s | I want to assure you that Riot always taken this seriously. |
| 120s | That's been true ever since we launched League of Legends. |
| 123s | But at the end of the day, there are still some people in this world |
| 126s | who want to take out their insecurity or their bad day, or their hate |
| 131s | or their whatever on some stranger through their computer screen. |
| 136s | So we work harder. |
| 137s | We take steps forward. |
| 139s | But here's the part I can't shake: |
| 141s | In almost all cases, someone gets hurt |
| 144s | in the process of making these systems better. |
| 147s | Too often it takes someone experiencing the worst behaviors - something egregious, |
| 152s | something painful, something threatening for us |
| 155s | to better understand where the gaps in our systems and processes are. |
| 159s | And that's exactly what we're experiencing and addressing right now. |
| 164s | But I also want to |
| 165s | make sure that I say this out loud. |
| 168s | We have no room for these types |
| 171s | of behavior in our game or in our community. |
| 174s | VALORANT is a team game. |
| 177s | It's better played as a team. |
| 178s | The strats are better. |
| 180s | All of it's better. When you tell someone |
| 184s | to "just mute comms" to avoid harassment, |
| 187s | you are essentially putting the harassed person in a position |
| 191s | to not communicate, to compromise how they want to play the game |
| 195s | to accommodate you. |
| 197s | Muting is a tool for people who choose to use it, |
| 201s | not something that is there to justify bad behaviors. |
| 205s | Competitive games need to have room for banter. |
| 208s | We believe this, and I do understand the fear. |
| 212s | The fear that we will sanitize gaming by over addressing these issues. |
| 216s | We have no interest in doing that. |
| 218s | That's not what we're talking about here. |
| 221s | But we do believe that a person should not be |
| 223s | in a position to have to grow a thicker skin, or whatever. |
| 227s | Other unhelpful suggestions have been thrown out there |
| 230s | just to avoid threats of violence or literal hate speech. |
| 233s | There's no room in our community for the most egregious behaviors, |
| 237s | and we're not going to compromise on that point. |
| 241s | If you need to make truly evil statements under the guise of regular shit talk |
| 246s | to enjoy gaming, then please play something else. |
| 249s | We won't miss you. |
| 252s | VAL Community, |
| 252s | We can't stop them from opening their mouths and saying something awful. |
| 256s | I wish we could, but we can't stop that part. |
| 259s | What we can do is help escort them out of our game spaces. |
| 263s | We do some of this already. |
| 265s | The vast majority of the time when someone says something out of line |
| 268s | and gets reprimanded, they learn as a result of our feedback systems, |
| 272s | they keep playing. |
| 273s | They rarely repeat offend. |
| 275s | The number of players who exhibit these behaviors are not the majority, |
| 278s | I assure you. |
| 279s | In fact, they are a very small fraction of our player base. |
| 283s | However, it has definitely become clear to us that our existing penalties |
| 287s | are not doing enough right now |
| 288s | to remove the most disruptive players from VALORANT in an efficient manner. |
| 293s | So here's what we're going to do: |
| 294s | First, over the |
| 295s | next 30 days we'll be finalizing updates to our existing policies. |
| 300s | This will allow us to issue more severe penalties and faster |
| 304s | with a focus on the most severe behaviors. Things like hate speech, severe |
| 308s | sexual content, and threats of violence which have no room in our game. |
| 311s | And we will continue to adjust those categories when and where it's needed. |
| 315s | Second, we need stronger tools to deal with a broader |
| 318s | spectrum of harmful player behavior. |
| 320s | And so we're introducing new actions. |
| 322s | This will include penalties ranging from temporary bans to permanent bans, |
| 327s | all the way up to and including hardware bans for our worst offenders. |
| 332s | Hardware bans are an extreme form of punishment, |
| 334s | so we will apply them only in the most extreme cases with clear |
| 338s | evidence and manual review, similar to how it works with anti-cheat right now. |
| 342s | Third, because we're making these changes, we anticipate |
| 345s | there's going to be more reports that will require manual review, |
| 348s | so we'll be beefing up the teams that are needed to support that. |
| 351s | Fourth, we've been testing Riot Voice Evaluation systems |
| 354s | in North America in English only for a while now. |
| 357s | It's still in beta, but it's been working really well so far. |
| 361s | Players who have been actioned upon by RVE have not re-offended at a 75% rate. |
| 367s | This reduces the overall number of repeat offenders by a great deal. |
| 371s | We're looking to roll this out to more regions later |
| 373s | this year, adding support for additional languages while also taking |
| 376s | into account local regulations on player safety and privacy. |
| 380s | And lastly, we're going to go back and perform a one time review of the top |
| 384s | suspected offenders from the previous act and issue penalties accordingly. |
| 389s | It's important to us that you can trust us with this, |
| 392s | that when you get feedback from a report that you can trust |
| 394s | that something happened in a timely manner and with the right severity. |
| 399s | I'm hopeful that these updates should be a positive |
| 401s | step in earning that trust, and I don't think we should stop there. |
| 405s | Penalties and punishments. |
| 407s | They do work after the fact, |
| 409s | but we do think there are ways that we can be more proactive. |
| 412s | Investing in systems and designs that create an environment |
| 415s | where things like comms harassment are less likely to happen in the first place. |
| 420s | So more on that to come. |
| 422s | Look, I know this message is intense. |
| 423s | So let me say this: |
| 425s | This is not just about preventing the worst. |
| 427s | The goal is to make it so that the people who want to play |
| 430s | VAL are able to love playing VAL. |
| 433s | It's about promoting the best in each of us. |
| 436s | It's about ensuring that people can share in the joy of the matches |
| 441s | won and the tough losses, and the amazing feeling of community |
| 445s | that gaming can create. |
| 447s | I want to thank you for the time. |
| 448s | We're on this journey together, and despite the challenges, |
| 451s | I know that the future of your building is bright and worth every effort. |
| 456s | Thank you everyone. |