Riot Games has announced that from now on, the company will not only ban players who infringe upon the terms of service like smurfing but will also take action against content creators who condone or encourage such actions while streaming even if it’s outside the the games themselves.
From January 3 onwards, anyone who is caught committing an offense according to the terms of service such as using offensive language or slurs towards a fellow player while live streaming a game developed by Riot will get banned. This will be the case even if the offensive language wasn’t used in the game itself, but merely associated with Riot Games in any way.
These new changes are a part of an update to Riot Games’ Off-Platform conduct standards which aim to eliminate toxicity in all of its games. So games like Valorant, League of Legends, 2XKO, and many more. The company gave an example in which if a content creator is playing and streaming a game developed by Riot and uses an offensive term while the game is in the background, they will be banned.
If caught engaging in any of the actions that aren’t allowed in Riot’s terms of service, the user could get their Riot accounts banned or restricted, and their partner privileges will also be revoked (if the user in question is in the Riot Partner Program).
This doesn’t mean that Riot will be watching each stream and each social media video and banning accounts with an iron fist, but the studio now has the option to ban people if it sees fit. This will especially be a problem if content is reported or somehow brought to Riot Games’s attention.
This does seem a little excessive since it takes away from the entertainment factor of streamers, but since Riot has a large role in the esports industry, dealing with things like smurfing does make sense. Now the real matter is how harshly it will be executed.
