The company has donated fines levied against teams and players who break its rules of conduct to a helpline for queer youth -- saying its players demand it.
Riot collected $31,850 in fines against misbehaving League of Legends players and teams participating in its 2014 League of Legends Championship Series -- and is donating all of the money to The Trevor Project, the company announced in a new blog post.
It's an interesting choice: Money mostly collected due to toxic behavior is being transferred to a charity that handles crisis intervention and suicide prevention for LGBTQ youth.
Riot's rationale is worth reading -- as it's both interesting and contains unexpected data about League of Legends player behavior:
"Suicide prevention and homophobia is something that the LoL community feels strongly about too. When we looked at in-game reports, we found that games that included the word 'faggot' in their chat log received 165.84% more reports than games that included the word 'fuck'. Likewise, you were swift to punish players who encouraged others towards suicide in the heat of the moment - games that included 'kill yourself' in their chat logs received 225.65% more reports than games that included the word 'fuck'. As a community, you find these words hurtful and unacceptable and so do we. We know that harassment and its consequences goes beyond just words in a game - and that’s why the work of organizations like The Trevor Project is so important. We hope that this money will be able to boost their work creating a safe and inclusive environment for all of us, regardless of sexual orientation."
That fits with the greater narrative of how the company tackles community management; Jeffrey Lin, the company's lead designer of social systems, told Gamasutra about the importance of that approach in March:
"One of our guiding principles ... is we don't want to be the drivers. We don't want to be the arbitrators. We want the community itself to drive their own community."
Riot recently instituted an automated "player reform" system; at the time of its first test, Lin wrote: "Your reports help the instant feedback system understand and punish the kind of verbal harassment the community actively rejects: homophobia, racism, sexism, death threats, and other forms of excessive abuse."
The company has further plans for its support of charities and non-profits, which will be detailed at a later time.
You May Also Like
