Riot Games is making a huge change to its terms of service that can punish creators for behavior that violates its codes of conduct when they’re not actively in-game, with updates set to go into effect on January 3, 2025.
In a blog post published Friday (thanks, Eurogamer), the League of Legends developer announced that many of these updates target content off-platform when it’s tied back to Riot games. So if a creator engages in less-than-appropriate conduct in spaces where a player’s or fan’s experience can still be negatively impacted, they can face penalties in-game. Riot clarifies that it’s not going to monitor social media, but it can take action if something comes to its attention.
What can fall under this purview depends on the creator’s jurisdiction, but the change pertain to a creator who might violate a law, harass an employee, engage in abusive, racist, or misogynistic behavior, spam chat, cheat, or engage in countless other behaviors listed in Riot’s code of conduct.
“TL;DR — If you say or do things that break our terms of service while broadcasting or creating content about our games, we can restrict access to your Riot accounts (and suspend your partner privileges if you are part of our Partner Program),” the post says.
Riot has also issued guidance on promotional content that can potentially violate its terms of service. So if a creator is selling accounts or teaching people how to cheat, they can be punished within Riot systems, even if they’re sponsored by a separate entity. There are also new policies involving stream sniping where another player watches the stream of an enemy player, and what Riot can restrict in the case of a penalty.
“For the rare occasion a seriously egregious violation occurs, we’re now including Riot-wide bans in our penalty system,” it wrote.
Riot games like League of Legends and Valorant have been plagued with toxic communities for years, which isn’t uncommon for popular competitive online games like Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. Development teams have made some changes this year to help counteract those behaviors. The Valorant team issued a new esports code of conduct earlier this year, for example. The free-to-play shooter’s studio head Anna Donlon also announced new penalties for offending players and increased moderation support.
“Competitive games need to have room for banter. We believe this, and I do understand the fear that we will sanitize gaming by over-addressing these issues,” she said in a video. “But we do believe that a person should not be in a position to have to grow a thicker skin, or whatever… If you need to make truly evil statements under the guise of regular sh*t talk to enjoy gaming, then please play something else.”
