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Throat-slit gesture at e-sport events: Riot lagging behind the NFL?

Sanshoku·12/7/2014, 6:22:13 AM·2 votes·765 views

Hi,

Someone dropped a link on reddit, so like any person intrigued by the content of posts, I went to look. It looked like just another entrance from some team I don't really know of, but at 7 seconds in the clip, you see a player performing a gesture that has been banned by the NFL since 1999.

For everything we see about racism, homophobia, and sexism being toxic influences on the game, weren't live threats of violence (or behaviors making the promotion thereof) also considered a taboo by Riot Games, such as rape and murder?

I would like to know what reds think of this. More importantly, if this broke rules in place, or if this "wasn't covered by any specific rule yet". To be honest, I do not even know who the person being introduced is (Lyon Gaming, in Latin America?), but it looks like it was from a Riot-sponsored event. I am not out for a witch hunt (sanctioning this instance is of no importance), but stuff like this is the physical embodiment of the toxicity Riot has claimed to battle against in-game and ideally should not occur in the future.

I totally understand that we have many expressions for describing how we want to supplant an opposing player or team. I just thought there shouldn't be any excuse for very specific types of expressions, beheading being one of those.

5 Comments

DrCyanide12/7/2014, 7:11:02 AM4 votes

I don't know much about the rules or the NFL, but I have some ideas on the whole thing.

  • Possibility 1: Riot/Intel (who was running the event) doesn't allow it, thus the abrupt camera cut. Players may not have been formally briefed on the whole thing before hand, or may have chosen to go ahead anyway.

  • Possibility 2: There is no policy on it yet. For this situation, it's useful to keep in mind that LoL eSports is just entering its 5th year. It took the NFL 79 years before it banned the gesture in question.

  • Possibility 3: The NFL created the rules because the players were/are always at risk of physical harm. Gestures of the type seen in the video could be interpreted to mean that one player would leave sportsmanship behind, us unnecessary roughness, etc. Such actions could also cause huge issues if a player did happen to die on the field (unlikely, but lawyers will be lawyers, and mobs will be mobs). We kill millions of champions every day in League, and since we aren't in physical contact with our foes, the gesture isn't as big of a threat, since it could be a reference to the champions, not the players themselves.

Personally, my bet is that it's a combination of all three.

ABlueQuaker12/8/2014, 8:47:30 AM2 votes

I'm thinking it's just that the player in question genuinely did not know it is banned which makes Riot/IEM more at fault, or that the gesture hadn't been oreviously flagged and therefore a policy was never created.

tbh it's the kind of thing that isn't an issue until it actually happens, and then it just gets banned anyway and that's the end of it.

Dieox12/9/2014, 5:29:08 AM2 votes

I don't think the gesture is banned by IEM. I think it was just camera work being done weird. Maybe mechanical difficulty that we don't know about or something.

Case in point. Their Advertisement starting at 1:33:00 on the day 1 replay found here: http://www.twitch.tv/esltv_lol/b/596419709

Specifically the gesture is in the ad almost exactly 1 min in, at 1:33:56

Sanshoku12/9/2014, 4:29:33 PM1 votes

So this isn't a one-time occurrence, and it has been allegedly vetted by Intel.

Consider my mind blown.

Earl Eulrich12/9/2014, 5:20:27 PM1 votes

beheading being one of those.

Well...there´s a huge difference between actual beheading and a gesture. It´s not even specific in this context. And f.y.i. that had been from the IEM last weekend, so ESL is the main-host there.