Talking Trash
Dear Riot Games, Why don't you make a variant of ranked and draft where you're actually allowed to talk trash? Since you consider yourself an esport, I would like to know when the trash talking aspect of sports was no longer a part of sports. Instead of banning people permanently who have so relentlessly given you piles of money, attention, viewership, and hype, why don't you allow passionate players (even if that passion manifests as aggression) to continue playing? Im sure even your gaming/sport psychologist Jeffrey Lin would agree that anger and aggression are an element of sports and games that are of an especially competitive nature. According to the APA, the more competitive a group activity is, the more aggressive the agents participating become; if you're going to ban aggressive reactionary behavior, then shouldn't you take responsibility for your game being too competitive to accommodate all players equally? If the authority were held by the players and not you, would it be valid for players to ban any ideas you wished to implement in order to enhance the games competitiveness? If trash talking is not allowed, should you be allowed to accept money from players who have a previous trash talking offense? Should any monetarily acquired game items be allowed in ranked? I don't see the "fair and balanced" mission statement present in the relationship between your administration and your most aggressive, passionate, and competitive gamers. The RiotGames argument is almost always a statistical one: where the fact that only 5% of players are "overly aggressive" or "toxic" is somehow a basis for banning those players. There are a number of things you could do to accommodate these players without jeopardizing the peaceful 5sigma community under the bell curve one of which I have already stated: make a #nofilter 5v5 game mode instead of ostracizing players that pay into your vision and have, quite frankly, a grand ol' time talking s*** (shit). Another option would simply be to delete the chat box since it is not a vital medium for competitive communication (smart pings will always be faster than typing and standing in the a bush unwary to the fact it is warded, or in the open waiting to get murdered, or in lane while your ads is furiously microing sparing not even a tenth of a second.) Is the chat box even a practical part of the game? Why not add emoticons to the smarting feature (such as a thumbs up or a thumbs down) thus disallowing the graphic and or "inflammatory" nature of "toxic insults." Are you just trying to "bully the bullies?" Why waste your time with perms-ban pissing matches with pissy players? Unless there is some Demacian Standard-Righteous agenda you are trying to promote unbeknownst to the truly competitive league community, shouldn't you do something more than choose to see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil? or have you simply settled for, "welp, can't please everyone so lets cut the meanies since they make people mad." Does my argument not still beg the question? Does your game psychology not still beg the question? Does your business philosophy not still beg the question?
I am curious to actually get an intelligent response rather than be scoffed at by some LOL closet 4channers waiting in the dark - especially since people seem to think ignoring behavior will cause its extinction - those people did not read. (Thorndike and B.F. Skinner are rolling over in their graves).
Sincerely,
shreksyourmom
