The developers of competitive FPS game Valorant have reminded players to use the in-game reporting tool when they encounter toxic behaviour, following a prominent YouTube streamer going viral for an abuse-riddled tirade against a female team member.
A clip of streamer IShowSpeed, a variety streamer with more than 7 million subscribers, caught the attention of Full Squad Gaming co-founder Jake Lucky earlier this week. In the clip, IShowSpeed is downed while coming around a corner in Valorant and loses his temper, ultimately exploding at a female member of his team in a torrent of misogynistic slurs. “I now understand what Valorant queues are so unbelievably toxic,” Lucky wrote when he posted the clip to Twitter. “You got one of the most popular streamers on YouTube IShowSpeed saying crap like this and getting nothing but praise and laughs. Crap is whack.”
IShowSpeed has since issued an apology, but has been banned from Valorant and all other Riot games. As Kotaku reports, IShowSpeed says he was “not having a good day” and had been dealing with racist insults himself. However, he said, “No excuse, I’m wrong. I’m not trying to justify it.”
Lucky’s tweet has racked up more than 29,000 retweets and over 171,000 likes. Valorant game producer Sara Dadafshar replied, informing Lucky (and his followers) that Speed had been banned.
“This is a huge yikes and we do NOT want players like this in our community at all,” she wrote. “I went ahead and perma banned this player from Valorant, as well as all other Riot games.”
Dadafshar encouraged players to continue to flag toxic behaviour, and to use Riot’s in-game reporting tools so that community managers can take action.
Before you drop into your next game, a reminder that although broad awareness on here or other channels can get our attention, the only way for us to take action on in-game disruptive behavior is when official reports are submitted. So, if you see something—report it!
— VALORANT (@PlayVALORANT) April 7, 2022
The Valorant team echoed her statement on the game’s official Twitter. “Before you drop into your next game, a reminder that although broad awareness on here and other channels can get our attention, the only way for us to take action on in-game disruptive behaviour is when official reports are submitted. So if you see something – report it!”
Last year, Riot announced that it would start storing players’ voice communications data in Valorant in order to verify reports of toxic behaviour.