Riot Games joked about players not using voice chat during ranked games in a tweet yesterday. After fans and community members took issue with the tone of the message, the tweet was promptly removed.
There were plenty of reasons why the tweet came across so quickly and disappear so suddenly, including toxicity in Valorant voice chat alongside the $100 million settlement for gender discrimination, League of Legends’ lack of voice communication, and the difficulty of implementing these systems.
Riot Games’ now-deleted tweet inquired about users’ New Year’s resolutions, making fun of players who do not use in-game voice chat during ranked
While the tweet was most likely intended to relate to Valorant, League of Legends players have been requesting optional voice chat for years, but Riot has yet to deliver.
Fans weren’t the only ones to criticize Riot’s statement; Naomi McArthur, a former designer at Riot Games also chimed in. McArthur, who worked on voice chat systems as a member of Riot’s Player Behavior and Systems Analysis department, made it plain that there are a bunch of new reasons why voice chat is a bad concept for MOBAs.
Riot appears to have recognized why the post was a bad idea, but fans are still talking about it. CaptainFlowers, an LCS caster, also joined the bashing, which surpassed the tweet.
With the fans backlashing and even the former dev and LCS caster supporting, no wonder Riot Games thought posting the tweet was the very least appropriate way to mock players and immediately delete it.
