Another day, another step closer to blanket internet authoritarianism, this time as League of Legends developer Riot Games has updated their Terms of Service to allow them the right to issue in-game penalties to players who engage in “harmful” off-platform behavior while using any of the company’s video game services.
As detailed in a November 26th blog post published to the developer’s official website, this change – one of four recently made to said user agreement in service of “evolving with games and the content ecosystem to make the best possible experience for our players and creators” – clarifies that “‘Off-Platform conduct’ and behavior connected to our IP is now subject to our Terms of Service.”
“Our intention with this update is to help protect players from harmful behaviors they can experience across the various places that touch their gaming experience,” explained Riot Games. “This update applies very specifically and only to content where Riot’s games are the background of the content produced. Though we aren’t going to proactively monitor everything that happens across social media, it is now within our rights to issue penalties in-game when that content is brought to our attention.”
“As an example, if a creator uses hateful slurs about an opposing player or teammate on their stream, but not in game over chat or voice comms, we can still issue a penalty as if that behavior occurred in-game,” they explained. “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).“
Notably, though the update only specifically mentions that this new penalty potential applies to “content about our games“, including League of Legends, Legends of Runeterra, Valorant, and the upcoming fighting game 2XKO, it is currently assumed that it is also in effect for any and all content relating to Riot Games’ wider catalog of media, such as the Netflix series Arcane or the various albums released by the in-game bands Pentakill and K/DA.
Alongside this new off-platform penalty rule, Riot Games’ recent ToS update also introduces clauses stating that “Content that promotes breaking our Terms of Service, specifically sponsorships for and content around boosting services and buying/selling accounts, is now subject to penalty,” “Stream sniping is explicitly against our rules and players who do so may be penalized”, and “for the rare occasion a seriously egregious violation occurs, we’re now including Riot-wide bans in our penalty system.”
In acknowledgement of the fact that “some of these updates may require creators to rethink their existing content strategy and content partners,” rather than begin enforcing their new rules immediately, Riot Games is “giving creators until Jan 3rd, 2025 to adjust their content to adhere to these rules.”
“Past that date,” the company concluded their blog post, “we can and may begin enforcing these across the entire creator community.”
