Riot has announced that the company will start recording Valorant‘s voice chat for moderation purposes. The only way that players can opt out of this new policy is to not use Valorant‘s in-game voice chat.
“We know disruptive behavior using our voice chat is a concern for a lot of players, and we’re committed to addressing it more effectively,” the developer said in the post announcing the change. “In order for us to take action against players who use voice comms to harass others, use hate speech, or otherwise disrupt your experience, we need to know what those players are saying.”
Anyone who plays games online knows that toxicity is a major problem, regardless of the game you play. In the past, Riot executive producer Anna Donlon had previously promised to address the issue with long-term solutions. Today, she addressed the issue in a series of tweets.
“There is a major problem in competitive gaming ‘culture’ right now when it comes to voice comms,” she wrote. “If you don’t know that, then you likely haven’t suffered the type of abuse in-game that many people suffer. Or, you just don’t care.
“I read and listen to the behaviors people report. I hear it myself in games. Stop telling me to ‘just mute.’ How about the abusers ‘just mute’ themselves? This is a meaningful step, one of many we’ll all need to take.”
Riot will only be recording Valorant‘s voice chat for now, but the new policy will allow Riot to do the same thing in their other games if they choose to do so. Riot will not actively monitor voice chat, but use the feature to verify reports of abuse. If Riot does review a voice log, that data will be made available to the offending player and then deleted after the report has been closed, which is how the company currently handles text chat. Regulating voice chat is an uncommon policy, but one that seems likely to become more and more common in the years to come.