To fight online toxicity in Valorant, Riot Games will now record in-game voice chats of players. The company claims that this will help it to better evaluate and ban players who use hate speech. Currently, Riot Games plans to beta test this feature in North America before rolling it out across other regions.
Voice Recording Will Only Be Implemented in Valorant
In a post on the Riot Games website, the company stated that its first-person shooter game, Valorant, will be the only title to utilize the voice recording feature.
The post also states that Valorant has "more comprehensive voice comms" than Riot Games' other titles such as League of Legends. Thus, the extra focus.
Riot Games mentioned that finding ways to tackle toxicity in Valorant has been on its radar for a long time. As such the company believes that analyzing voice recordings will greatly improve the efficiency of hate speech detection and banning the culprits.
Additionally, Riot Games requires "clear evidence" before it can take harsh action such as permanently banning players.
Back in February, Riot Games had launched improved AFK detection and text moderation for Valorant. Players also receive report feedback that keeps them updated on the status of their report and the action taken.
With this new audio moderation system, Riot plans to get rid of player abuse in Valorant.
Data Privacy Concerns
The blog post also addresses common privacy concerns users may have with voice recordings.
In regard to this, Riot Games said:
We believe we should collect the absolute minimum data to effectively run our games and continuously improve your experience. When we collect data, we’ll be transparent, we’ll keep it for only as long as is necessary, and we’ll protect it as if it were our own.
In addition to this, the company reassured players that it won't be actively listening to voice chats. It will review voice logs only if disruptive behavior is reported.
Users who don't want their voice recorded will have to turn off voice chat completely.
Furthermore, voice chats from third party clients like Discord will not be recorded.
Is Voice Recording a Good Way to Tackle Toxicity in Valorant?
Valorant has quickly become one of the largest FPS games in the world, but it is plagued with player hate speech and toxicity.
Most games have a report feature, but rarely any action is taken against the perpetrators. Due to this, very few players actually report players because they feel it will make no difference. With voice recording, this all could change. Companies will now have concrete proof that may prevent players from flaming in-game altogether.
While voice recording does have its own set of problems, mostly related to privacy, Riot Games seems to believe it will go a long way in solving the problem of online toxicity.