Riot Games now listens to in-game conversations

Riot Games recently published an article in which he announced the establishment of a automated system for investigating alerts of players who make inappropriate and abusive comments in the voice chat of Valorant.

This is a problem that all games that have a chatroom encounter on a daily basis. Many players use this means of communication, whether written or verbal, to insult others, make threats, or make sexist, racist or homophobic comments. Valorant is no exception to this rule and the game's publisher decided it was time to toughen the fight against such behaviour disruptive and abusive.

Earlier this year, Riot Games updated its privacy notice and terms of use to allow for record voice communications between players during a game. The aim is to be able to listen to them again and evaluate them afterwards, if a report is made at the end of the game. This idea was already mentioned last year, but was not very well received by the fans.

As a part of our current game systems that combat disruptive behavior, voice evaluation would provide a way to collect clear evidence that could verify any violations of behavioral policies before we can take any action. This would also help us share back to players why a particular action resulted in a penalty.

Riot Games

The system will be deployed first in North America, from 13th July. This first test will allow enough data to be collected for the system to be operational. Once this is done, a beta will be set up, but the date is not yet known.

With this new method, Riot Games hopes to create a healthier and safer play environment for all players. However, this seems to pose a real problem in terms of privacy, and many players are already concerned about how these conversations might be used.

I don't really have an issue with this as long as it's only being looked at if there is multiple reports. I do not want to be constantly monitored if there's no sus activity happening.

Pathological_Liar- - Reddit

Others seem quite pleased that this issue is finally being taken seriously and addressed. However, we will have to wait until the system is deployed to see how it will be perceived by the gaming community.