Fariha Bhatti 
League of Legends and Valorant players may want to be more careful with what they say on-stream because Riot Games is now banning players for poor conduct even outside the game.
Typically, Riot bans players for cheating, smurfing, toxic behavior, and account sharing, all of which are punishable when detected within the game. While there’s still plenty of trolling in both games, what happens outside of LoL has historically stayed outside of LoL. That’s no longer the case.
New rules will hold LoL and Valorant players and content creators accountable to Riot for their actions outside of the game. That can result in players getting banned without even playing.
Can you get banned in LoL and Valorant for offline actions?
Yes. League of Legends and Valorant content creators will now be under Riot’s microscope even when they are not actively playing the game.
The new rule explicitly cites toxic behavior outside the games as grounds for a possible ban. If a streamer or content creator related to Valorant or League of Legends is found to be in violation of Riot Games’ rules of conduct when offline, they can get a penalty in-game.
That means if a creator uses hateful slurs about an opposing player or teammate on their stream but not in-game over chat or voice comms, Riot can still issue a penalty as if that behavior occurred in-game.
There’s no shortage of streamers who have either been accused of heinous acts or said condemnable things on-stream. Riot Games wants the capacity to force pariahed content creators out of their games.
However, the developer clarified that this ruling does not apply to each and every LoL player who has ever touched the game. Instead, this is focused more on streamers and creators who actively create content around LoL. For example, popular channels that are known for LoL streams or videos.
While this rule is aimed at minimizing toxicity in the gaming ecosystem, Riot will not be “proactively monitoring” all players when they are offline in LoL. Still, there will be systems in place to review reported behavior and address violations. In extreme cases of content creators with a larger following, Riot may even suspend partner privileges of streamers who are part of the company’s partner program in addition to restricting access to the game.
This is most certainly a refreshing approach from a game developer, but only time will tell how impactful it turns out in practice.
Players can get a LoL ban in Valorant, and vice versa
It’s not just streamers that have to worry about getting banned in League of Legends or Valorant for actions outside the game. Players can get banned from League of Legends for their behavior in Valorant, or banned from Valorant for their actions in League of Legends.
According to Riot, this will be used on a limited basis, but players ought to be cautious regarding what they say. Those who have a toxic streak in one game don’t want to lose their time and money investment in the other game by getting in a fight with a teammate.
