First: This post came to my mind after i saw Phreak stepping down from Social Media. Obviously noone should ever threaten anybody’s life, especially not over a video game and i detest this kind of behaviour.
But: In the end, people act out of emotion. Emotions that Riot and their company are trying to build up while playing the game. Emotions they are trying to effect to make you buy their stuff, to watch their events, earn any kind of money. Some things in this game are bugged for a long time, champs being in the gutter, communication only taking place when riot wants it, not when users look for it (besides reddit comments, but this is no official way that players will be taught. This is a nieche way some people are aware about.)
Also, Riot has had a young playerbase since forever and especially young people can have a hard time with controlling their feelings and aggression. We share the world with the first generation of smartphoners, who at times access the www since they are 4 and behave like this.
Summarized, they are messing with peoples heads, emotions, their lives, sometimes existances for no good reason that is shown or comunicated. You really think it is so far off that your employees will be attacked for this?
So is it too much asked for them to look out for their employees? They could look for ways to protect them, help them by paying for professional help or just address issues and/or properly fix things instead of bandaid-fixing major problems, ignoring unplayable bugs. etc. Is the anger that the people have not a logical consequence about the way you affect young people’s heads to make profit?
TL;DR: If the right people at Riot cared, would we be here?
Thank you for detailed and not offensive response. I am not sure how this post was received so negative, I did not want to defend anybody who harrasses or threatens people (online), also I don’t know how people assume that I would ever offend a dev, i don’t even use social media besides reddit. I just felt really sorry for Phreak as he is someone I grew up with and who, from what I could tell by his appereances around the league community, is a really friendly guy that always tried to push League and was a big blessing to our community for a long time. I am just a witness that had a showerthought, there was not more to it. I will not further respond in this thread, but wanted to thank you for your time and the detailed answer and also answer you because of that.
I think the thought that underlines the entire post, that I failed to mention in the post itself, is that Phreak taking these measures is the proof there is not enough help by Riot. Him reaching out to the community and taking the last straw to eliminate his presence in the web and thereby making it hard to attack him, it is kind of a forfeit and will, if he ever decides to come back, retain a point of attack for future aggressors. Short term it is for the greater good that is his health, but if someone who was in this scene since its creation more than a decade ago is not able to create a way in which can function for the scene without being devastated by people (/kids) not being able to control their anger over the game, should there not be even more of an initiative by Riot?
As another comment pointed out, this is more of a general internet problem. Still, in my perception, the league community was toxicity plagued more than the communities of other games, comparing to CS, R6, PUBG, FN, Apex, etc. I can’t help myself but feel like there should be a way to stop this with the funds companies have. This problem will not be solved overnight, that is certain, I just wish Riot stood by him more somehow so that he would not end up this desperate.
I also don’t think you can put any blame on Phreak, like him being unable to handle stuff etc. I have never gotten a death threat but I can only imagine how bad it must feel and blaming anyone for not being able to handle this situation on his own or let it bounce off is just not reasonable. There’s gotta be more we (or someone) can do, right?
I wish you well.