Valorant head details new hate speech policies, including ‘hardware bans for our worst offenders’

The studio head of Valorant has detailed new disciplinary policies for players who engage in hateful speech online, including hardware bans for the game’s “worst offenders”.

Anna Donlon posted a video message to YouTube and X addressing the current state of player behaviour in the game and the steps being taken to address it.

In the message, Donlon stated that the studio is “not doing enough right now to remove the most disruptive players from Valorant in an efficient manner”, and that over the next 30 days it would be finalising updates to its existing policies.

“This will allow us to issue more severe penalties and faster with a focus on the most severe behaviours,” Donlon said. “Things like hate speech, severe sexual content and threats of violence which have no room in our game.”

Donlon also said the punishments would extend to hardware bans – where players are blocked from even creating new accounts on the platform they were banned from – for the most egregious examples.

The statement follows a viral video posted earlier this week, in which Twitch streamer Taylor Morgan posted a video of a Valorant player making severe sexual threats to her while playing.

In her message on X, Morgan said: “I have never made a more desperate plea that what I am about to say right now. Riot Games, I need you guys to fucking do something.

“I am an incredibly strong person and I have been streaming for a very, very long time. But absolutely nothing prepares you for someone saying this to you.

“The suspensions are not enough. Nothing will ever stop these men from acting this way until hardware bans go into play. They should never be able to play the game again.”

Seemingly referring to Morgan’s video, Donlon said in her statement that “too often it takes someone experiencing the worst behaviors – something egregious, something painful, something threatening – for us to better understand where the gaps in our systems and processes are.”

She added: “And that’s exactly what we’re experiencing and