Pro League of Legends player banned for anti-Semitism
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
Riot Games issues bans for three European Team Solo Mebdi players for widespread in-game verbal abuse.
Riot Games has issued a lifetime ban for professional League of Legends player Khaled Abusagr, who plays on European squad Team Solo Mebdi. The developer's recent investigation found a consistent pattern of in-game verbal abuse, racism, anti-Semitism, and threatening behavior.
Abusagr has been in trouble before. His account, StunnedandSlayed, was suspended five times in the past, including a two-week suspension in December. "This account has established a persistent record of in-game harassment, verbal abuse, and unacceptable behavior," Riot Games said.
The developer further explained that Abusagr's gameplay history is replete with an "unprecedented multitude of violations." His previous account, DarkwinJax, established the highest harassment score ever on the EU West server. "No player, before or since, has matched this degree of negative behavior," Riot said.
What's more, Riot found that Abusagr threatened to physically injure other players and even a Riot employee. As DarkwinJax, Abusagr was reported more than 1,000 times during a 375-game period (February-April 2012), the company said.
"As a result of this player's abject history of poor sportsmanship and harmful actions, the player behavior team has issued a lifetime ban on Abusagr," Riot said. "His StunnedandSlayed account has been permabanned and all future accounts will be permabanned on sight."
Abusagr has been thusly banned from all Riot-affiliated League of Legends tournaments effective immediately.
He was not the only Team Solo Mebdi player to face a lifetime League of Legends ban. According to findings presented by Riot, Nicolaj Jensen (account name Veigodx) has established a consistent record of harassment, abuse, and poor behavior. In addition, Riot said that on multiple occasions Jensen "publicly and unapologetically" admitted to committing a series of DDoS attacks. A screenshot of one such occasion is available here.
As a result of Jensen's account history, Riot has decided to slap him with a lifetime ban. His Veigodx account has been permanently banned, and all future accounts will be banned on sight. He is ineligible to participate in any Riot-sanctioned tournament moving forward.
A third Team Solo Mebdi player--Simon Naslund--was also called out in Riot's latest wave of disciplinary action. His account, Rayt3ch, was found to have displayed a regular pattern of in-game verbal abuse, offensive behavior, and negative attitude. According to Riot's findings, Naslund's harassment score was so high that it warranted an automatic permanent ban. More specifically, his score is among the worst 0.01 percent of all European accounts, the developer said.
"Naslund has consistently engaged in behavior which violates the letter and spirit of the Summoner's Code," Riot said. "His tendency to engage in verbal abuse, insults and offensive behavior is unacceptable for any player, especially a high-profile eSports competitor who has a regular opportunity to lead the community by example."
Naslund's penalties were not as steep as his teammates' penalties. He will be ineligible for this weekend's LCS Season Three European Qualifier in Warsaw, Poland, and also for any LCS match for the period of one year. After that, he is free to return.
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He works out of the company's Boston office in Somerville, Mass., and loves extra chunky peanut butter.
284 comments
1 Like
What's sad is that it took 1000 reports over a year for them to do something that should have happened FAR sooner.
1 Like
I'm not sure these here guys understand the concept of PROFESSIONAL. If you're making a damned living playing a game, people expect you not to make it unplayable for others. Hopefully these guys learn something before the get banned from future MOBA games.
It's one thing to be a jerk or even spew out hate, but to be among the worst 0.01 of all EU players means you are a complete d@#k!
It's now up to Anonymous to hack his account and publish his personal details - or are they too in league with these moronic jew-baiters?
This comment has been deleted
@ArabrockermanX Hey here's a newsflash for ya...racial slurs ARE actual racism! I've had racial slurs thrown at me in real life, and I had the jerks arrested for harassment. I don't know what happened to them since but I hope their run-in with the police helped them grow up. I talk trash from time to time, I'm no saint. However if you can't find a way to keep it good-natured and not go to such low depths as racism, sexism, or any -ism you are a sleazeball, pure and simple.
@ArabrockermanX Funny thing...most people don't use racial slurs in real life. People are often civil.
Because chances are, people that uses racial slurs often have black eyes to match.
4 Like
@ArabrockermanX Perhaps those using racial slurs or are apologists to those using such slurs should "grow the **** up".
Just because they play a video game doesn't make them nerds. But I do agree, its time to move on.
1 Like
@xXxxNemesisxxXx @Legend002 they are "pro" - yeah it makes them nerds, when they basically know everything about one thing.
@DaneGamer @xXxxNemesisxxXx @Legend002
lol tru that but I wouldn't call them nerds on this end though. They get paid to know everything there is about LoL. If I was getting paid to play a game professionally, trust me, I would know everything there is to know about that game.
6 Like
Goes to show that racism and prejudice is a worldwide phenomenon. We still have some work to do to eradicate this scourge from human society.
8 Like
@Ensamheten Racism should not be part of the game. Couldn't get more simpler than that.
2 Like
@Jake518 @Ensamheten 99% of gamers are white males so nobody takes offence anyway. No to censorship.
@Mega_Loser @so_hai @Ensamheten @Jake518
Ever heard of apartheid, the holocaust, USA before the 80's (even though racism is still flourishing over there), what kind of a question is that. It's like asking why murder is illegal, when its a "human thing after all", it's wrong and it makes society difficult to live in.
yes well, have you ever asked yourself _why_ racism is not tolerated by leaders and "organisations" though? ever consider that racism is only human after all?
1 Like
@Ensamheten @Jake518 Only 55ish % of players are male of any race and of that 55%, nowhere near most of them are white males. Please continue making crap up, it's fun watching failure flounder.
1 Like
Ensamheten, your original comment is rife with hypocrisy. You say "L2P" (which I assume means "Learn to Play"), yet you believe harassment is part of gaming. I have an idea, why don't we let our gameplay do the talking? The "pros" you speak of in your comment below are the ones that win games while showing his/her fellow competitors respect by not mouthing off to do it.
Also, 99% of gamers are white males? Reference please.
You're not as tough as you think you are.
1 Like
@Ensamheten @Jake518 Hate speech is not tolerated in even the most liberal free speech socities. You've got all your explaining to do as to why you think the civilised world has it wrong.
5 Like
@Ensamheten @Jake518 That's definitely an over exaggeration and even if that was true, that's still not an excuse.
Something about playing a MOBA that makes people so angry, its not like he cant make another account or anything...since they are free....
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9 Like
Remove anti-semitism from the title. You already mentioned racism. Anti-semitism isn't any more special or bad than any other form of racism.
Those Syrians and Jordanians (who are the actual semites) are probably not going to care, while the Jews (the majority of whom are not semites) might just overreact again to something that's not there.
1 Like
@nathangray @dakedoom @jos1ah And this might come as a "shock" to you.. but what's referred to as racism these days has little to do with race and alot to do with cultural background. Get with the times.
Also, anti-semitism is one of the most overly bloated issues ever conceived of.
Will every banned player of this game be reported as news now? No hate over professional gaming, or the game itself, but it's getting old to see that some random person no-one ever heard of got banned from a game instead of actual updates of upcoming games. Heck, why is the hardware section so abandoned? There are some posts about some peripherals you'll never have the money to buy, but what about the benchmarking of the new hardware? That could be really useful for gamers. Yes there are many websites that already do that, but when Gamespot used to be more frequent about it, it was really good as it simplified things a lot instead of having to research those huge articles. Just an idea :/
8 Like
Very nice, if you want to call yourself a "profesional" then act like one.
My question is, with 1000 reports........why the heck was the ban not sooner?
I wish more game companys would do this. The trolling and disrespect is far too rampant.
4 Like
This is great that Riot are doing this...BUT
...isn't this too little too late?
I mean, I think it's now generally well known that the LoL community is by far the worst gaming community out there, in terms of manners, rudeness, racism, swearing, lack of respect etc.
We hear things about League (and others MMOPvPs) becoming an eSport, trying to rival those to real sports. This will never happen until they get their standards in order. If a professional sports players does something unacceptable ONCE, they'll get action taken against them.
And yet, it took at least 1000 reports from players; "Abusagr was reported more than 1,000 times during a 375-game period (February-April 2012)" (this is only a 3 month period, so guessing he had been playing for a year or two, THOUSANDS of reports on these players must have been filed) for Riot to finally decide to permaban them?
This is NOT good enough. On the surface it might seem like a positive and action taking report, but with standards like this, it's no wonder people laugh when they try to compare eSports to real life ones.
@Amdisity I was looking at this yesterday because I was thinking about playing to see what all the hype is about. They are trying to work on their toxic community problem. They've set up a "tribunal" where (I think) random players get chat logs from reported players sessions and vote on whether someone should be banned based on what they said.
1 Like
@ggregd@Amdisity
The tribunal system has been around for a long time (player reports are logged, including chat logs of the battle, then trusted people (I don't know the specifics of who can) look at these reports, and vote on how to take action). It's a good idea, but it obviously isn't effective enough, or they don't have enough power to act properly.
A few months ago they introduced an Honor system, where after the battle people can simply click one of a few honor icons, to denote if they're a friendly, helpful, good teammate, or an honorable opponent. You could accumulate these points and gain banners on your profile, to show what kind of player you are.
For the first month after this came out, you saw a massive difference in players attitudes, it worked...for a month.
But now it's failing again, if you are reported and found guilty of something, there's a chance all your points would get wiped off your account. Once this happened to a player, they now have nothing to lose, and no reason to behave (as the banning system doesn't scare anyone, players brag how they don't care, how Riot won't do anything, how they have multiple accounts so they don't care if this account does get banned, etc); it seems they would no longer care about gaining them again, reverting back to acting like inept children and returned to ruining games.
It was a good idea, but there's no longevity to it. Riot/LoL can keep coming up with these systems to stop people trolling in short bursts, but it's ultimately down to them pulling their finger out, getting some realistic standards, and start banning on a much larger scale.
3 Like
It's about time that people started being held accountable for racism, prejudice and immaturity. Kudos to Riot
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