I reported on it last summer the valiant (but still lacking) efforts of major studios to combat toxic voice chat (of which women are often the target) in popular competitive games like Overwatch 2, call of DutyAnd Apex Legends. Namely by Riot Games, the studio behind the competitive 5v5 hero shooter Appreciationis one of the more aggressive teams in the fight against hateful in-game chat, there are countless problems in this game too.
A recent social media post generated dozens of results Appreciation Players (some esports pros, other content creators) are speaking out against the way women are treated in the game, revealing that it is still a problem in competitive multiplayer shooters.
The Appreciation Video that started it all (again).
The conversation began on April 9th when a Appreciation Gamer and content creator named Davis “LightEdits” Bray shared a clip from a recent Twitch stream on X (formerly Twitter). with the caption “My villain will never try to communicate [voice chat] back in the rankings.” In the clip (which appears to be from Appreciation (on streamer Joona’s Twitch page) he reminds a player in a ranked game (Luna “Luna Fox” Ryan) that she has her ultimate, to which Joona says: “She knows.” This quickly leads to arguments, whereby Bray and other men say the proposal is an example of “good communication” and question why the women are “angry.”
“The joys of being a woman,” Joona finally says before trailing her off. “Fucking loser, damn it. Loser freak fucks,” she says as she appears to report them.
“Be sure to follow me on Twitch <3,” Bray wrote in an X/Twitter thread accompanying the video he shared. The responses include comments about Joona's "ego" or "attitude," many of which Davis liked. A purported screenshot of a message in his Twitch chat reads: "Brother, if that was my shorty I'd knock some sense into her, not White Knight."
However, on the morning of April 10th Joona shared her own videowith the caption “This is probably why you deleted your VOD.” and was looking for leftovers at my place, right?” (Bray’s video-on-demand, or VOD, which is the entire Twitch live stream uploaded to a streamer’s site for persistent playback, is still available, however only for subscribers of his channel.)
Joona’s video appears to start before the events of Bray’s video, but in the same match. About eight seconds into the clip, Joona says something about a strategy in the game and Bray immediately reacts to the sound of her voice. “Oh my god, boys, e-girl, e-girl,” he says. He then asks, “Who is this Viper?” more than once, referring to the character Joona played. “Isn’t Joona the one who has something like the ego?” he asks his chat before complaining about their communication. “What the hell kind of communication is that, bro?” he asks, his in-game microphone clearly not transmitting to them.
“What’s wrong with Joona, bro? There’s no way she’s fucking ShahZam’s girlfriend. She has an ego because she’s dating a professional player,” he says, referring to Joona’s public relationship Appreciation Per Shahzeb “ShahZaM” Khan.
Appreciation Communication and conflict
In an email to My city, LunaFox explains how the game went from her perspective. “LightEdits wanted to share (which wasn’t a bad thing at all) that I had my ult, which both me and Joona had [the pair duos a lot together, and are friends both on and off Valorant] were aware of it… When Joona heard that, she responded with “She knows” so the team understands to just not talk while I’m in a fix, which I prefer in my ranked games… he has that as aggression and that was very clear in his answer.”
According to Luna, Bray and the other men in the game repeatedly misrepresented her in voice chat, “despite Joona correcting her several times.” “After the game we thought it was over, and then we were both surprised by the resulting Twitter post that tried to portray Joona as a bad person,” she tells me.
Following Joona and Bray’s posts, dozens of Appreciation Gamers and other esports professionals weighed in on the controversy. Valorant pro Alan “Ethos” Ruan called Bray’s actions the “definition” of “incel behavior.” while e-sports analyst Rod “Slasher” said Breslau jokingly that players who “don’t stop talking while someone is trying to hold on should be waterboarded until the end of the round.” Joona’s partner, ShahZam, replied to Bray’s first videoHe wrote: “You guys were weird the whole game. She just talks like that and people think it’s an attitude because she doesn’t sound like a soft “Uwu” voice. That’s pretty lame dude, your team instigated the whole game. Do it better.”
“Full transparency, I like to create content from snippets of streamers’ reactions. I never intended to make myself a victim. “I apologize to Joona for being caught up in this video, which was completely out of proportion,” Bray wrote on X on April 10. The post has since been deleted. On the same day he shared a YouTube video titled “Lightedits vs. Joon false accusations” This doesn’t include the clips of him talking about Joona’s “ego” or their relationship, nor the comments on LunaFox.
Brays Bray is currently an esports student at the University of Waterloo in Canada. My city I reached out to Bray for comment.
A representative from the University of Waterloo said in a statement My city via email: “The university is committed to fostering a campus community in which all of our students can thrive. We have been made aware of this issue and are addressing it in accordance with appropriate internal policies and processes.”
Women Appreciation Players about in-game harassment
As with most high-level competitive video games, this controversy is another example of how a small but vocal group of gamers often creates an openly hostile space for women. After the conflict, women shared their own stories and clips of in-game harassment they faced while playing the highly competitive Riot game.
Content creator Serenity posted a clip on X in which several men she is playing with harass her – the men discuss rape, call her “a retard” and one tells her to “kill yourself, you little slut.”
28 years old Appreciation Content creator Birbo shared a clip from a match where her male teammates body block her in play and use stuns and blitzes to limit her movement. “At the start of every game I always say ‘Hello team’ or something similar, so I assume that’s how they found out I’m a girl,” she said My city by email. “This video is not the only example of this [harassment I’ve received in Valorant]…This video is the first where I’ve mentioned the names of people who do it, and I don’t want them to be harassed, but I hope it makes other people more hesitant to be toxic towards their teammates. ”
“In general, I believe that most of the community is welcoming to women, at least in my experience,” she wrote. “Normally I get maybe one or two games like that a week. However, the toxic minority definitely gives the rest of the community a bad name.”
Nao, a 24 year old Appreciation Player who has cut her teeth CS:GO Lobbies, sent My city a clip from a Appreciation Game in which a male player repeatedly calls her mom after she politely asks him not to. “I find Appreciation is better [than other games in terms of toxicity]“But just because it’s better doesn’t mean it’s OK,” she wrote in an email.
Tess, a 24-year-old marketer who often runs duos with her friend Morgan, recounted it My city that she regularly experiences harassment in the game, so much so that “we stand in line every day and don’t experience any harassment.” Appreciation is an anomaly.”
“Just last week I made the mistake of queuing alone and had an all-male team making fun of the guys I was outsmarting… They yelled at me the whole game and then started attacking me yelling at me for not speaking. They said I was scared and kept my mouth shut. There is no winning,” she wrote in an email.
Tess’ duo partner Morgan shared similar sentiments in an email My cityShe writes: “It’s crazy what people can say online just by the sound of your voice. I also think it’s easy to bond with one person, especially when you’re alone in the queue.”
All the women I spoke to shared countless stories of harassment they faced Appreciation and other online competitive games. Many of them said Riot Games did a good job policing in-game chat, but almost unanimously said the company could do better. (My city have reached out to Riot Games for comment.) Several women spoke about the importance of prominent content creators and esports athletes speaking out against in-game harassment — and how helpful it is for even the average gamer to try To suppress hate speech in the game bud.
“I strongly believe that we need people to also speak up or speak out when someone is behaving in blatantly sexist or transphobic ways to put someone else down,” Luna said via email. “I firmly believe that if there had been at least one person doing this at every game, the Games would have felt much safer for many women and marginalized genders alike.”
