Riot Dev Fired for Ragging Former League of Legends Streamer

League of Legends is big enough now that it's always sort of 'present' in the gaming discussion, even if it's never the central subject. It's one of the most played games in the world, it's got tens of millions of people playing at any given time, and right now one of the biggest event of eSports, the League of Legends World Series, is underway. You'd think such a massive company would draw more attention from fans and press, but no, developer Riot Games tends to stay out of the spotlight. Something it has in common with World of Tanks developer Wargaming, I suppose.

One other thing they have in common is that when they do become the center of attention, it's very rarely for something good: and in this case, Riot Games finds itself in the spotlight because one of their developers, Aaron "Riot Sanjuro" Rutledge, went on a tirade over Discord earlier this week when fans suggested that they unban famous streamer and thorn in the community's side, Tyler1.

For those not in the know (which included me, until recently), Tyler1 was a League of Legends streamer who amassed a huge fan base in spite of (or because of) his toxic behavior and his willingness to basically ruin the experience for the other nine people he was playing with. He was also caught selling accounts (a big no-no), harassment, intentionally feeding... he wasn't the type of person you wanted to play with, ever. Eventually, Riot Games had enough of his shenanigans and gave ol' Tyler1 a permanent ban, blocking all 20 of his accounts and forbidding him from ever making a new one. He's allegedly cleaned up his act and become far more positive, which was why the fan in question was asking the Riot Dev to consider reversing the ban.

He refused. Which, fair enough. The problem was with HOW he refused.

"Free tyler one to make 100k+ a year on being a dick in a game he didn't make. He looks like a damn humunculous... honestly.. it's fine he'll die from a coke overdose or testicular cancer from all the steroids.. then we'll be gucci. u know how much bullshit he's caused me? personally? i've spent many many hours of my work day dealing with his bullshit. if games had terrorists... I mean I get it.. i get the comedy of his streams and his 'brand'. but its at the expense of a LOT of other innocent people and that's not cool."

People in the chat with this developer weren't unsympathetic to his views, but all the same, his extreme reaction prompted them to take screenshots and share it over the LoL Subreddit. Appropriately, the developer has apologized and Riot, who claimed they'd take "appropriate action", seems to have followed suit and let the developer go.

Tyler1, for his sake, took everything in good stride and ironically said he held no ill-will towards the developer.

So let that be a lesson to you, ladies and gentlemen. No matter how much you hate someone for being toxic, fighting toxicity with toxicity simply is not worth it. Stay sporty out there!