League of Legends Creators Are Exploring New Ways to Reward Positive Behavior

Riot Games, the creators of League of Legends, Valorant, Teamfight Tactics, and more, shared the latest this week on the company's ongoing efforts to curb toxic behavior in its games. That's a topic addressed periodically throughout the year, but this time, Riot also shared some insights into plans to reward those at the opposite end of the spectrum, those who create positive experiences for others instead of negative ones. We already knew previously that the most honorable League players would be getting an exclusive skin at the end of the year, but it looks like Riot has more plans than just that.

Riot described these sorts of positive actions as "ProSocial behavior" which means exactly what the term suggests. Riot further clarified by saying that, when used in gaming, this "means a focus on rewarding players who improve the gaming experience for others, not just punishing the ones who disrupt the experience."

Those who play League and other games from Riot may be of the mindset that those positive interactions are far less common than the negative ones, but it seems Riot hopes to change that by working with other unnamed developers to create a system that rewards positive behavior in games.

"We are in the midst of developing a new framework, in collaboration with other major game developers, on ways to focus our efforts on rewarding positive behavior in addition to mitigating disruptive behavior," Riot said. "This is an expanding topic and one that we feel will make a meaningful positive shift in online gaming communities. We will have more to share on this topic in the future so keep your eyes peeled!"

Riot has had at least some reward system in place for positive behaviors via the Honor 2.0 system introduced in 2018. That currently includes a special recall animation already added to the game. As part of the end-of-season rewards, we'll see the aforementioned exclusive cosmetic released for players who reached Honor Level 5, the highest point of the game's Honor system.

Riot said to stay tuned for more info on its pro-positive rewards, so expect to see additional info shared on those as details become available.