By Eric Bryner
In this article by Yvette Tan, a recent act of violence by a professional League of Legends player is discussed.
Chinese LoL player Li Wei Jun, better known by his in-game name “Vasilii” was “fired earlier in October from Chinese team Newbee,” after being caught making physical threats to his girlfriend on a live stream.
Riot Games announced that Vasilii would be suspended for 20 consecutive months, from Jan. to Oct. — effectively banning him until January 2020.
“Although the investigation results don’t show proof that Vasilii physically assaulted his girlfriend, he made credible threats of physical violence and death threats toward a defenseless person in a private home that were intimidating enough for her to call the police,” said the organization in a statement.
The current rules for LoL suspensions state that a player may only be suspended for a maximum of ten months for “extreme misconduct.”
However, in this case Riot made an exception, doubling his sentence.
“Vasilii’s behavior was particularly egregious, beyond the worst kinds of extreme misconduct that we originally had in mind when we devised the Global Penalty Index,” said Riot Games.
Vasilii has a past of aggressive behavior, including: “physical aggression onstage, smashing a keyboard and physically intimidating a camera operator.” Riot took these acts into consideration when determining his sentence.
Riot has recently added new rules, which give harsher punishments for any possible domestic abuse cases in the future.
Now, cases of extreme misconduct will be handled by an indefinite suspension of the player.
However, Vasilii does not fall into this category because there was no evidence. He and his girlfriend both denied any acts of physical assault.
Riot Games Blog 