Riot developer responds to death threats against his family

After facing numerous death threats, Riot Games developer Mortdog made a stand for his fellow game developers.

“I want to talk about something I tried to ignore the last few weeks in order to focus on shipping. Something that put pushed me harder than it has in a long time. How we treat game devs,” Game Design Director Mortdog stated, beginning his stand against excessive toxicity.

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Members of the gaming community often spew misdirected hate, labeling the game developers as villains responsible for all their pain and suffering they experience within game. And according to Riot employee Mortdog, some gamers went as far as threatening to “kill [his] family in front of [him] and making [him] watch.”

Some may argue that the criticism and harsh words come with the job description. But there’s a big misconception that many members of the gaming community have.

According to Mortdog, “being player facing and open takes a LOT of extra work. Work that you don’t HAVE to do. It’s NOT part of the job. But [he] and many others do it because [they] love the games [they] work on and [they] love the players.”

The developers who receive the most threats and toxic comments are typically individuals volunteering in hopes of bettering the community. They serve as public representatives, actively communicating with the players to increase understanding surrounding game changes.

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Constructive criticism with the goal of improving the game is acceptable — but there’s a big difference between critiquing the game development and straight up threatening to murder the developer’s entire family.

“I get it, I ‘signed up for this’ by being public facing, and I think I generally handle it pretty well. But you can only read someone saying they want to ‘kill your family in front of you and make you watch’ so many times before it affects you. Even if you know its not real,” the Rioter commented.

“Why do people feel the need to be this angry? It sucks. […] I guess I’ll close with this. Treat game devs with kindness. Especially those willing to be honest with you,” they concluded.

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