CS2 community shocked over Valorant implementing hardware bans for toxicity

Riot Games has dropped a bombshell by announcing their implementation of hardware bans in Valorant to combat toxicity and the fans are not happy. They have stated that this was a necessary action to improve the state of play and have actively called out the people making hateful statements under the guise of trash talk.

Is this Valorant setting a new standard of behavior in competitive games or have they taken it too far? No matter the case, just like the Valorant community, the vast majority of CS2's playerbase is justifiably shocked and outraged.

Riot Bringing hardware ban in Valorant for toxicity lol, What you think of it as CS fan ? byu/Fun_Philosopher_2535 incs2

Riot Games might have planned on implementing hardware bans with good intentions. But there are many unanswered questions this brings along with it, and one of them was raised by Reddit user u/grandpapi_yugi.

Comment byu/Fun_Philosopher_2535 from discussion incs2

Several users claim that trash-talking has been a natural expression of passion in the servers for years.

Reddit user u/SmokeLineup has commented on what the quintessential CS2 player would say in response. Despite the aggressive tone, the point they are trying to make is that being rude to each other during the heat of battle is something you sort of sign up for when queueing up for a game like this.

Comment byu/Fun_Philosopher_2535 from discussion incs2

Riot Games and Vanguard have been criticized for being intrusive in the past, and this outrage is just an extension of that. A passionate Reddit user who goes by u/streetbum states that real toxicity does exist in games, but trash-talking, more often than not, is not a part of that.

Fans protesting Valorant's new change (Image via Reddit/u/streetbum)

It is not just CS2 fans on Reddit that are outraged. Even under Valorant's official post announcing this new change, many have tried to point out the absurdity of hardware bans.

X user, @vanchi_g raises an interesting point by tweeting that there are way more serious toxic offenders in the community that need to be taken care of before hardware banning someone brash.

When does censorship become too much? (Image via X/@vanchi_g)

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Riot Games faces criticism over hardware bans

The community has surely been divided on this issue. While some are commending Riot Games' decision to penalize trash-talking, others are standing firmly against the hardware bans. Announcing something like this will never really go as smoothly as the developers want it to, but it still opens up a discourse on how to deal with the underlying issue.

Toxicity is a very real and ugly part of the gaming community and has plagued servers for decades. Yet it seems that nobody can come up with an appropriate solution to get rid of it completely.