A fluffy white Poro appears to be in a celebratory pose with both arms extended up near its head while its tongue lolls out of its mouth.

Image via Riot Games

Riot dev pushes back against threats and toxicity from TFT fans

"Treat game devs with kindness. Especially those willing to be honest with you."

Danny Forster

Published: Jun 20, 2023 11:05 am

Riot Games game design director Stephen “Mortdog” Mortimer and his family were targeted with death threats during Teamfight Tactics Set Nine PBE testing, according to the lead dev. Mortdog spoke out about the toxic comments on Twitter on June 20.

Recommended Videos

Hate and threats aimed toward game devs on Twitter unfortunately take place daily. And Mortdog recently experienced an uptick in this kind of toxicity during the PBE testing for TFT Set Nine Runeterra Reforged. A majority of the feedback was positive and constructive, he said, with around five percent pushing the toxic envelope through “death threats,” calls for his job, and threats to his family.

“I get it, I ‘signed up for this’ by being public facing, and I think I generally handle it pretty well,” Mortdog said. “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.”

(1/8) Now that Runeterra Reforged is shipped and patches are mostly put together, 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.
— Riot Mort (@Mortdog) June 20, 2023

Testing for TFT Set Nine on the PBE servers was difficult for most, if not impossible. Queue times ranged from hours to days as the servers were overloaded with players wanting to test out Runeterra Reforged before it officially launched on June 14. But players forget sometimes that PBE testing is more for the game devs than the individual player, although there are benefits to both parties.

The two weeks leading up to the official launch of a TFT set involve massive amounts of bug fixes and balance changes, which all take place through playtesting done by game fans and devs on the PBE servers. The servers were never designed to hold a full load of players from around the world as the live servers do. And even if they were, threatening a game dev’s life, livelihood, and family won’t change the outcome.

“Treat game devs with kindness,” Mortdog said. “Especially those willing to be honest with you. If you don’t like their game or message, go play something else. There’s so many great games! All your anger will do is cause there to be less of them.”

Players can experience TFT Set Nine now on the live servers. The next Runeterra Reforged update is scheduled for June 28 through Patch 13.13.

Dot Esports is supported by our audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn a small affiliate commission. Learn more about our Affiliate Policy

Author

Danny Forster

Danny has been writing for Dot Esports for over five years, first as a freelancer and now as a staff writer. He is the lead beat writer for Magic: The Gathering and Teamfight Tactics. Danny is also a solid Monopoly GO player, having beaten every main event without spending a dime. When Danny isn't writing or gaming, he's chilling by the water in Spacecoast Florida with his family and friends. He's always got a tan, because touching grass is important, and loves playing strategic digital and tabletop games. Past outlets Danny has written for include TheGamer and ScreenRant.