Riot donating LCS tournament fines to LGBTQ charity

Riot Games, the creators of League Of Legends, has pledged the $31,850 it collected in fines during the 2014 The League of Legends Championship Series to The Trevor Project, a charity that provides a national 24-hour, toll free confidential suicide hotline for gay and questioning youth.

"For the first major donation, we wanted to see the money collected from the 2014 make a difference to one cause. When we sat down and thought about what was meaningful to us as a community, one cause resonated with most of us - the fight against harassment and discrimination," League Operations Manager for Riot Games Nick Allen wrote in a post.

"Even though the majority of the fines didn't come as a result of negative in-game behavior, it seemed only right that the fines should mirror our ongoing efforts to create a welcoming environment for all players inside and outside of the game, regardless of where or who they are."

The LCS is an eSports competition and was founded in 2013. Broadcasted games regular attract over 300,000 viewers and sponsors include Coca-Cola and American Express. The rules governing the competition are extensive and cover everything from minimum player compensation to tardiness to player behaviour.

The post also gave an insight into how the League Of Legends community polices itself when it comes to derogatory language.

"Suicide prevention and homophobia is something that the LoL community feels strongly about too. When we looked at in-game reports, we found that games that included the word 'faggot' in their chat log received 165.84 per cent more reports than games that included the word 'fuck'.

"Likewise, you were swift to punish players who encouraged others towards suicide in the heat of the moment - games that included 'kill yourself' in their chat logs received 225.65 per cent more reports than games that included the word 'fuck'."