Riot Games’ hugely successful MOBA game League of Legends has a reputation for a somewhat toxic player base, but the studio is trying to make something positive out of some of the community’s negative behaviors by donating $31,850 in player fines to The Trevor Project, a charity that provides “crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) young people ages 13-24.”

“When we established the LCS ruleset and asked teams and players to agree to abide by it, our goal was to create and protect an esports league that operated on respect, fairness and competitive integrity,” League Operations Manager Nick Allen wrote in a blog post today. “Despite the memes, it was never about collecting hefty fines from teams. We simply wanted to establish a professional ruleset that all teams stuck to, and where we wanted to disincentivize future breaking of the rules.”

The fines had been collected from professional League teams for various infractions, including a $10,000 fine to Counter Logic Gaming for “poaching” a player from another team.

Allen explained that “choosing a worthy destination for the money raised was a difficult task,” and Riot chose The Trevor Project after careful consideration.

“For all of us who gather together as a player community, we know how important pursuing a welcoming and harassment free online environment is,” Allen wrote. “It’s important that we do everything we can to combat bullying wherever we find it.”

He added, “We loved [The Trevor Project’s] approach to creating a safe and inclusive environment for everyone through suicide-prevention phone, IM and text messaging services as well as TrevorSpace, the largest social networking community for LGBTQ youth all over the world. We support their commitment to stamping out bullying and discrimination wherever it comes up, and we admire their transparency as an organization.”

According to Allen, homophobic slurs and statements like “kill yourself” are reported in high numbers in League games, and he says this shows the community’s distaste for that type of behavior.

You can read Riot’s full announcement on its blog, but try not to read too many of the comments. A few of them live up to the abysmal reputation of the League of Legends community.

Image credit: Riot Games (c)