First, let’s define “prisoner’s island” designs for the folks who aren’t familiar. A prisoner’s island approach says that any players who cross the line into unsportsmanlike conduct should be separated from the broader playerbase and only matchmade together. At face value, it’s an emotionally satisfying fix that basically deports assholes to an island and theoretically makes everyone else’s games better as a result — but it runs counter to our value of reform.

Prisoner’s island design doesn’t work for League for two major reasons:

Reason One: We believe in a real shot at reform for unsportsmanlike players

We know that most negativity in game comes from a misstep, not a commitment to ruining games for people. That fact is the core reason why a shot at reform is central to many of our designs. So as long as reform is a core value for us (spoiler: it will always be a core value for us), we can’t stick 10 (even occasionally) unsportsmanlike players into what would be even more unsportsmanlike games and expect them to learn and turn things around.

Instead, we owe these players frank feedback about unsportsmanlike conduct, and a chance at gaining some self-awareness and growing as players and part of the community. This is actually something today’s Instant Feedback system isn’t great at. With info from your reports, we shoot penalized players a reform card explaining why other players think they should be penalized, but not an idea of how to change and grow. That gap is important for us to fill.

We get that this can read as a bit naive. That’s why we keep the banhammer handy for players who just aren’t interested in being relatively sportsmanlike and playing the dang game. Still, because the prisoner’s island system gives up on these players by default, we can’t subscribe to it as a solution for unsportsmanlike conduct.

Reason Two: Prisoner’s island is a truly awful experience for the “prisoners” in more ways than one

If we ship unsportsmanlike players to their own queue, they’d face a swath of issues that basically make League miserable by default. The queue would face higher rates of negativity in game, sure — but the diminished pool of players would also result in terrible queue times and lopsided matchmaking. It’d be emotionally satisfying to say they deserve it, but it’s squarely against our values of putting player experience first.

Beyond that, building and operating a service for a prisoner’s island would suck Rioters and resources from efforts we truly believe in, like improving Instant Feedback, intentional feeding detection, and reworking legacy systems like Honor.