Much like its main competition, MonitoringI would argue that the worst part about Marvel Rivals is its community. While you can certainly run into friendly and fun teammates every now and then, toxicity is rampant in NetEase's hero shooter. Personally, I've seen people throw a match just because one of my teammates picked Jeff the Land Shark, I've seen players try to capitulate after a single bad fight, and I've lost more than a few competitive matches due to them leaving. Problem players do regularly Marvel Rivals less fun than it should be, so I can see why the idea of vengeful players going out to punish them is so appealing. But the reality is that it only makes matters worse.
Marvel Rivals Bounty hunting website intlist has recently gone viral for allowing players to earn real money by destroying games for targeted players. If a frustrated player puts a bounty on a mourner or caster, the foul player's name will be added to the intlist site, and bounty hunters will be tasked with mourning them back or throwing a match if they get them on their team. In the days since this story broke, I have seen Marvel Rivals players who celebrate the idea of bounty hunting probably just read the headlines about bereaved being bereaved and take that as a positive. However, Intlist is anything but good for games like Marvel Rivalsbecause it doesn't take long to recognize the huge flaws with the system.
intlist doesn't just offer rewards for Marvel Rivalsbut a range of competitive games, including Counter-Strike 2, Deadlock, League of Legends, Monitoringand Valorant.
Marvel Rivals bounty hunt only punishes regular players
When you think about what kind of player is willing to throw a match off Marvel Rivalsit should be immediately clear that trolling them back is unlikely to have much impact. These unsavory players tend to play for hours on end, with a loss to them not being as meaningful as it is to those who only play occasionally. They will also likely have alt accounts, which makes any attempt to troll them back seem even more pointless, as they can only switch to one of these if their SR drops too low. If they're willing to leave a game the second they see something they don't like in a team comp, it's hard to imagine them caring when a teammate throws to “punish them.” They should just shrug their shoulders and continue to be their rude selves in another game.
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If the mourners ultimately don't care about being mourned back, then the only players who actually suffer are the four random teammates stuck with the original troll and the intlist's paid troll who wants to fulfill a bounty. What's even more frustrating is that intlist is seemingly well aware of this problem. Per IGN, the intlist social media account has already stated that “collateral damage is an unfortunate cost of war.” But ultimately this logic falls flat due to the sheer amount of collateral damage. Only the person who takes the reward win gets 80% of the listed payout, and even they take a loss. Everyone else on the team – not just the mourners, but the four of them Marvel Rivals players who had no choice in who they were stuck with – suffer.
Intlist's bounty hunt creates a slippery slope, and only Intlist may cross it
intlist's bounty hunts are problematic not only because they create more casters, but because there clearly aren't enough steps in place to prevent good players from being wrongly targeted by bounty hunters. Well known Marvel Rivals Twitch streamer Jay3, who never throws his matches, was listed on the site as a reward, likely by a troll who wanted to mess with the streamer. This is an obvious red flag because there is so much evidence against Jay3 being problematic, and it opens the door for any player to have a bounty placed on them by the actual toxic players. Then there's the fact that players who perform these bounties find themselves grieving and risk being added to the prize list by one of the four teammates who had their match ruined by the drama. This creates an endless loop where only intlist wins, take their 20% cut from each reward as more and more are added and matches get progressively worse.
Intlist's temporary removal is a chance for a moment of clarity
This bounty hunting website has temporarily stopped monetizing Marvel Rivals community conflicts due to security issues that forced it to be taken down, with it supposedly being in the middle of a rebuilding process so that email addresses cannot be leaked online. Before intlist comes back, or another bounty hunting site replaces it, I thought I'd do my part to warn everyone who supports these bounty hunts of the problems they can cause. Maybe I'm just a regular Diamond Vanguard, but I've seen my fair share of casters before this nonsense started, so I dread the thought of that number increasing due to some useless bounty hunting.
…the classic phrase “two wrongs don't make a right” applies when it comes to video game bounty hunting.
Mourning a bereaved person likely does not make them any less toxic; you simply become part of the problem for a few extra dollars. Bounty sites like intlist are hoping for the exact reactions players have gotten to the headlines about the concept, as it's easy to see bereavement being punished as a win if players aren't actually looking at what the punishment means. If they do think about it, they will realize why users on social media sites like Reddit are desperate for NetEase to step in and shut down intlist. After all, there is a reason the reporting system exists. It's not instant, and it's not perfect, and it relies on NetEase to take action against problematic users, but it's infinitely better than adding to the problem.
Even in a perfect world where skilled players just opted for grieving in spawn instead of actively quitting or discarding games, there's a case to be made that intlist would still be problematic. Even if it's better, those kinds of rewards would just backfire Marvel Rivals matches to 5v5s, preventing the game from being played as it was meant to be played. At the end of the day, the classic phrase “two wrongs don't make a right” applies when it comes to video game bounty hunting. As someone who loves the game and wants to Marvel Rivals to thrive for many years to come, I beg you — don't become part of the problem by supporting or taking part Marvel Rivals'absurd prize drives.
- Released
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December 6, 2024
- ESRB
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T for Teens // Violence
- Developer
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NetEase Games
- Publisher
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NetEase Games
