Digital Media Concepts/Riot Games Gender Discrimination Controversy

Riot Games, Inc., especially known as the creators of several popular esports titles such as League of Legends and Valorant, are based in California. The company was founded by Brandon "Ryze" Beck and Marc "Tryndamere" Merrill, who met each other attending University of Southern California through their common business major and passion for video games. Shortly after graduating from USC, Beck and Merrill's idea for creating their own video game company was born from their frustrations from developers - for games they loved - not listening to their fans. The two were able to fund the company with roughly $1.5USD from a combination of family and angel investors. In 2006, Beck and Merrill would form Riot Games in Santa Monica, California. In 2011, Riot would become a subsidiary of the Chinese conglomerate, Tencent Holdings Ltd.. Riot Games is estimated at a net worth of $25 Billion USD in 2021.

Gender discrimination in the workplace
Hints of a toxic workplace environment including gender discrimination and sexual harassments at Riot Games can be traced back to August of 2018. Kotaku published the article, Inside the culture of sexism at Riot Games where 28 former and current employees at Riot Games released personal accounts of a supposed "bro culture". Accounts include clear systematic issues and individual cases of blatant sexism and gender discrimination against women in the workplace. As a result of the Kotaku article, even more former and current Riot employees came out to corroborate many of the accounts.

Hints of a toxic workplace environment including gender discrimination and sexual harassments at Riot Games can be traced back to August of 2018. Kotaku published the article, Inside the culture of sexism at Riot Games where 28 former and current employees at Riot Games released personal accounts of a supposed "bro culture". Accounts include clear systematic issues and individual cases of blatant sexism and gender discrimination against women in the workplace. As a result of the Kotaku article, even more former and current Riot employees came out to corroborate many of the accounts.

The toxic workplace environment and clear cases of gender discrimination against women at Riot Games sparked outlash from the general public, especially fans of their main title League of Legends, within the /r/leagueoflegends subreddit. Sexual harassment within the company ranged from comments in the workplace to e-mail threads about which female coworkers Rioters would like to "penetrate". Accounts claim that the toxic, masculine workplace has existed far before 2018.

Gender discrimination often showed during job interviews at Riot Games according to several accounts from female applicants. Interviewers and their interview questions were labeled as "patronizing", especially towards women. There is a clear culture at Riot Games of "gamer-gate-keeping". At a 2016 global Riot conference, a senior prouder claimed, "Here at Riot Games, we hire gamers ... If you're not a [hard]core gamer, you need to over-index in another area ... I don't give a shit. You're better if you're a gamer" (Inside the culture of sexism at Riot Games). Female applicants have felt their qualifications as being less valued than fitting into the "Riot culture". According to many former and current Rioters, the culture of hiring "core gamers" and celebrating certain standards of being a "gamer" helped facilitate sexism and toxicity.

Women in the workplace at Riot often face typical gender discrimination in a multitude of ways. One anonymous female rioter explains, " “It’s more difficult to be a direct female than a direct man,” she said. “I try really hard to be that on-paper Rioter, live up to those values. . . I observe male Rioters acting that way and being pretty successful, promoted to leadership positions, treated as leaders. I don’t see female Rioters able to be leaders in that kind of way.” She added that roughly two-thirds of her performance feedback is not about her work, but her personality" (Inside the culture of sexism at Riot Games). Gender discrimination runs rampant in nearly every work industry in America, and Riot Games is no exception.

Accounts of sexual harassment
“Asking me what age I lost my virginity at was deemed appropriate conversation during a team dinner, and employees I didn’t know prodded into how my sex life worked in a long-distance relationship" - Anonymous

One woman saw an e-mail thread about what it would be like to “penetrate her,” in which a colleague added that she’d be a good target to sleep with and not call again. - Cecilia D'Anastasio

“The ‘bro culture’ there is so real ... It’s agonizingly real. It’s like working at a giant fraternity” - Anonymous

"Across the board, you’d have side-by-side similar backgrounds but the leadership team would constantly ixnay any female candidate for leadership " - Anonymous

"There are all these generic terms used to find things wrong with women that aren’t specific. When I hear ‘She’s emotional,’ I’d say, ‘Okay, why do you think she was being emotional?’ ‘Well she seemed to get intense and was pushing back on this thing.’ The other candidate did that and you liked that because you thought he had ‘grit.’ Why is that different? Is it because this person is a different gender?" - Anonymous

"I hear people comparing two candidates of different genders, and both the candidates can be of the same caliber, and interview the same way, but be described differently" - Anonymous

“It was not uncommon, it’s indicative of the fact that Riot claims to be a meritocracy and they hold all these values which, in theory, are excellent but in practice are weaponized with the biases of majority of their population which is men” - Anonymous

"Women are shunned because [men] want to be able to make their gross female jokes, they want a group of people they can control" - Anonymous

Company Response
Three weeks after Kotaku's "Inside the culture of sexism at Riot Games", Riot released a statement, "Our First Steps Forward". The statement following the controversy included acknowledgment of the problem, apologies, promises, and vows to change their workplace culture -- they claim, "We will weave this change into our cultural DNA and leave no room for sexism or misogyny. Inclusivity, diversity, respect, and equality are all non-negotiable" (Our First Steps Forward).

Riot began to aggressively weed out employees, such as Raven Keene, who corporate communications lead Joe Hixon claimed had several complaints about his behavior towards fellow Rioters. After his firing, several former and current Rioters corroborated accounts of sexual misconduct from the former senior coordinator of League Operations.

Employee walkout and protest
In May of 2019, roughly half a year after the Kotaku article, over 100 workers at Riot's Los Angeles headquarters walked out in protest against the company's handling of their ongoing sexual misconduct lawsuits. The Rioters were protesting Riot's use of forced arbitration -- companies often include as a hidden clause when selling products to consumers or hiring employees -- in which a company can force a consumer or employee to submit their disputes to a private, binding arbitrator: completely avoiding the gaze of the public. Forced arbitration benefits companies and hurts consumers and workers by allowing companies to avoid any and all accountability. Riot's forced arbitration stripped many of it's former and current employees the right to a jury or judge-led verdict in their respective cases over sexual misconduct. At the time, five Rioters were suing the company over workplace harassment, gender discrimination, sexual misconduct, and violating the California Equal Pay Act.

CEO Nicolo Laurent investigated for sexual misconduct
This year, CEO of Riot Games Nicolo Laurent is being investigated by the company and a company-hired third-party following a lawsuit by former executive assistant Sharon O'Donnell. O'Donnell claimed to have been a subject of sexual harassment from Laurent during her 3 year tenure at Riot Games and has filed a lawsuit against Riot in January of 2021. According to O'Donnell and her attorney, Riot Game's HR department was complicit in allowing Laurent's sexual advances and inappropriate comments towards her; including facilitating her wrongful termination.

In March of 2021, just 2 months after the initial investigation, Riot Games cleared the CEO Nicolo Laurent of any harassment and discrimination allegations. Investigations disproved several of O'Donnell's claims such as Laurent having asked her if she "could handle him when they were alone at his house". The company claims that language of any type in that regard do not appear in years' worth of emails and texts between the defendant and the plaintiff.

Although Laurent was cleared by investigative parties, Riot Game's workplace culture to this day continues to come under heavy fire and scrutiny.

Recent Updates
The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, otherwise known as the DFEH, has recently claimed that Riot Games had mislead its employees about their right to speak up on harassment and discrimination in the workplace. The DFEH is also suing Activision Blizzard, who came under very similar controversy over sexual harassments and discrimination in a "gamer" workplace.