Kotaku: Inside The Culture Of Sexism At Riot Games

ScribeofGeadhain · Aug 8, 2018

Ugg, those quotes. Apparently being a "gamer" still means "poop-socking" it and forgoing any and every responsibility in life aside from WoW raids? I mean, c'mon, I'm hooked on this hobby but we all need to expand our interests at some point. The problem with this industry's giants is that they're so insular that they never do.

It's like Peter Pan's (or the Lost Boys') island.

spineduke · Aug 8, 2018

Really appreciate Kotaku's efforts in documenting such stories. I've noticed they've taken on a much more socially aware role of late.

Haze · Aug 8, 2018

spineduke said:
Really appreciate Kotaku's efforts in documenting such stories. I've noticed they've taken on a much more socially aware role of late.

Yup. That's what happens when you have great journalists doing their jobs well

ElBoxy · Aug 8, 2018

the_wart said:
Great work by Kotaku. But man, this paragraph:

This shit is pure cringe. Can you imagine being an adult professional saying this at your job?

Somebody watched this video and got inspired:

BubblegumNemesis · Aug 8, 2018

TBH Riot is not really famous for being a "nice" company.

thomasmahler · Aug 8, 2018

You'd think all these studios are led by adolescent teens and psychopaths, wtf. If I'd ever hear anyone at Moon Studios disrespecting their co-workers like that, I'd fire their ass immediately. Whoever leads Riot, if they see an email thread where people talk about what it'd be like to penetrate some other person in the studio and they write that off as a joke, they should step down immediately. It's hard to even believe that this stuff is true since it's so WAAAY fucking out there in 'This shit's not OK' land.

Weltall Zero · Aug 8, 2018

Clusterdreams said:
I... honestly don't understand which way cliffy is leaning on this.

Seriously. His twitter is a series of incoherent ramblings, "eat a dick" repeated a few dozen times, nebulous non-apologies he insists are not nebulous non-apologies, and overall embarrassing stuff that makes it look like he's drunk.

I mean, the fuck is this shit?

BubblegumNemesis · Aug 8, 2018

thomasmahler said:
You'd think all these studios are led by adolescent teens and psychopaths, wtf. If I'd ever hear anyone at Moon Studios disrespecting their co-workers like that, I'd fire their ass immediately. Whoever leads Riot, if they see an email thread where people talk about what it'd be like to penetrate some other person in the studio and they write that off as a joke, they should step down immediately. It's hard to even believe that this stuff is true since it's so WAAAY fucking out there in 'This shit's not OK' land.

TBH a lof of these companies are led by developers/game designers that suddenly became CEO/COO/CXX and now have no clue how to behave. They think are the king of their little hill. I have seen it many times.

Hero · Aug 8, 2018

Weltall Zero said:
Seriously. His twitter is a series of incoherent ramblings, "eat a dick" repeated a few dozen times, nebulous non-apologies he insists are not nebulous non-apologies, and overall embarrassing stuff that makes it look like he's drunk.

I mean, the fuck is this shit?

Saying he may have been wrong and saying he is wrong are two different things. Fuck CliffyB.

nopressure · Aug 8, 2018

As someone who enjoys League of Legends and has played it for years, this article was really disappointing. I read about 80% before stopping because it's so infuriating and draining. Riot is progressive in a lot of ways from from a superficial perspective - I guess it shouldn't be surprising a company that continues making hypersexualised female champions (and skins) while failing to reciprocate to the male designs has a deeper uglier cultural problem - they acknowledged this problem years ago, but haven't really done anything about it.

I find it so hard to relate to when I look at my own career. I currently working in a department with only 2 men - even the smaller incidents wouldn't fly here and there's no active attempts to be female friendly or non-sexist; it's just obvious.

Bold One · Aug 8, 2018

Kristen's twitter thread ... Yikes

Haze · Aug 8, 2018

Weltall Zero said:
Seriously. His twitter is a series of incoherent ramblings, "eat a dick" repeated a few dozen times, nebulous non-apologies he insists are not nebulous non-apologies, and overall embarrassing stuff that makes it look like he's drunk.

I mean, the fuck is this shit?

Right? Looks like he's high as fuck.

xenocide · Aug 8, 2018

Cecilia has been absolutely crushing it with features like this. As for the content of the article, I'm in no way surprised. I've always had a distaste for Riot Games for using the DotA community to beta test their game and then sabotaging it when they launched. Riot has systemic issues, and while I imagine it's a great place to work as a white male, something tells me it's kinda miserable for anyone else.

DavidDesu · Aug 8, 2018

Christ. I think the only developer I've seen that I'd be happy to work for, which has a really diverse group of lovely people, seems to be Media Molecule. So many others I fear would be filled with trash like this.

Joeku · Aug 8, 2018

thomasmahler said:
You'd think all these studios are led by adolescent teens and psychopaths, wtf. If I'd ever hear anyone at Moon Studios disrespecting their co-workers like that, I'd fire their ass immediately. Whoever leads Riot, if they see an email thread where people talk about what it'd be like to penetrate some other person in the studio and they write that off as a joke, they should step down immediately. It's hard to even believe that this stuff is true since it's so WAAAY fucking out there in 'This shit's not OK' land.

You mean you DON'T walk into all-male design meetings and immediately fart directly on someone's face?

What a shitshow this is.

Lil Peanut Brotha · Aug 8, 2018

I wasn't sure if I wanted to chime in or not, but here I go. I'm not vERA-fied, but I have worked at Riot for a few years now.

Yesterday was hard for a lot of us, and reading through that article definitely was sobering. No, I wasn't surprised that there was cases of sexism in a male-gamer-culture-dominated workplace, but I was surprised about the severity of it. I had heard of a few more minor cases at most (which is still bad, make no mistake), but knowing everyone I've worked with over the years, I couldn't imagine some of that shit that was mentioned happening. And that email chain, or the employee who had to get males to parrot her ideas to get traction... all of it made me and many coworkers just feel sick. Things like making women candidates "prove they are gam3r enough" made my facepalm through the back of my head.

This is my opinion and I can't speak for the company, but from what I see most of the thousands of people here are truly trying to make things better, and this shit isn't getting swept under the rug. It's not as if we've just ignored this issue, but this article brought a whole lot to light that many of us haven't seen. There's clearly much more work to be done.

Nome · Aug 8, 2018

Wanted to share a FB post from an ex-Rioter coworker of mine. We worked together for about 2 years on the environment team. Previous to joining Riot, she was an artist at Blizzard on Diablo 3. I got permission to share this.

Several people messaged me about the Riot article on Kotaku and I found myself typing the same thing over and over, so here is my personal experience. I try to stick to facts as much as possible and understand that my personal perspective is limited.

I had a good run at Riot. Loved my team and people I worked with. Loved the passion and honesty even though they did create some rather painful clashes. Shouted down some people smarter than me and to this day regret it. Understood that people of a certain personality thrived there and let the already brash part of my personality take over. Didn't understand that some very good people on my team went out of their way to stop people from talking over me too much in meetings, until later.

I also saw people getting run-over and crushed. I tried and failed to help a couple of women who were breaking down due to their crazy alpha team culture, and still think about what I could have done better. I wondered where my career path would go and looked upwards, and saw one lone woman in a leadership position who smiled patiently as men in her team meetings talked over her or ignored her points, only to patiently bring the point back up over and over again until it was discussed. I admired that woman, and after a while realized I could never be her. I refocused on my lifelong dreams of just making games I liked instead of caring about what position I got into.

I have never been overtly harassed in the industry by people I work with. I hear horror stories some times and do not doubt them, and feel grateful about being spared them. I am very careful in not giving people the wrong impressions and put real efforts into being equally friendly to everyone on any team I join, even though I don't know how much of that helped in my happy drama-free situation.

The biggest shock was that I found myself explaining to bright-eyed but scared new people that while the article is pretty on-point, a lot of the things mentioned are very common in the industry and shouldn't be a major determining factor in whether to work at Riot. Ironically, this sort of acceptance was something I worked towards over the years instead of dwelling on negative thoughts, because I also want to be a positive friend and a good teammate to people around me. I do want to say that the industry is definitely heading in the right direction, so right that an article like this can be written and discussed. I hope the industry as a whole will emerge better from this.

------------------

Lil Peanut Brotha said:
I wasn't sure if I wanted to chime in or not, but here I go. I'm not vERA-fied, but I have worked at Riot for a few years now.

Yesterday was hard for a lot of us, and reading through that article definitely was sobering. No, I wasn't surprised that there was cases of sexism in a male-gamer-culture-dominated workplace, but I was surprised about the severity of it. I had heard of a few more minor cases at most (which is still bad, make no mistake), but knowing everyone I've worked with over the years, I couldn't imagine some of that shit that was mentioned happening. And that email chain, or the employee who had to get males to parrot her ideas to get traction... all of it made me and many coworkers just feel sick. Things like making women candidates "prove they are gam3r enough" made my facepalm through the back of my head.

This is my opinion and I can't speak for the company, but from what I see most of the thousands of people here are truly trying to make things better, and this shit isn't getting swept under the rug. It's not as if we've just ignored this issue, but this article brought a whole lot to light that many of us haven't seen. There's clearly much more work to be done.

Gonna point out that several of Kristen Fuller's Riot friends have blocked her on FB after this article was released. There's some denial and anger for sure.
My experience there as a dude was pretty similar to yours--it's a big company and you're not always privy to everyone's problems. But when people start opening up to you, it pours.

Stryder · Aug 8, 2018

As an introverted man I can actually relate to a lot here, except for the actual sexism. I do get the frustration of seeing people getting ahead based on their personality and social bond with someone in a senior position instead of based on their merits.

I feel like a lot of issues that were brought up are things the whole industry needs to work on.

I think there are a lot of dude-bros over at Riot who are way to comfortable with the leadership around them and worried it'll be ruined by "SJWs" as they talk about who they want to fuck in the office and fart in each others faces.

Sexism, favoritism and the inability to realize your biases is what led to all these events to happen at Riot without anyone saying anything... until now.

and in cases where they did speak out it's sad to see that nothing happened and there were excuses thrown at the person who came forward.

ElBoxy · Aug 8, 2018

It's good that the majority of LoL players are not ignoring this.

Cels · Aug 8, 2018

In her interview at Riot in 2015, one woman was asked to recall her favorite trinket from a 2004 World of Warcraft raid.

that's a gimme question though. who would not say talisman of ephemeral power? the other two trinkets were garbage. essence of the pure nexus? please

The interviewer then asked if they played "real games like Call of Duty," they recalled.

lul

this gamer culture thing, while no doubt important to the company, is also being used a pretext to avoid hiring women. kind of like ivy league schools saying asian american high school students are all the same gpa/sat robots to avoid admitting more than they "should"

80% male, 20% female

"Default to trust"—in other words, assume that your colleagues always have good intentions. To this woman, that mantra was used as a shield whenever she tried to address sexist habits in the workplace. "If I didn't trust that they meant well when they did the same thing for the 80th time, it was on me," she said, "which is a level of gaslighting I've never dealt with." (In an e-mail, a Riot spokesperson emphasized that the company has a "zero tolerance policy" toward harassment, discrimination and retaliation.)

LUL

spman2099 · Aug 8, 2018

Well, that was a very frustrating read. I'm sure Riot will come out of this untouched. Wow, I feel pretty fucking bummed out now. Such a pathetic industry...

Don't get me wrong, I know that there are tons of excellent people who work in it, but the culture is pure garbage.

Ugh.

Haze · Aug 8, 2018

Nome said:
Wanted to share a FB post from an ex-Rioter coworker of mine. We worked together for about 2 years on the environment team. Previous to joining Riot, she was an artist at Blizzard on Diablo 3. I got permission to share this.

------------------

Gonna point out that several of Kristen Fuller's Riot friends have blocked her on FB after this article was released. There's some denial and anger for sure.
My experience there as a dude was pretty similar to yours--it's a big company and you're not always privy to everyone's problems. But when people start opening up to you, it pours.

I've discussed this with so many people who think this is all some elaborate smear campaign and they don't believe any of these claims because there's no proof. It's disgusting. I guess every woman who works for a game or IT company should wear a wire all the way from the interview process and throughout their entire tenure at any company. Then we can have infallible, physical proof. As if the multitude of claims and pouring confirmations from current and former employees are all 100% fabricated.

Take5GiantSteps · Aug 8, 2018

I had a phone interview with Riot in a non-developer capacity in 2012/2013.

I knew I didn't want the job about three minutes into the call.

JCizzle · Aug 8, 2018

All these WoW references and Ghostcrawler left blizzard for that company. Hopefully he's not one of the lunatics. Ugh.

spman2099 · Aug 8, 2018

https://twitter.com/MiniWhiteRabbit/status/1026918229296308225

I just read through this story and I am literally trembling with anger. Truly awful stuff.

xenocide · Aug 8, 2018

Take5GiantSteps said:
I had a phone interview with Riot in a non-developer capacity in 2012/2013.

I knew I didn't want the job about three minutes into the call.

Did they ask how "leet" you felt you were? Or how many achievement points you had in WoW? Maybe the tried and true "what's your KDA?"

FeistyBoots · Aug 8, 2018

RyougaSaotome said:
Not a good look, Cliffy. Stfu.

I have a friend who used to work for Riot. Was my lead at Blizzard before that. When I told him about this article, he literally said it's a frat house.

Pancoar · Aug 8, 2018

RyougaSaotome said:
Not a good look, Cliffy. Stfu.

Washed up loser makes stupid remarks to get attention - Some onion headline probably

flare · Aug 9, 2018

I'm not sure this was posted, but another employee wrote about her experience working at Riot's Dublin office. I quickly glanced through the last couple pages but didn't see anything. Apologies if it was posted.

http://meagan-marie.tumblr.com/post/176788011970/six-months-at-riot-games

Couple quotes, but the whole thing is worth reading.

At Riot, employees are encouraged to play League before/after work, or during lunch. My very first week at the Dublin office, I heard shouting from individuals playing together, calling each other "f******" repeatedly. I was unnerved, but it was my first week and I didn't know if this was a common occurrence. I didn't say anything at that time. Eventually, the language would escalate to "n*****". No one flinched, and I realized it was considered the norm. Nearly the same thing happened my first day of meetings at the Riot LA office, where two men were loudly calling each other "c**********" right outside the office of the CEOs.

I felt out of place in my direct team as well. Our Jira sprints were named things like "thong." I was the only woman on that particular team, and so a senior staff member named us the "Bros and Ho". I immediately tried to shut that down, but it was used for weeks regardless.

Just disgusting behaviour.

Deleted member 20892 · Aug 9, 2018

flare said:
I'm not sure this was posted, but another employee wrote about her experience working at Riot's Dublin office. I quickly glanced through the last couple pages but didn't see anything. Apologies if it was posted.

http://meagan-marie.tumblr.com/post/176788011970/six-months-at-riot-games

Couple quotes, but the whole thing is worth reading.

Just disgusting behaviour.

read that earlier today. truly abhorrent and terrifying

Rape became a punchline to jokes quite frequently, including one instance where an employee went on for several hours about how he was going to rape his male colleague, who was his hotel roommate. He was graphic in exactly how he was going to rape his roommate, who was a new hire, and it was obvious that the individual in question was extremely uncomfortable.

Then came the final straw. At a work dinner, it came up that I thought I'd been paired in a hotel room with a male Rioter. It turned out to be a typo in the name, and, as was standard, I was paired with another woman. A senior staff member proceeded to repeatedly call me sexist for not being willing to room with a man I'd never met before. At first, I thought he was kidding, but he continued to make arguments to his point. I explained why I would be more comfortable sharing a room with another woman, and told him I wasn't enjoying the conversation and would leave if I was continued to be called sexist. The conversation continued, with him eventually saying that my unwillingness to room with a man was the same as not hiring a woman due to her gender. I left the table in the middle of dinner, unwilling to take any more after six months of such behavior. I submitted my resignation shortly after.

Alex840 · Aug 9, 2018

Leads at Riot greeting new employees like:

Curufinwe · Aug 9, 2018

Megan Marie used to work at Game Informer, and wrote a great book about the history of Tomb Raider. The way she was treated at Riot was terrible.

https://www.amazon.com/Years-Tomb-Raider-Meagan-Marie/dp/0744016908

Morrigan · Aug 9, 2018

Weltall Zero said:
Seriously. His twitter is a series of incoherent ramblings, "eat a dick" repeated a few dozen times, nebulous non-apologies he insists are not nebulous non-apologies, and overall embarrassing stuff that makes it look like he's drunk.

I mean, the fuck is this shit?

What a complete buffoon.

Take5GiantSteps said:
I had a phone interview with Riot in a non-developer capacity in 2012/2013.

I knew I didn't want the job about three minutes into the call.

Do you wish to elaborate? I'm curious.

Curufinwe said:
Megan Marie used to work at Game Informer, and wrote a great book about the history of Tomb Raider. The way she was treated at Riot was terrible.

https://www.amazon.com/Years-Tomb-Raider-Meagan-Marie/dp/0744016908

This has its own thread now: https://www.resetera.com/threads/si...cism-homophobia-transphobia-rape-jokes.61002/

Take5GiantSteps · Aug 9, 2018

Morrigan said:
Do you wish to elaborate? I'm curious

Certainly, though the story is probably more innocuous than my original post.

I live in the Midwest and a friend of mine in the industry (Sucker Punch, formerly SSM and Insomniac) connected me with an individual at Riot who was kind enough to look at my resume and help set up a phone interview with a hiring manager for an entry-level marketing position.

The phone call came 10-15 minutes late, and they seemed to be more interested in hearing me gush over the company and LoL in general instead of discussing the position itself or my qualifications. I don't recall any foul language, and certainly nothing like what has emerged in the last few days, but the general "vibe" was just...off. I'm not surprised to hear about the frat house mentality.

Note that this is the only studio that I ever applied to. I ended up going back to school and currently work in the legal field, so I can only compare the phone interview to otherwise very different companies.

Slam Tilt · Aug 9, 2018

Nome said:
while the article is pretty on-point, a lot of the things mentioned are very common in the industry and shouldn't be a major determining factor in whether to work at Riot.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

...that's not very reassuring. At all.

(I don't work directly in gaming, though I did work with a guy a while back who left our industry to join Riot. Can't imagine him putting up with the types of behavior reported, though.)

Morrigan · Aug 9, 2018

Take5GiantSteps said:
Certainly, though the story is probably more innocuous than my original post.

I live in the Midwest and a friend of mine in the industry (Sucker Punch, formerly SSM and Insomniac) connected me with an individual at Riot who was kind enough to look at my resume and help set up a phone interview with a hiring manager for an entry-level marketing position.

The phone call came 10-15 minutes late, and they seemed to be more interested in hearing me gush over the company and LoL in general instead of discussing the position itself or my qualifications. I don't recall any foul language, and certainly nothing like what has emerged in the last few days, but the general "vibe" was just...off. I'm not surprised to hear about the frat house mentality.

Note that this is the only studio that I ever applied to. I ended up going back to school and currently work in the legal field, so I can only compare the phone interview to otherwise very different companies.

Ah, thanks. That does raise a lot of red flags. I don't work in gaming (though I am a dev) but this sounds ridiculous to me.

Painguy · Aug 9, 2018

Claims to strive for professionalism.....proceeds to fart in employees faces...

It sounds like by trying to hire "hard core gamers" they weren't able to filter out the man children that are inherently part of such a group.

Wiseblood · Aug 10, 2018

Fucking yikes

Deleted member 15326 · Aug 10, 2018

Wiseblood said:
Fucking yikes

Oh shit

Laiza · Aug 10, 2018

Wiseblood said:
Fucking yikes

Wow, the fucking gall.

I am impressed at how stupid they really are to pull shit like this. As though something like that won't serve to deepen their graves.

FormatCompatible · Aug 10, 2018

Wiseblood said:
Fucking yikes

Good lord this fucking company.

Chopchop · Aug 10, 2018

Akumatica said:
Wtf is he on about?

What the hell is he doing?

Is he seriously accusing all the Riot employees of making shit up for profit?

Megasoum · Aug 10, 2018

Chopchop said:
What the hell is he doing?

Is he seriously accusing all the Riot employees of making shit up for profit?

I think the "For Profit" part is more aimed at the Kotaku article

Edit:

LMAO

Deleted member 4976 · Aug 10, 2018

Wiseblood said:
Fucking yikes

What the fuck...

Kthulhu · Aug 10, 2018

Wiseblood said:
Fucking yikes

Of course they didn't learn shit. Bet the PR team is collectively banging their heads against their desks.

JayC3 · Aug 10, 2018

@Gogo_Usagi
To clarify: They said it was disappointing that the person didnt tell them about things that happened to others when she worked there Guess they forgot that they told her they couldn't help if she told them about things that happened to other people ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@Gogo_Usagi
Also, it wasn't an intimidation attempt. More like a "cover our ass" thing. Most of it was fine and had good intent, but saying it's disappointing that someone didnt reach out while they still worked there, when you had told them not to while they still worked there, is fucked

It looks like that Tweet has some follow-up. So yeah, maybe not as bad as we originally thought, but still bad and tone deaf.

Deleted member 43084 · Aug 10, 2018

Tygre · Aug 11, 2018

minimaxir said:

Nimby · Aug 11, 2018

I feel sorry for CliffyB's studio, but I honestly don't give a fuck if he never does anything in this industry again. Denying victims seems a bit shitty even for him.

Deleted member 2099 · Aug 21, 2018

Zen said:
Not surprised given many of the female character designs in LoL

Cow Mengde said:
Gaming is rotten from top to bottom. Shitty people making games for an equally shitty audience.

Weltall Zero said:
They promise not to sexualize female characters unnecesarily any more, then apologize when they do sexualize characters unnecesarily again.

You think I'm joking. I'm not.

"We'll be the first to admit that Kai'Sa's neckline didn't land well with players and that it made her look unnecessarily sexualized, even if it that wasn't the intention."

This is the character they sexualized "by accident" after they promised not to do it anymore. Apparently they did it so that people could see it's a human in a suit rather than an alien, because how else would they be able to tell it's a human if her cleavage doesn't reach below her sternum?

Obviously, the apology is enough for them; the character hasn't actually been changed in any way, despite fans calling them out on their broken promise.

Imagine, for a second, being a woman working there.

Laiza said:
Yeah. This whole thing was a massive disappointment for me, and further cements my desire to never touch the game again (though really, with the community the way it is, that decision has already been made for me).

This on top of Guinsoo's hilariously tone-deaf responses to desires for more variety in female character design years back, including this little gem:

And a comment by one of their artists defending boob plate as being an appealing aesthetic (GAG!), and so on and so forth... it all adds up for me. I just don't want to deal with this shit anymore.

JigglesBunny said:
It's a studio with sexist ideals baked into its pretentious culture that values slavish commitment to pixels on a screen over general talent at the job you're performing.

Fuck Riot. Sounds like they need some serious housekeeping performed at the managerial level.

Sailent said:
With those sexist female skins?

nopressure said:
it shouldn't be surprising a company that continues making hypersexualised female champions (and skins) while failing to reciprocate to the male designs has a deeper uglier cultural problem - they acknowledged this problem years ago, but haven't really done anything about it.

Just to add on from other threads I've posted in...

RoseBell69 said:
I mean, for a game that treats female characters like they're hypersexualized objectified eye candy (ie, Miss Fortune, Caitlyn, Sivir, etc), I'm not surprised that they treat real women the same exact way. To hell with the toxic company/game and to the toxic fan base/userbase.

RoseBell69 said:
Same. When I was a young teen, I made my biggest gaming regret ever investing time into this game for four years. Thankfully, I never spent a single penny on this garbage and joke of a game. By the time I turned 18, I was like nope, screw this crap, not dealing with it anymore and not putting up with it. I can't stand the treatment of the female champions just being there for eye candy, tropes, and fan service. Miss Fortune suffers a great deal from this as well as Sivir, Caitlyn, Katarina and among MANY more. I also can't stand the player base being so toxic. From that day on, I disassociated myself with all those who still play League of Losers. The game and the dwellers/inhabitants of this game are a bad omen to me.

Is all I have to say to add onto this thread.

Kotaku: Inside The Culture Of Sexism At Riot Games

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