Mornos

They did a bunch of stuff to increase diversity within the company, but I can't see anything that addresses the existing rampant sexism that was reported and raised the issue. Pretty sure that the people treating their colleagues horribly are already aware of the effects of their behaviour so awareness training won't change much on this front. It is great how transparent Riot is about their steps to change the work environment but some of the glaring issues are not even addressed or acknowledge here.

Honestly, the skepticism is fair. My personal take: The problems that emerged over the last year are very real, and we've earned the reputation we have now.

I could tell you here that a lot of the steps Angela posted about have made a huge difference for Riot's culture and how people are being treated (and I do believe that). But if we're being realistic, I think the narrative about Riot isn't going to magically become "hey actually everyone Riot is getting better." Not for a long, long time, even if Riot actually is getting better. It just doesn't work that way. You don't get a redemption narrative for free when there actually were problems for years, and when there's still more work to be done.

The only way for Riot to claw its way out of its PR nightmare is to work—probably for years—to become not just "better," but literally industry-leading in terms of dealing with discrimination, harassment, and other bullshit that leads to an unhealthy work culture. The ONLY way that our image is gonna improve is if people are pointing to us two years down the road and saying "damn, they actually went way beyond and did more than they had to to fix that mess. They're seriously committed."

I hope we're on track to earn that reputation. If we don't fix our image, it's going to become really fucking hard to hire the best people in the industry. And that'd be a damn shame, because this is actually an incredible place to work with a lot of potential to become even better.

Just my two cents.

Edit: I’m already seeing smart replies and people pointing out problems we’ve still got. I’m not gonna try to defend against any of that stuff here (just no upside in doing that imho) but I think it’ll be interesting for other Rioters to see which issues are still bothering players the most. So if you comment below, just know that I see ya.

moodRubicund

Listen.

OK.

I don't 100% get it.

But have they stopped farting in people's faces.

That's all I really need to know.

Rioter here in a Reddit thread about sexism and harassment issues at Riot Games.

Three things:

1) pray for me

2) Honestly we don't know how to respond to this man. Working at Riot now—you hear this joke constantly, in-game and everywhere else. Nobody at Riot is walking around farting on anybody. We've spent the last year dealing with some pretty serious issues. For the whole thing to come down to a big fart joke is... sigh

3) The only other thing I really want to say in this Reddit thread I said in this comment.

moodRubicund

It's more that the reason I resort to fart jokes is that I genuinely don't understand if any of the things in the article does anything.

I see a lot of stuff but I can't visualize how it improves anything, like what does making a "Riot Noir" actually accomplish? OK, a group got made. What did it prevent or create? It might be understandable to people familiar with the process and the direction it's all going in is very real and clear. But to people outside the process it's pretty alien.

But someone farting on someone else vs NOT farting on someone is a visceral, easy image that everyone is familiar with, which is incidentally why it also makes for an easy joke.

oh yeah nw, wasn't meaning to direct any negativity toward you. and tbh i get it

re this part:

like what does making a "Riot Noir" actually accomplish?

that's just one small thing in a way longer article. But like I said in the other comment I linked to above, I get why people are skeptical.

PhAnToM444

I think it’ll be interesting for other Rioters to see which issues are still bothering players the most. So if you comment below, just know that I see ya.

Alright then.

1. Your COO who was one of the most frequently called out people in this whole situation is still employed and there is no indication of anything special done in regards to changing his behavior as a powerful and visible person aside from 2 months off. He would have been fired in almost any other position or almost any other company. Way to go with "leadership accountability."

2. You got accused of lying to investigators and withholding information. After promising transparency that's a pretty big slap in the face.

3. You still have the forced arbitration. I get that it's a good business move but it's a terrible look, especially considering that...

4. Your employees staged a very visible walkout about it like a few months ago.

The narrative isn't changing because this shit is still happening, and very very publicly at that. The measures you are taking are great, but ultimately it feels like doublespeak because the things that people continuously raise issues with are being entirely ignored.

Gonna try, but this isn't the most friendly thread. Wish me luck, I'm trying my best here.

1) I don't know any of the details with Scott Gelb's investigation, but I do know Seyfarth Shaw investigated it and that we've seen action from the company leadership to provide consequences at all levels... it's hard for me to believe this was an open and shut case--there are facts that need to be considered and I don't have them and I work for Riot. How do you know with confidence?

2) Regarding the DFEH's press release that we withheld information, we refute that claim: https://www.riotgames.com/en/news/riot-games-refutes-dfeh for what it's worth I don't think they accused us of lying either...

3) We made a statement about mandatory arbitration that I found a reasonable balance. https://www.riotgames.com/en/news/commitments-on-arbitration-and-cultural-transformation Not everyone agreed, but that's life... I do at least appreciate the openness and transparency about the decision and the flexibility offered

4) They staged a walk-out, and we supported it. About 100-150 people went out of 2,000. Many people went to support the cause for passion.

I think that one viewpoint is that it's doublespeak, or that it's being ignored, but... that's pretty far from my experience here. Others might agree... that's expected. This is a complex change and we've got some challenges to work through. But I think we are making steady progress

potatorunner

If we don't fix our image, it's going to become really fucking hard to hire the best people in the industry. And that'd be a damn shame, because this is actually an incredible place to work with a lot of potential to become even better.

I wanted to work at Riot games, and not to pat myself on the back I think I'd be able to add value. Now I don't ¯\(ツ)/¯

Well... it's our loss. One thing to consider is whether you might not get a better perspective actually interviewing and talking with the people you'd be working with and making the call from that. It doesn't cost you that much to validate it more tangibly.

Blue_5ive

Agreed. It's a little late.

But better late than never.

TenTypesofBread

Usually ERGs are self-organized. It's possible a Latinx one is in the works or simply hasn't been organized yet.

That's right TenTypesofBread (hi again!) the ERGs are self-organized, and they're new...

[deleted]

[deleted]

Not sure. I don't think it's because it's too small though... It's a good question.

PhAnToM444

I appreciate your courage in responding, and I am sorry if you experience any sort of hate because of this comment. I disagree with some of your takes, but I think it's just because it can be hard to understand public perception from outside of an organization. Here are my expanded thoughts:

1. As far as Scott Gelb, I also can't know what was found in his investigation or how legitimate that investigation was, but it really feels like a "where there's smoke there's fire" situation. What I do know is that there's a difference between my opinion on whether someone did something and whether there is proof to meet a certain standard. Sure, OJ "didn't officially kill someone" but I wouldn't want him to work for me — and I fully acknowledge that is a false equivalency but the spirit is the same. There's a point where you have to take into account that there's a very low likelihood that they're all lying, and that some of the accusations (like the infamous farting) are very hard to actually prove. Can you fire a guy for bad public perception and (probably) starting a toxic work environment from the ground floor? I don't know, that's up for Riot to decide and they made their decision.

2. Regarding the DFEH, again it's all optics. If you're facing extremely high profile allegations, you gotta try extra hard to not butcher things like this. And it feels like the DFEH isn't going to release a press release on it unless they're very confident that Riot was withholding information and thought the best way to get that was to apply public pressure. It could have been a misunderstanding, but Riot releasing a statement saying "no u" isn't particularly convincing when you're already in a precarious spot.

3. The arbitration one is really weak... committing to providing an opt-out for new Rioters and providing a firm answer (?) on giving current Rioters that option after current legislation is resolved is ridiculous. One of my best friends is a lawyer who primarily works on employment discrimination and landlord-tenant disputes... most of even her simplest cases take years to resolve if nobody wants to settle out of court. And even whenever all current legislation is resolved, they may not extend that privilege to Rioters who worked there when it was allegedly a toxic environment (hmm... wonder why). And even then it still bars litigants from a class-action and only allows individual sexual harassment cases. Again, not a bad business move but horrific optics.

4. I actually commend Riot a bit for this. I fully expected to see reports of alleged retaliation which we haven't seen. So, good on that. However, even your instinct was to minimize it. "Only 100-150 people" and "Many went in support for 'passion.'" Sounds to me like you aren't ready to acknowledge that like 10% of your workforce has serious issues with how things are run... enough to risk their jobs and reputations and walk out.

Look, I actually think that Riot probably is getting better. And I hope it is. But the optics from the outside are still not great, and I think with something like this you really need to be batting a thousand. You can't hand-wave and say "LOOK! We hired some people and started diversity groups" while still having these other skeletons in the closet.

Just my two cents from the outside. It might be great but it doesn't look all that great.

I agree the optics don't look great. But, honestly: our company screwed up and that screw-up shouldn't look good. It's going to be a long, complex walk for us to even begin to make up for the pain some people experienced. I think it's a worthwhile walk and so-far I think we're mostly making steps forward. Give us a few years and let's see where we're at.

Quick reflections back:

1) I agree with the general notion. What I see that you don't see is that there are a lot of internal cases that have been acted on at very high levels. It didn't matter that they were considered important for the business at all. The way the process is set up with the external firm doing the auditing, I don't know how anyone could protect someone. Basically I trust an impartial well-funded external law firm which only has the incentive to find issues to be the best at finding these issues. They found something, but it wasn't fire-able. I basically trust the process because I've seen it have larger consequences for other senior people...

2) I think there are many reasons why the DFEH might have put that press release out. I think we will eventually find out who was right when our response to that goes through.

3) The arbitration one is not so weak for me... I think our arbitration policy is about as employee-focused and fair as you get--employer pays for the arbitrator, folks can talk about their process, they can take their own lawyers into it, it's binding, and its prosecuted with exactly the same laws and penalty as court. On the flipside, a corporation can afford very, very expensive lawyers and an individual cannot. I think it also avoids a lot of other collateral damage to the organization, such as people who are not involved in the case getting dragged into court, sometimes for many years or having their private information put into the public domain without a say--such as their salaries, which could shape their future employment at another company--and that's even if the case is settled or regardless of their involvement with the issue. I'm OK with it, but not everyone is. And some of the people who were not walked out about it--and continue to be able to have a voice about their disagreement.

4) Internal response to the walkout was even to cancel meetings at the same time to allow people to go if they wanted to--so I completely agree that it was pretty commendable. To clarify my intent with my comment, it was not to diminish the amount of pain that people have. My point was that the walkout was about arbitration, but it seems like the internal response to the arbitration conversation was only able to drive about 5%-10% to walk-out about it, and that many of those folks who went to that walk out mentioned that they went to support their friends. Arbitration did not appear to be a lightning rod divisive issue at Riot according to those numbers. I am pretty certain that many of that 5-10% passionately hate the policy. I'm not diminishing their right to that, but I am saying that they're not the majority and most people were pretty OK with our policy after our CEO stood up in front of the whole company and spent 2 hours explaining why and telling people they could walk out about it.

Long and short of it, we are going to have to live with this for many years. And the only way out is for us to have a fantastic culture in this regard. I'm cautiously optimistic.

HatefulWretch

I think you underestimate the cost of doing interviews.

(I can tell you exactly what it would take for me to answer the calls I've had from Riot recruiters; Scott Gelb to have left the company and a complete removal of the arbitration clause for both individual and systematic discrimination of all forms, for both new and existing employees).

Appreciate the thoughts back.

Blue_5ive

I'm happy that there's effort towards making a change, I'm just sad that an article had to come out to force it.

Honestly, there was work in progress before the article. But the article helped speed it up.

TenTypesofBread

Hi! Under similar circumstances, I helped organize a few ERGs at my own work, so I have related knowledge. :)

Haha... I could tell you had knowledge about it. Any tips on how to do it?

ekjohnson9

If your executive leadership is not accountable then nothing will change. I appreciate that Riot has a very insular culture and for a lot of people its the only place they've worked. In corporate america the entire reason that you have a C-Suite is accountability. I've worked and do work for some very large companies and have had the privilege of a fair amount of direct face time with higher ups pretty early in my career. The core thing that differentiates quality executive leadership from shit leadership is accountability. Dont take my word for it, this is a common principle in the business world. My favorite book on the subject is "Extreme Ownership".

Full stop, the fact that your COO was "internally investigated" and allowed to continue speaks VOLUMES about the lack of true change.

Remind me when the next incident hits and I'll apply to COO.

I agree with everything you wrote here. And fun fact: Marc and Brandon love that book Extreme Ownership. I would be unsurprised if they haven't met Jocko.

The only question I have is: doesn't the facts/validity of the investigation matter in determining whether true change happened or not?

potatorunner

In a not so dramatic way, if i'm applying for 20 jobs then realistically I want to be the most excited as I can about a company when I start (based off second hand information). If i'm not excited then I'm not putting in half as much effort, will entertain other options, etc.

People can only pour so much energy into an application and this kind of image just predisposes them to spend their efforts elsewhere (this was the case for me).

It makes sense!

novruzj

“They want to feel like it’s over, that accusations about sexism are unfair. Most Rioters not directly affected want to and are starting to believe it.”

This is a quote from recent Kotaku article, I recommend you to read it.

This definitely sounds like it's about employees like you in Riot. Someone who wants to just move on, without actually fixing it all the way.

I hope I'm wrong.

I read the article. I think it's actually like the marriage analogy.

Here's my challenge to you: please actually read what Angela wrote and tell me genuinely whether you don't think we're taking it seriously. Please let me know.

MCrossS

They staged a walk-out, and we supported it. About 100-150 people went out of 2,000. Many people went to support the cause for passion.

What is this supposed to mean? Why are you trying to minimize the support the walkout got? People came forward to express fear of participating and being labeled "anti Riot". The people who did participate did so knowing there are risks involved (you'd have to be incredibly cynical to say there aren't) so you can assume a number of people didn't. Do you really think the walkout's premises were less popular because only 10% of the employees went? Do you really think that the people who went to express support somehow don't count because they don't really feel that way?

Staging an act against your employer, no matter how well meant, is a move that requires BALLS, commitment, a manageable workload ⁠— I don't know what you were expecting, but it was never realistic that a huge proportion of the company was going to walk out. It has no equivalence to the amount of people who agree with the premises, which also weren't just arbitration, rather had arbitration as its firstmost actionable measure to foster employee confidence.

Reading through your comments on the matter is incredibly disheartening, and exactly the reason why these things must continue to happen.

Sorry. I can see how I wrote it poorly. I clarified this in the other thread. My point is that the walkout was about a protest about mandatory arbitration, and my point is that 5-10% of people felt passionate about that topic.

If the walk-out was about expressing support for D&I at Riot, I'm sure you'd have pretty much everyone there.

TenTypesofBread

Hmmm... I think the thing we found was most important was emphasizing their utility as community support, and centering our values around that over value to the business in other ways (outreach, networking, whatever, though we still do those things). I think the events we have organized are generally better quality because our first question is to how this furthers our goals around advocacy and support rather than visibility/roi.

It's not always the case, but I try not to associate myself with high visibility, low impact work. Which is fine... it's self-organized so people can do disparate things under the same umbrellas.

Interesting, thanks for sharing. I think that we're empowering the groups to prioritize their impact and value.

ekjohnson9

So did these incidents happen or not? I'm assuming you're not speaking on behalf of Riot in this capacity and I want to communicate that the level of transparency you're willing to provide here is appreciated. In no way am I attacking you personally or any other Rioter. I completely agree with you that the facts of the investigation matter. I also acknowledge that the findings of these kinds of investigations are not public knowledge nor should we expect them to be.

The only reason I ask is that if the stance is that none of the alleged incidences occurred then I think that would be pretty newsworthy. If these things didn't happen, then why were the previous 12 months described by Angela Roseboro as "A year of Tangible Progress"? I'm not going to belabor the point with a ton of examples.

At the end of the day, the optics aren't optimal and in an era of #metoo, the level of accountability that leadership is held to should be much higher than rank and file employees. The reason the community is skeptical of the progress is that the optics are misaligned with the actions taken.

There's a principle of employee privacy. The details of these matters aren't disclosed internally. There might even be solid legal reasons for that.

So, basically. I don't know. I'm an employee and I know what happens in my scope. But I do know that the law-firm has been rigorous.

I think Angela's post discussed a lot of tangible progress... and I'd be happy to discuss any more of that if you want to know more. I'm able to speak to all of that.

I think you and I see really closely eye-to-eye when it comes to leadership accountability... ;)

KingTyranitar

This is late but seriously, Riot Noir? Why would you name it Riot Noir?

The people in that group liked that name. It's not for you, that's fine. It's not even for me or anyone outside of that group. It's something positive for that Rioter group, why does it matter so much to you?