All-hands meetings are already a pain. Then the head of the company makes a disgusting rape joke. The room laughs. Later you bring up an amazing idea in a meeting. You’re ignored. To do an experiment, you have a friend bring up your exact idea later, framing it as his own. Your coworkers love it. When you applied, the interviewer asked about your “e-peen,” chauvinistic slang for internet based reputation. You notice that female candidates are judged harshly, and men with lower aptitude are hired over them. Men regularly—and publicly—talk about “raping” each other. They discuss who in the office they’d like to have sex with. You’re frequently sexually harassed and you don’t get a planned promotion after refusing the advances of a higher-up. Sexy female cosplayers strut around the office, as a “treat” for employees.
Is this hell? No, it’s Riot Games.
Though I could be describing a number of workplaces across the U.S., where individual occurrences like this happen daily. However, most companies deal with issues, and want to resolve them. Most make an effort. Riot Games, maker of the incredibly popular (and, apparently, equally toxic) League of Legends, has been content with their sexism, and exemplified every single example above. In fact, they threatened the career of a man who spoke up about the inappropriateness of the aforementioned rape joke, and he quickly left the company. Two of his direct reports had complained, but remained silent after seeing how their boss was treated. As women, their careers at Riot would be held back in other ways. Women found that complaining or trying to work to close the gap was met with disdain.
A scathing report of the rampant sexism at the company was published a few weeks ago, with Riot Games going into full public relations mode. However, those at the company report that the culture itself is a mess, and it’s going to take a lot more than a few PR statements to fix the toxicity that plagues Riot.
In This Article:
In-Game Culture from Corporate Culture
Every female character has a nearly identical body type and design. Not even the ones wielding large swords are gifted biceps.
Full disclosure, I don’t play League of Legends. I’ve played some MOBA games before, including Vainglory for iOS, but never really got into it. They feel repetitive. Select your hero, choose your lane, grind like hell, level up, take out some turrets, and attack the base. Again, and again, and again. I had a knack for it, but just didn’t feel great about it. Still, reports of rampant sexism, toxic behavior, an unwelcome attitude toward to newcomers, and selfishness among players is why I tried out Vainglory instead of League of Legends.
Players have complained about that toxicity for years, but, unlike Overwatch, Rainbow Six, Fortnite, and other popular online games, League of Legends has not cracked down on toxic players. Seeming, the company treats these players as “passionate,” and appreciates their love of the game (and the money they pay, obviously). The sad truth of it is, Riot Games is slow to police their players because they’re slow to police themselves. If League of Legends is toxic, it’s because Riot Games is too.
Toxicity at Riot
Illustration by Chelsea Beck
I tried to cover as many grievances against Riot as I could in the opening paragraph, but it was just getting too long, and I found I was cutting out too many details. Women reported horrific sexual harassment. One woman was set up for a promotion. Then, at an office party, a manager hit on her. She rebuffed him. Soon, she found someone with far less experience than her got the promotion she was supposed to receive. Another woman stopped going to office parties because, after she was seen in a swimsuit, all her male coworkers could talk to her about was her breasts.
Another woman had her career threatened at an office party by a drunk coworker. Women found that speaking up wouldn’t make the problem better. Instead, they’d be mocked. Their male colleagues would say the women liked the attention. A woman got cursed out for not wanting to stay in a hotel room with a man she had never met. Women universally reported being interrupted in meetings, talked over, and ignored. Women even noticed their male coworkers calling each other girls as an insult, as well as homopbobic, transphobic, and even racist slurs to attack each other and their fans. One woman pointed out that she heard someone shout the N-word within her first few days, and it was a regular occurrence. No one else flinched.
Some people brought up a rape joke like “No doesn’t always mean no” is not something that should be acceptable in the workplace. A company-wide email was sent out, defending the joke. Those who had complained about it immediately realized: Riot’s problem goes all the way to the top, and there’s no changing their culture.
Riot Games co-founders, Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill. Photo: Vivien Killelea/Getty Images
Riot’s Tech Debt
“If you’re building your technology on not great foundations, you spend a lot of time catching up or trying to fix things. … It’s just hard to fix things when they’ve already started. It’s easier to start things the right way and build on that.”
-Riot Employee
In tech, we refer to “tech debt.” Often, when working on a project, a deadline gets in the way of making code that is as efficient and as enduring as it could be. One complaint across the board among engineering groups is that they never get enough time to work on their tech debt. Instead, it grows. Eventually, projects that should have taken days take weeks, and code requires large refactors that breaks other parts of the app. A culture of sexism is like tech debt. Sure, the men of the company were able to get their work done, but eventually that culture drives out diversity, and the game or app becomes stagnant. Users abandon stagnant products. Look at Windows and Blackberry. Blackberry couldn’t evolve and died out, and Windows survives on gaming and enterprise.
It’s worth pointing out that League of Legends is Riot Game’s only product vertical. Games go in fads. Once upon a time, we all played Quake, and Unreal Tournament. Esports focused on Starcraft II. Now it’s Fortnite, Overwatch, and League of Legends stealing the spotlight. But, like Starcraft II, Unreal Tournament, and other series, interest fades.
Riot’s terrified of losing their only source of income.
Riot’s Response
A lack of diversity can kill a company. Bad press can as well. Who wants to be the person to invite their friends to play League of Legends with them over the weekend when it means condoning Riot’s sexism? So Riot has pledged to change. Companies always pledge to change. Riot has brought in outside consultants, will be hiring more people for their diversity and inclusion team, and pledges that “No one and nothing is sacred,” meaning they will throw out traditions and fire any employee that perpetuates sexism at Riot Games.
It’s a good first step, and certainly biting words, but Riot has a mountain of tech debt, and it’s uncertain whether or not they’ll stick to this plan. Will diversity and inclusion take a back seat as soon as this all blows over? We’ll have to wait and see.
The Tech Industry
Illustration by Eleanor Doughty
Peek inside any large tech company and chat with the women there. You’ll hear similar stories. Fortunately, most of those stories will not be as awful as those at Riot Games. But you will find stories of sexism, nepotism, harassment, or inappropriate behavior at any tech company. It’s a solemn reminder that we are not equal. Our mothers and their mothers, supportive men, activists, and politicians have worked tirelessly to elevate women. It’s heartbreaking that all of that work, and we’re still not “there.” We still have extensive ground to cover, but we’re closer to equality than we were when we started. To close that final gap, we’ll have to eliminate sexism like that of Riot and Uber. Only then will we have truly freed women in this country to be whatever they want, even a game developer.
To those wanting more detail about the sexism and racism at Riot Games, definitely check out the sources/further reading list below. While Riot is an extreme example, remember, many women in tech have similar stories. We all have to do better to make tech a place that’s accepting for everyone.
- Amazoeword (Tumblr Blog)
- Cecilia D’Anastasio, Kotaku [1], [2]
- Katie Desousa, on Tumblr
- Brian Hawkins
- Meagan Marnie, on Tumblr
- Riot Games