Riot Games - Gender Discrimination Lawsuit

In November of 2018 the video game company, Riot Games, began to endure a huge lawsuit over gender discrimination. As a gaming company, the ratio of men to women is uneven, however, a year long investigation revealed that this lawsuit was a result of much more than that. Riot, according to the lawsuit, allowed sexism to affect its hiring and promotional practices and seemed to encourage harassment and gender discrimination. Both their regular employees and managers had been participating in actions they called “bro culture." This involved highly inappropriate behavior such as sending unsolicited pictures and other inappropriate behaviors in the workplace. To make it worse, the managers themselves had been circulating a “hot girls list” which listed and ranked all female employees at Riot.

The investigation showed that females who spoke against them faced consequences that extensively affected their place at Riot. Following that, two women filed wrongful termination and sexual harassment suits. Riot's response to these cases was an attempt to force them into arbitration, or in other words to deny them a full trial to avoid more publicity. This only made things worse for the company and led to an organized walkout by many of the employees. This had been the first mass worker action within this type of industry, gaining more publicity than a regular trial would.

As of May, Riot was refusing to give into the demands of its employees. Since then, the company has added more women to its leadership, promised equal pay, and has claimed to have changed its company culture. There will be reviews of all pay, promotions, and hires to track their progress on improving. Along with that they have strengthened their internal programs used to report sexual harassment and discrimination. Over the last year the workspace has undergone great change this has helped lead to a final settlement. Just recently the company has decided to settle the lawsuit by distributing $10 million to all female employees who have worked at the company within the last 5 years. With both the improvements and the payout, both sides have agreed to this settlement and are currently waiting for it to be approved by the court to be finalized.

Sources: Kotaku, LA Times