In recent development, Riot Games, the developer of League of Legends, has been sued by an ex-employee and a current employee over Gender Discrimination which seems to be still plaguing the company despite their assurances of tackling the problem.
According to a report by Kotaku, the lawsuit alleges that Riot Games is still not taking the matter seriously and despite their promises to address sexism and discrimination, the conditions have not changed at all and all investigations have been empty with no clear results.
The lawsuit claims:
like many of Riot Games’ female employees, Plaintiffs have been denied equal pay and found their careers stifled because they are women. Moreover, Plaintiffs have also seen their working conditions negatively impacted because of the ongoing sexual harassment, misconduct, and bias which predominate the sexually-hostile working environment of Riot Games.
The plaintiffs are now asking for compensation in the form of unpaid wages, penalties and damages with the exact amount to be finalized during the trial. The lawsuit clearly mentions many of the company’s violations of different Laws and Acts such as female employees fulfilling roles above their title and pay grade without compensation, sexually objectifying females and there is apparently an ongoing ‘Riot Games Hottest Women Employees’ email chain as well.
This does not stop here. Plaintiffs have also revealed that females are forced to participate in crude male humor along with having to tolerate rude jokes mostly revolving around sex and rape. In addition, the suit also states that Riot prioritizes male workers and always keeps them ahead and females behind. Even when hiring new staff, males are preferred over females.
One of the Plaintiffs, in this case, is Jessica Negron who has revealed her ordeal about working for a higher position, never getting promoted and then later being demoted when a male was available for the said post. This clearly shows that how the company treats females and gives more power to men.
The suit also alleges that the company is currently run by 80% males and they regularly turn down female applicants just because they do not consider them as ‘Core Gamers’ and the company culture is seriously ‘Bro Culture’ which favors males and discourages women. Women are there only to be sexualized and to be bullied over by the male employees.
Riot Games also has the bad history of separating employees who support Gender Equality such as on September 7 2018, Daniel Klein and Mattias Lehman were separated from the company because of their stance on Gender Diversity. Riot Games also used to enforce employees not to speak about it publically but still, the studio was exposed and now a lawsuit has been filed against them.
We also learned that one of the managers at Riot Games tired to hire a woman because she had a beautiful body and the manager heard that she had posted her nude pictures online.
