Interesting that this one is doing well compared to the longer in-depth kotaku article a few days ago <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17710188" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17710188</a> - fwiw that piece has since been corroborated by a ton of former riot employees on twitter.<p>At the risk of sounding overly cynical, this is all true and everyone knows about it, people feign disgust at these articles but we're all complicit and understanding that this is way things are. If people are truly shocked by this I would contend they are either young and inexperienced or incredibly naive. This article will get some discussion going for a few days then we'll quietly return to the status quo. Nothing will change.
I know my interview with Riot was more like a freshman college hazing. At the end they setup a 2nd call and I was like wtf. They said they were just testing me to see if I could handle the culture and that I passed so I can move on to the next interview. I told him to diaf and never contact me again.<p>I'm male, I can't even imagine what its like for Women.
I have never played league of legends, but one of the things I've heard repeatedly is that there is an extremely toxic culture around the game. If true, it isn't surprising to see that the company has a toxic culture as well.<p>I feel for the author. It is sad that her dream job turned into a nightmare. I just hope some positive change comes from this at Riot and other companies.
wow, I would expect such behavior from teenage gamers, but I'm surprised to see it reported among (presumably adult) game-devs.<p>what is perhaps even more surprising is that they seem to somehow be able to cooperate enough to deliver a undeniably popular game.<p>don't get me wrong, I don't doubt for a second that what Meagan says is true. I am simply surprised they manage to produce anything at all in such a culture, let alone a hit game.
I'm a male software developer that cringes hard when hearing things like that, and I can't imagine using that sort of language in the workplace. In fact I'm part of an all male team at work and things like that get thrown around all day long, and I find it annoying at times.
At the same time I detest the forced political correctness. And most of the time, all of those terms aren't actually hateful, but used in an playful ironic way.<p>I'm somewhat torn between what I would personally enjoy (all workplaces clean of the "boys" culture) and what I fundamentally believe is right (people should be free to express themselves in whatever way they choose to, and this way of communication clearly works for certain groups of people).
Sidenote: I've never been more grateful for how HackerNews handles downvotes and the like. Seeing the comment in gray helps me steel myself for what I'm about to read.
Just curious - is such toxic culture more common in game-dev companies? Some of us would remember the EA Spouse story [1] - one of the first such public disclosures. Have there been any studies done of the prevalence of such culture across different software dev teams?<p>[1] <a href="https://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html" rel="nofollow">https://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html</a>
> urther examples of disrespect include when I argued that we shouldn’t let a cosplayer in blackface on our stage for a parade, keeping in mind that Riot is a global company. I was repeatedly called racist by my colleagues, who tried to convince me that it was an acceptable practice and I was overreacting.<p>This...can't possibly be true. Is this true??
Here's an idea: the gaming community as a whole needs to come together and think of the most offensive insults possible, that do not refer to race/gender/religion/nationality, but rather refer to player skill or the wider gaming culture.<p>We can have a non-phobic, egalitarian swear-off!
This is just so prevalent. I thank God for being able to work with family that has my back. I've become rather cynical about the whole thing. It feels like the only way to avoid that is to have the power to do so. Otherwise it's an uphill battle you cannot win.
LoL has to be one of the most toxic communities for any game I've played. It's not shocking that it permeates the culture of the company that created it.
<i>I needed to get back to the United States somehow. Riot was my best bet, and I worried that if I didn’t agree to their mandates or went public with anything that I’d ruin my chance of getting home</i><p>This is kind off-topic, but why wouldn't she be able to get home if she didn't agree to their mandates?
> While on a team outing, the same senior staff member messaged a new employee’s girlfriend on Facebook asking if she was “DTF”<p>I would probably do something that would get me fired if this happened to me.
Why isn’t the “bro culture” being weeded out of tech at the university stage. Bros’ and frat boys don’t make it through electrical engineering; they flunk out, at least from my experience. I don’t work with anyone like that.<p>What’s wrong with the tech sector when it comes to computer science? Maybe the science is no longer required?
>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<i>ggots” 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</i>gger”. 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*cksuckers” right outside the office of the CEOs.<p>That's gaming culture, plain and simple. Is it a new necessity to change gaming culture to pander to people who've never played games? I believe this is being done for the sole reason of extracting more money by tapping into markets that weren't being exploited before.<p>Case in point, woman-friendly games like Fortnite or Overwatch. This is not a problem by itself, but it's sad that some companies are pushing this narrative to make it look like they care about social issues and gain the favour of those who do, when they just want more money.
Looking at this skeptically, given that as she says she put a target on her own back there's not much concrete here about problems she personally faced.<p>Companies have a culture, it might not be your culture, and it's mental to expect to be able to walk in and attack it in the first six months then everything be sweetness and joy. Joining a gaming company and complaining about female outfits is roughly equivalent to joining the NRA hierarchy and then in your first six months standing up at the AGM shouting about restricting assault rifles.<p>Asking people about their sex life is dangerous territory but depending on the context people have conversations about that at work. It's probably the worst thing in this article I think and worth a HR complaint.<p>Other than that it's almost all "I saw men acting the way men do in a very male environment and objectifying/trying to sleep with women." Well yeah, if I joined the NRA they'd be discussing hunting and stuff I don't care about or even find offensive but it's kind of expected.<p>You can argue that every single company should have an extremely corporate/restricted culture when any talk about the opposing sex is banned, the upside is that people would have less opportunity to be offended, the downside is that you've just substituted a system of state police where people play very Machiavellian games with HR and don't see each-other as humans because the way that they can interact is extremely restricted.<p>I'm sure if I joined a small enough female-dominated company I could feel really uncomfortable with the conversation topics, and the way that men were talked about. I could then pin my colours to the mast in some way (it's a company making vegan stuff and I stand up and extol meat eating), get quietly ostracised and instead of being horrified by aggression and blunt social nuances, be horrified by gossip and social politicking.<p>Maybe everything should be completely corporatified but I just find the idea deeply depressing.
Recently Riot has been getting a lot of, what feels like hit pieces. Conspiracy theory: suspiciously after they were telling on Spectrum, saying they were throttling them and they had to pay for it to stop..