What a Riot! Several controversies, lawsuits, and internal strife dog "League of Legends" creator Riot Games

[Dan Druff]

I left the software industry in 2003. I don't regret it.

For most of my childhood, I wanted to be a computer programmer. I carried that desire into being a computer science major in college. Then I worked for about a decade in the industry and I saw the painful reality.

The software world -- and by extension nearly all of Silicon Valley -- is a cold, brutal, and soul sucking place.

You are expected to dedicate your life to the company. 40 hour per week jobs are, in reality, 60-100 hour jobs. You aren't supposed to have a life outside of work. If you do, they will soon replace you with others who have more of themselves to dedicate.

If you don't like this, you have two choices:

1) Quit the industry.
-or-
2) Try to get one of the few remaining true 9-5 jobs, which are lower paying and have little prestige, but aren't nearly as demanding.

Poker rescued me just in time. I became a winning player just before the poker boom happened, which put me in a perfect place (skill, experience, existing bankroll) to crush the middle and high stakes games during the boom, thus giving me an "out" from the industry.

But had I not found poker, I don't know what would have happened. I wasn't cut out to be one of those guys who dedicates his entire being to a company.

In the 2010s, the software industry has another big issue. On one hand, it is dominated by ideologically intolerant social justice warriors, to the point where conservatives are ostracized if they dare reveal their right-leaning politics. However, despite all of this supposed wokeness, there still exists an undercurrent of sexism and racism behind closed doors. When any of this is brought out, it's either covered up or there's some kind of absurd overcorrection in order to demonstrate how progressive these companies actually are.

Riot Games, makers of League of Legends, is pretty much all of this.

My attention was brought to this situation by a longtime female friend who found a job posting for an executive assistant (she was looking for such a position), and down the rabbit hole we went.

Continued next post...

[sah_24]

Played a lot of league, the game literally bans you if you call other players "bad" ... lol

SJW's in charge of pretty much anything will eventually = disaster

[Dan Druff]

Here's the ad for the executive assistant position at Riot Games:

Riot Games was established in 2006 by entrepreneurial gamers who believe that player-focused game development can result in great games. In 2009, Riot released its debut title League of Legends to critical and player acclaim. As the most played PC game in the world, over 67 million play every month. Players form the foundation of our community and it’s for them that we continue to evolve and improve the League of Legends experience.

We’re looking for humble but ambitious, razor-sharp professionals who can teach us a thing or two. We promise to return the favor. Like us, you take play seriously; you’re passionate about games. We embrace those who see things differently, aren’t afraid to experiment, and who have a healthy disregard for constraints.
That's where you come in.

As Executive Assistant you'll help develop a comprehensive support network for Riot's executive leaders and teams. Your mental dexterity enables you to organize dozens of projects, products, and teams into coherent initiatives, which you'll use to support Riot Games and the Rioters who make it all possible. Your attention to detail will help you juggle demanding travel schedules, crucial relationships, and crunch-time deliverables. You'll keep the comms flowing between team leaders and executives while getting creative to get things done and pull it all off with a smile that delights all involved.

You'll share a campus with the Central office that serves the whole world, but as a Rioter for the North American region, you'll have a laser focus on leveling up the experience for players in Canada and the United States.

You are:

Book smart and street savvy: you earned a college degree in a business-related field; you've augmented your education with 8+ years working as an executive assistant or in a similar role with executive-level stakeholders

An intuitive taskmaster: whether you're working in matrix or meat-space, your emails and calendars are sorted and color-coded to ensure that tasks aren't just completed, they're obliterated; you see ahead of the curve anticipating needs and projects before the team's bogged down by them

A communications black belt: you enjoy collaborating and commingling with people from a wide variety of cultures and backgrounds; you communicate easily using whatever medium is required whether email, phone or mind-meld

An expert-level ethicist: you live to deliver first class service to every level of requester and have impeccable judgment when handling sensitive communications, financials and operations documents to keep information safe and secure; you value integrity and accountability in your interactions with stakeholders, team members and players

All in: no task too menial, no need unmet, even when it happens after normal 'game time' or is of a personal nature

You will:
Simplify and optimize the lives of our busiest leaders, finding creative solutions to whatever, whenever
Weave a complex web of international and local schedules, itineraries, travel documents and meetings that snares any blockers and connects individuals and teams
Balance time demands by negotiating team calendars with ninja like grace
Design presentations, correspondence and reports that intrigue and inform
Liaise with other Rioters to handle communication flow between teams; donning white gloves to handle sensitive info, maintain confidentiality and ensure data accuracy

Don’t forget to include a resume and cover letter. We receive a lot of applications, but we’ll notice a fun, well-written intro that shows us you take play seriously

Ninja-like grace??

This obnoxiously pretentious ad went up in 2017 and stayed up for more than a year, making it clear that they were far overreaching in the requirements for what was basically a secretarial position.

But that is pretty much par for the course.

At Riot Games, you needed to be "all-in" at the company, even as just an executive assistant.

The term "Rioters" to describe their employees is also off-putting, and seems to almost indicate the cult-like situation over there. You'll see that term a lot in the coming posts.

Continued...

[Dan Druff]

Kotaku released this investigative report last summer regarding sexism at Riot.

Normally I take "-ism" accusations at the workplace with a grain of salt, especially when coming from the SJW-heavy tech world.

However, the Kotaku report seemed credible, and at the time I read it, I remember seeing Riot essentially equivalent to the male feminist who mistreats his girlfriend behind closed doors.

Of course, after this explosive report emerged, Riot realized they had a PR problem on their hands, so they did what any good hypocritical corporate citizen would do: They overcorrected.

At PAX West, a gaming festival held in Seattle, Riot held various sessions regarding resume reviews and Q&A. But in order to show just how inclusive they really were, men were banned from most of it.

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/twt/status/1035565007025582080

Someone even pointed out that the room was to become a "quiet room" at the time the men are allowed to enter, thus men were being completely forbidden from asking any questions or getting any kind of resume help.

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/twt/status/1035576776058126336

Here's an article explaining the whole thing: https://www.polygon.com/2018/9/4/178...es-controversy

There was a huge backlash over this. The intended effect -- to display the company's inclusion and wokeness -- was not achieved. Instead, they faced a barrage of accusations of sexism and non-inclusiveness. They faced questions such as, "Why separate the women and trans people from the men?", "Are you trying to imply that women and trans people need to complete on a different playing field than men because they're inferior?", and "What is this accomplishing other than segregating groups you should be trying to unite?"

The entire event was described as "exclusion disguised as inclusion", and the whole thing came off as juvenile and ill-conceived as a "NO BOYS ALLOWED" sign on a treehouse.

Riot faced a fairly harsh social media backlash, which only got worse when systems designer (and obnoxious self-hating SJW) Daniel Z. Klein took to Twitter to

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/danielzklein/status/1035723265350586368 to anyone who questioned the PAX Women-And-Trans-Only room.

He also told a woman politely disagreeing with him on Twitter to "fuck off":

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/twt/status/1035757067389132800

In order to attempt to prevent the flames from being fanned even further, Riot fired Klein and one other outspoken SJW, which then created even more backlash -- this time from those who felt Riot was firing anyone who dared speak out about racism and sexism at the company.

What's the situation now?

Today, a report was released on VICE regarding Riot attempting to block lawsuits, and an impending employee walkout looming over their heads: https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/arti...omises-changes


What a fucking disaster this company is.

[Dan Druff]

Bonus reading:

A story about BioWare, and the absolutely brutal development process they had involving some of their games, which left several employees taking leave for anxiety, depression, and severe stress: https://kotaku.com/how-biowares-anth...ong-1833731964

There has been talk of unionizing gaming employees.

As much as I dislike labor unions these days, this actually isn't a bad idea.

Personally, I think the better solution is for this "exempt employee" bullshit (which allows companies to require massive unpaid overtime) to end. The original purpose -- to avoid paperwork hassles when "professional" employees occasionally have to work extra in order to make a deadline for something -- has been completely perverted into forcing employees to work regular unpaid overtime.

If they were to change "exempt" rules to simply allow a maximum of 10 hours unpaid weekly overtime, and then require the usual overtime pay rules to take over, then this could be solved. Another alternate solution could be a monthly cap on unpaid overtime, such as no more than 30 hours unpaid overtime per rolling 4 week period.

There could also be rules in place forbidding a company from requiring an employee to work more than X overtime hours per month, regardless of what they're paid.

But something needs to be done.

You go work for a software company, and at first it all seems great. Pretty good pay, perks such as free food, and interesting/rewarding work. Then you realize everyone is expected to work for 100 hours per week, and only get paid for 40. Then you realize that the free food is there in order to keep you from taking breaks from work or going home at a normal hour. Then you realize that you've basically agreed to spend nearly every waking hour there, and if you refuse, they will fire you and replace you with some other lifeless nerd who will.

It's a horrible situation.

[sah_24]

The game has also been steadily declining, most people that I know that used to play have quit.

[gut]

[Jayjami]

Bonus reading:

A story about BioWare, and the absolutely brutal development process they had involving some of their games, which left several employees taking leave for anxiety, depression, and severe stress: https://kotaku.com/how-biowares-anth...ong-1833731964

There has been talk of unionizing gaming employees.

As much as I dislike labor unions these days, this actually isn't a bad idea.

Personally, I think the better solution is for this "exempt employee" bullshit (which allows companies to require massive unpaid overtime) to end. The original purpose -- to avoid paperwork hassles when "professional" employees occasionally have to work extra in order to make a deadline for something -- has been completely perverted into forcing employees to work regular unpaid overtime.

If they were to change "exempt" rules to simply allow a maximum of 10 hours unpaid weekly overtime, and then require the usual overtime pay rules to take over, then this could be solved. Another alternate solution could be a monthly cap on unpaid overtime, such as no more than 30 hours unpaid overtime per rolling 4 week period.

There could also be rules in place forbidding a company from requiring an employee to work more than X overtime hours per month, regardless of what they're paid.

But something needs to be done.

You go work for a software company, and at first it all seems great. Pretty good pay, perks such as free food, and interesting/rewarding work. Then you realize everyone is expected to work for 100 hours per week, and only get paid for 40. Then you realize that the free food is there in order to keep you from taking breaks from work or going home at a normal hour. Then you realize that you've basically agreed to spend nearly every waking hour there, and if you refuse, they will fire you and replace you with some other lifeless nerd who will.

It's a horrible situation.

Lol. Let all those Silicon Valley geeks come down here to Kern County and spend the summer picking grapes and melons in 100 degree heat for $15 an hour. They’ll have new perspective on being “exploited”.

[Zap_the_Fractions_Giraffe]

LoL is the best PC gaming experience I ever had. The game is definitely on the way out, my teenage family members don't even know what it is. My addiction peaked in 2015.

Favorite champion: Singed

[RS_]

Of course Riot is fucked, they make League. If you wanna play a real game that isn’t for cucks, go download dota2.

[tommyt]

Lol was fun for like 2 years for me. Funny thing is all I ever heard was how toxic the community was ingame. Coming from a CS 1.5, 1.6, and go I honestly dont think the game is toxic at all but the company and their account bans and such are bullshit. Cant flame anyone or you get banned. You respond to someone talking trash get banned. People ruin your games by int feeding nothing happens. And the reddit community is the biggest bunch of idiots I have ever seen.

[monsterj]

I left the software industry in 2003. I don't regret it.

For most of my childhood, I wanted to be a computer programmer. I carried that desire into being a computer science major in college. Then I worked for about a decade in the industry and I saw the painful reality.

The software world -- and by extension nearly all of Silicon Valley -- is a cold, brutal, and soul sucking place.

You are expected to dedicate your life to the company. 40 hour per week jobs are, in reality, 60-100 hour jobs. You aren't supposed to have a life outside of work. If you do, they will soon replace you with others who have more of themselves to dedicate.

If you don't like this, you have two choices:

1) Quit the industry.
-or-
2) Try to get one of the few remaining true 9-5 jobs, which are lower paying and have little prestige, but aren't nearly as demanding.

Poker rescued me just in time. I became a winning player just before the poker boom happened, which put me in a perfect place (skill, experience, existing bankroll) to crush the middle and high stakes games during the boom, thus giving me an "out" from the industry.

But had I not found poker, I don't know what would have happened. I wasn't cut out to be one of those guys who dedicates his entire being to a company.

In the 2010s, the software industry has another big issue. On one hand, it is dominated by ideologically intolerant social justice warriors, to the point where conservatives are ostracized if they dare reveal their right-leaning politics. However, despite all of this supposed wokeness, there still exists an undercurrent of sexism and racism behind closed doors. When any of this is brought out, it's either covered up or there's some kind of absurd overcorrection in order to demonstrate how progressive these companies actually are.

Riot Games, makers of League of Legends, is pretty much all of this.

My attention was brought to this situation by a longtime female friend who found a job posting for an executive assistant (she was looking for such a position), and down the rabbit hole we went.

Continued next post...

google/facebook/twitter/etc all pay 200K out of undergrad now, 10 years of experience you are getting close to 500K/yr as a SDE. Reason number a billion why I roll my eyes at these google walk outs.

[sonatine]

google/facebook/twitter/etc all pay 200K out of undergrad now, 10 years of experience you are getting close to 500K/yr as a SDE. Reason number a billion why I roll my eyes at these google walk outs.

google isnt the career maker it used to be and quite a few people not in the top tier roles are often looking for good excuses to cash in on the rep and move on.

[monsterj]

google/facebook/twitter/etc all pay 200K out of undergrad now, 10 years of experience you are getting close to 500K/yr as a SDE. Reason number a billion why I roll my eyes at these google walk outs.

google isnt the career maker it used to be and quite a few people not in the top tier roles are often looking for good excuses to cash in on the rep and move on.

Jumping around every 2 years now, without ever actually showing anything done, but adding 100K to your base. It's quite funny. No such thing as a 'career' anymore, at least in the old terms.

And we wonder why the biggest innovations are new filters on instagram and funny google doodles. sigh.

[sonatine]

google isnt the career maker it used to be and quite a few people not in the top tier roles are often looking for good excuses to cash in on the rep and move on.

Jumping around every 2 years now, without ever actually showing anything done, but adding 100K to your base. It's quite funny. No such thing as a 'career' anymore, at least in the old terms.

And we wonder why the biggest innovations are new filters on instagram and funny google doodles. sigh.

stick around, you get what, 3-5% a year tops? move to another .com and you can demand 20%...30% increase. eventually you get a rep if you do it too much but the game is the game.

[sah_24]

Jumping around every 2 years now, without ever actually showing anything done, but adding 100K to your base. It's quite funny. No such thing as a 'career' anymore, at least in the old terms.

And we wonder why the biggest innovations are new filters on instagram and funny google doodles. sigh.

stick around, you get what, 3-5% a year tops? move to another .com and you can demand 20%...30% increase. eventually you get a rep if you do it too much but the game is the game.

Until this bubble goes pop just like the dot com one before it ...

[monsterj]

stick around, you get what, 3-5% a year tops? move to another .com and you can demand 20%...30% increase. eventually you get a rep if you do it too much but the game is the game.

Until this bubble goes pop just like the dot com one before it ...

Yeah, that will just help the companies like Google and Facebook, since they are already extremely profitable. The pop will be the ubers, lyfts, doordashes, etc that don't have much of a path to profitablity and are only afloat based on VC or public money.

[Dan Druff]

google/facebook/twitter/etc all pay 200K out of undergrad now, 10 years of experience you are getting close to 500K/yr as a SDE. Reason number a billion why I roll my eyes at these google walk outs.

The walkouts are indeed stupid, but unrelated to them, there has been a longstanding (and worsening) problem in the software industry.

For most, there's no such thing as 9-5 anymore. You are expected to spend the vast majority of your waking hours at work, and if you don't like it, they kick your ass out the door.

Do you get paid well? Sure. But it's not so much a choice of getting paid more to work more, and paid less to work less. That sort of thing I'd support. It's the mandatory giving up your life outside of work which sucks, even if you do receive a nice salary for it.

It's the main reason I quit the industry in 2003.

[monsterj]

google/facebook/twitter/etc all pay 200K out of undergrad now, 10 years of experience you are getting close to 500K/yr as a SDE. Reason number a billion why I roll my eyes at these google walk outs.

The walkouts are indeed stupid, but unrelated to them, there has been a longstanding (and worsening) problem in the software industry.

For most, there's no such thing as 9-5 anymore. You are expected to spend the vast majority of your waking hours at work, and if you don't like it, they kick your ass out the door.

Do you get paid well? Sure. But it's not so much a choice of getting paid more to work more, and paid less to work less. That sort of thing I'd support. It's the mandatory giving up your life outside of work which sucks, even if you do receive a nice salary for it.

It's the main reason I quit the industry in 2003.

If you want to get paid well and work a 9-5 in the software world, you become a consultant and bill hourly. These types of shops are everywhere, most call them "consultancys" and they essentially small outsourced engineering teams for companies that can afford $175/hr but can't hire their own or need extra bandwidth.

[sonatine]

stick around, you get what, 3-5% a year tops? move to another .com and you can demand 20%...30% increase. eventually you get a rep if you do it too much but the game is the game.

Until this bubble goes pop just like the dot com one before it ...

whenever i see people kinda blanket compare this market ecosystem with the previous pre-bubble one, i know the convo is in serious trouble.

advertising and data-warehouse profit models are only going to be truly impacted by hamfisted government intervention at this point, and its worth noting that when we discuss truly exotic salaries (google/facebook/netflix/etc) we are dealing with companies heavily invested in at least one of those quadrants.

thats the opposite of a bubble burst, thats luddite egalitarianism and it didnt fly against the banking industry after subprimegate so i dont imagine we are going to see a privacy flavored gov jihad against silicon valley any time soon, least of all considering the extent to which google has mingled DNA with government over the last 20 years.

interesting timing; this is on drudge today:

https://www.ctpost.com/business/arti...e-13822095.php

but we read 'bombshell' reports like this what, once a week? no one cares.