Riot Games Issues New Company Values In Wake of 'Bro' Culture Accusations (venturebeat.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Riot Games, the maker of the enormously popular League of Legends multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) PC game, has issued a new set of company values on its web site. They're the result of some soul searching after the company was accused by many of its own employees last year of having a sexist "bro" culture. The company said that these new values replace the company's Manifesto from 2012 and reflects conversations with more than 1,700 Rioters about "what we want our company to be."

Comments

SJW time

[Anonymous Coward]

Anything the SJW's touch turns to poison.

Re:SJW time

[Anonymous Coward]

Get woke, go broke.

Re:SJW time

[Chas]

Please.
Show us on the doll where the evil culture touched you...

Sorry, notice the term "accusation".
An accusation is not evidence of wrongdoing.

So you're flipping a proverbial nut over something that has a good possibility of not even being true.

But hey, outrage culture! Right?

Re:Cue...

[Chas]

Well, maybe if they'd just leave people the fuck alone, and stop pressing their shitty politics into EVERY FUCKING FACET of human entertainment and interaction, there'd be nothing to complain about.

But no! THEY know BETTER!
THEY are going to save all us "peons" with their superior morality. Even if it kills us.

Re:Get Woke Go Broke.

[Joviex]

So now we simply react to "accusations"...

How soon before Riot goes under because of this poisonous ideology.

Well, if they go under becaue they are a shitty business, internally, good riddance?

Success is not only about the physical material wealth a company can produce; especially at the cost of society mental health.

To believe otherwise, is to show how obtuse, or retarded, one is.

Go Woke, Go Broke

[Anonymous Coward]

I buy a game to have to fun. I want to get away from my boring life and get some excitement. Being forced at gunpoint to agree to a hypocritical cancerous political agenda where people can be openly discriminated against, censored, attacked, fired or treated differently because a deranged political cult called SJW likes to ruin the lives or random people who didn't do anything is just EVIL. These people act just like Nazis and will always call their victims 'Nazis." These are professional victims who are in a state of unending outrage 24/7. They always attack relentlessly without empathy. They are sadistic and unforgiving. They are hateful and actively seek new victims to abuse. They ruin anything they take control of.

I'm a liberal and I'll never support this evil cancer. I won't vote the left until they are purged. Even Trump doesn't make me this upset or angry.

Re:Wokness signaling

[RedK]

Actually, there's a lot to be said for gaming companies to hire both women and minorities; these are both groups that it would be valuable to have as customers, but which aren't very well served.

How sexist do you have to be to believe women and minorities need "special" games and can't just play what everyone else plays.

Like Weinstein?

[Somervillain]

Harvey Weinstein at this moment is only accused of misconduct, but given the number of accusations, I believe he is guilty of many, if not all, of the accusations.

When you have many accusations, it is very much worth a look as to why. My software company is 10x their size and we don't have many accusations of a sexist culture. I am not aware of a single one. Most women would praise how we treat female employees and especially female engineers. People generally don't make false accusations in the software industry. If you don't like where you are, it's easy to get a new job elsewhere.

Even if 100% of the accusations were false, it would be very much in Riot Games' interest to figure out why so many people are making these accusations? What is their motivation? Even if the allegations were proven to be exaggerated, they're at least unhappy and that is worth investigating why for a software company.

Think of sensitive SJWs as the canary in the coal mine. Even if their tolerance for BS is lower than yours, chances are that things are not too awesome if they're complaining about their job (it's easy as can be to find another job in the software industry). Forcing the company to rethink how they treat their employees is likely to make things better for everyone.

Re:Like Weinstein?

[Anonymous Coward]

Think of sensitive SJWs as the canary in the coal mine. Even if their tolerance for BS is lower than yours, chances are that things are not too awesome if they're complaining about their job (it's easy as can be to find another job in the software industry).

That would be a fine way to look at it if the average person labeled "SJW" were just (perhaps overly-)sensitive folks. But that's not the case. The people bearing this label actively seek out what they perceive as social injustice, and where necessary cause that injustice, purportedly to bring light where they see it as needed. These are people who go into a situation, often in droves, with the intent to be offended by something.

That's the bit people don't get. An average worker filing a complaint might get called "SJW" by the company bigot, but most of the rest of the world recognizes that's not who they are or what they're doing. The SJW actively seeks out and destroys cultures they find offensive, and they deserve all the hate they get.

Re:Like Weinstein?

[HornWumpus]

I believe 90%+ of the accusers were just trading sex for a movie part.

Some of the accusations are explicitly that, but somehow 'I pretended to like it', makes him a rapist and her not a whore.

If she ran from the room, there is possibly a case. But if she gave the BJ and took the part, no foul or both guilty.

Re:Like Weinstein?

[HornWumpus]

Everybody knew, she knew before the meeting. If she gives the blowjob and takes the part, she's a whore and he's a john.

The only decent people involved are the ones that ran from the room. They have cases, most don't.

Persistence is not rape, not even creepy persistence involving promises of Oscars.

How do you interpret: 'I pretended to like it', that's whoring 101.

Re:Like Weinstein?

[Chas]

Unlike you, I'm one of those people who believes in the concept of "Presumption of Innocence".
I REALLY have a severe problem with destroying things (and people) based merely on accusation.

And "looking into accusations" is NOT the same thing as believing accusations and penalizing the company or the focus of such accusations until they're proven.

And people "didn't" generally make many accusations.

NOW, however, it's a proven path to victim privilege. Likely, 99% of women are NOT going to abuse such a thing.
But you ever hear the term "the squeaky wheel gets the oil"? What WILL happen is that a minority of occasions will come to define EVERYTHING.

And no, SJW's aren't canaries.

They're chickens, and of COURSE the sky is falling!

Re:Like Weinstein?

[AmiMoJo]

Persistence is coercion, especially when the person being persistent holds your career in their hands. Coerced sex is rape.

Re:Wokness signaling

[RedK]

How clueless do you have to be to believe games targeted at young white men may contain things that turn off other groups?

Can you explain to me what the difference is between a "young white men" game vs a say "young black men" game ?

Or how the presence of a "Young men" game makes it so "Young female" games can't exist ?

Clueless is the proper word, you just aimed it at the wrong target.

Re:Cue...

[AmiMoJo]

You are saying that people should stop complaining about their boss touching their balls and farting in their faces?

I don't think many people would find that to be an unreasonable complaint.

Re:Wokness signaling

[HornWumpus]

Makeup targeted at young women may contain things that turn off other groups. They should sell makeup targeted at normal men...and go _broke_.

WTF is wrong with making games enjoyed by gamers? It's called knowing your market. 'Derpression Quest' is a terrible game that nobody plays non-ironically.

Re:Wokness signaling

[Solandri]

The problem is a mismatch between expectations and reality. SJWs believe without qualifications that men and women are equal. But it's been empirically proven that they're wrong - men and women prefer different types of games. So it's not at all surprising that a culture at a company developing games with a primarily male audience (90% of MOBA players are male) will be skewed towards silly male behavior. Just like I'd expect the culture at a company developing games with a primarily female audience would be skewed towards silly female behavior.

If you ignore the evidence and use the fantasy that the two are equal as your guiding principle, you end up with employment environments which are inferior for producing both types of games (those preferred by men, and those preferred by women). Because you've stripped away part of the development culture which makes the games "click" with their audiences. You gotta be careful to limit your remedies to target actual problems - harassment, demands for sex, withholding promotions based on gender (which to be fair seems to be most of the criticism leveled at Riot). When you start to targeting innocent "male" behaviors like nerf fights in the hall, or the gender ratio of your developers matching the pool of job applicants rather than being 50/50, you've gone too far.

Disclaimer: I have nothing against female gamers or female game developers. One of the most influential video game developers in the genre I preferred when I was growing up (adventure games) was a woman. And I think she was instrumental in breaking home computer games away from the stereotypical shoot-em-up genre popular in arcades. But even she recognized that men and women have different interests.

Re:Bro culture

[RedK]

Bro culture is when guys share beers, meat on a BBQ and talk trucks and about how "hot" some of the ladies are.

It's the same thing as a bunch of women getting together for a latte at Starbucks to discuss the new nail salon down the street, how much of a whore Kimberly is for sleeping with that disgusting pig Steve and how "Hot" Chad's shirt made his chest look.

Except for the men it's toxic. For the women it's empowering.

Re:Wokness signaling

[RedK]

damsel in distress

So you're saying Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros shouldn't ever be made ?

and a total lack of genderqueer characters

You know which game has a total lack of genderqueer characters ?

Pong. It has no Genderqueer characters. It has no gendered characters at all. In fact, it has no characters.

Because that's the kind of content that's largely being opposed;

No one is opposing you making a game about Genderqueer folks who don't save people in distress.

People are opposed to you trying to turn Mario into a Genderqueer drag queen that simply walks in a player picked direction (any direction, wouldn't want to offend lefties!) with no actual goal (no coins, that implies the evils of Capitalism. No mushrooms, as drugs and the war on drugs is a tool of oppression for minorities. No princesses, as that creates a negative gender stereotype. No Bowser or Koopas or Gumbas, as animal cruelty is vile).

Some of us just want to play Mario. You don't like it ? Feel free to pick another game in the vast catalog of thousands of other games that exist.

Is it that bad that they try to appeal to several audiences at the same time?

It's a good way to make a bad product yes. If you try to please everyone, you're most likely to simply end up pleasing no one.

Re:Cue...

[RedK]

Wow. They had a bit of time set aside for women and non-binary people, and the snowflakes went ape-shit.

I think the snowflakes in this case would be the people too sensitive to take part in an inclusive event that includes everyone. Everyone being MEN and WOMEN.

The whole event was targetted to snowflakes who can't stand having to share their time with other people. It was actual sexism.

It's not surprising though that you're using snowflake wrong in this case. You'll never admit to being on the wrong side of the actual sexism happening. Let's be clear : Excluding MALES is never inclusive. Including males is never sexist.