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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."
Anything the SJW's touch turns to poison.
Wokeness signaling is not a no-loss proposition. Any gaming company has to realize that it also brings about:
a. Content censorship. Be prepared to run all your content decisions by an unaccountable "committee" that will issue arbitrary decisions. Unlike law and religion, these people are not sufficiently organized or organizationally mature to have a set of rules or standards to follow.
b. Departure from meritocracy in employment standards. One of the common demands is hiring higher number of minorities and women, while great as a principle without available qualified candidates the only way to meet targets is to hire unqualified candidates.
c. Gamers generally don't appreciate political messaging in games, as these groups repeatedly attacked and abused gamers in the past (i.e. gamergate)
..cue the deranged white knighter to whine about MRAs and incels so his tranny girlfriend goes easy on his bunghole tonight
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.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
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.
Time to grow up.
Well, actually, even if it kills *you*. They'll be OK.
This company makes games featuring impossibly hot ladies in skintight yoga-pant jumpsuits and thongs swinging glowing swords among other weaponry.
And the bosses had to take a survey to detect scent of a bro?
Fire the management; they have no idea what games they sell, who their market is, or what kind of staff latitude it takes to crank out one more SI Swimsuit model with armored bra and a laser cannon. What do they think keeps the lights on over there?
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.
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.
A male-oriented company, a female-oriented company and a SJW company or three SJW companies?
So now we simply react to "accusations"
They haven't been proven in a court of law yet, so media coverage is going to use weasel terms like "accusations".
Waiting for them to be proven in a court of law is extremely expensive for Riot. So, better to fix the issue before it becomes that expensive.
As to whether or not the accusations are true, well that's up to Riot at this point. And they appear to believe that they are at least true enough to be an expensive liability.
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.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Riot rose to massive success using the golden business model appealing to the sexuality of teenage boys. Then, for some reason, they like many companies before them, think it is wise to switch business models and change to appeal to demographics that have no interest in using their product. The company will decline, and a new company will rise and the cycle will continue.
"Liberalism is a very noble idea, currently controlled by some very bad people. Be sure you do not get the two confused.
You are saying that people should stop complaining about their boss touching their balls and farting in their faces?
No, we're saying that Excluding male players from a panel at a convention is wrong :
https://www.polygon.com/2018/9...
It's not like Riot Games is just a bunch of "Dudebros", there's a bunch of SJW types that work there too, none of this is actually new. Riot Games is a mess. On both sides of the political spectrum. Their game community is cancerous, their internal politics are screwed.
If anything, that "Boss" that was "touching balls" wasn't even a "Bro" to begin with, just your typical Male Feminist Ally, which (made up stat) have higher per-capita rates of sexual assault than normal males.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
Old Employees will leave for an other opportunity, retire, get ill... A host of issues which means just keeping the old guys in the company is a bad business decision. Now if your company is openly hostile to other groups, then you will have a general hiring problem over all.
Besides, how is treating women and minorities like a valued team member such a horrible thing? You say you want to focus on their skills but not their gender or race. However if someone from a different gender or race has to prove a higher standard, then you are not focusing on skills.
The Bro culture, isn't a good thing, it is actually very toxic even to other men working in the company. It creates a culture where you cannot ask a question or work together, because everyone is trying to pound their chest to show how much more superior they are. Only for them all just be rather mediocre, but just too impressed with themselves to realize it.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The problem is, the impetus behind this stuff now competes with the profit motive for capitalism in general.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
There are a lot of women gamers out there, who are playing the same rough and tumble games the guys are, being that their gender can be remain anonymous, no one really knows who bested them or not.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Better for them to fix the issue
That's the damn point.
It's an accusation. An issue is something that's actually been shown to exist.
It's like patching over a non-existent hole in a wall.
And once you let this poisonous little ideology in, all that's seen are holes in walls.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I'm dead serious. Who gives a fuck?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Oh fuck off!
My issue has nothing to do with "women" or any other social class.
Other than a bunch of social busybodies who want to have a modicum of control, however petty, among their fellow man.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I didn't say that.
I know there are cases of genuine abuse.
But I also know there are a lot of cases of *imposed* changes meant to fix problems that simply didn't exist in the first place.
All to display wokeness, or foster an ideology as a form of social control.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
First of all being sexist isn't being a 'bro.' Second of all, in case anybody forgot bro just means brother. It doesn't mean you are excluding anyone or treating people poorly. Even most 'nerds' and woman bro fist because it is a short handshake. Why can't people just call out individual sexist things when they happen than blame "culture." Seriously, let people do what they want and when it becomes a problem handle that one person that is being sexist or assaulting you. No matter where you are "culture" doesn't take precedence over the laws and the laws in the U.S. are pretty damn stringent. This just sounds like someone is upset that others are having fun (I assume having fun is what they mean by bro culture). SJWs always use "bro" as a negative. Remember calling people "Bernie Bros" if you were a man and like Bernie Sanders just because Bernie wasn't a woman like his opponent in the 2016 democratic primary. Now that I've beaten the word "bro" to death, how about we talk more about just sexist culture. Please don't tell me any group that consist of more men than women makes it sexist. This is generally what these journalist use to confirm sexism in tech. Just having a majority doesn't make the majority evil. Every single person who went to college in the 2000s can confirm that if you took a computer science class it was going to be 90% men. I'd bet woman are over-represented in tech based on college graduation rates in computer science, although I don't have statistics handy. My point is the reason for a majority has nothing to do with sexism and being a minority doesn't make you oppressed. Lumping people into groups based on sex or race is wrong, even against the majority.
If I have to carry around dead weight in the form of a token $minority_du_jour, then yes, I do have a problem. If a woman can do her job, great. Hire her. If you just hire her for "diversity"'s sake, you're now one up on the dead weight list and one down on the worker list, because I go to a place where I don't have to pick up the slack of someone whose only qualification is a pair of tits.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
I'll care the instant someone insists Bill Clinton get charged for RAPE. Story
You give yourself away by giving a pass to a rapist, add to that your lack of evidence of Trump actually doing something wrong and you sound like a lunatic.
I kinda doubt that many people have a problem with seeing someone from a minority (in that particular field) as a problem. The problem arises when minority hires are hired for being from a minority and not for skill. That is something we do have a problem with.
The reason is that if you're in a team of 4 and you get a new hire, you're then a team of 3 because the work of one person vanishes into training the new hire and undoing the hire's blunders. That's true, independent of the new person's skills. This should change quickly or you notice that you have someone who is unfit for the job.
And the main difference between a white cis male and anyone else is that you can then simply fire the white cis male. DARE to do that if the dud is from some minority.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
A manifesto is something that should be reserved for revolutionaries and bombers.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I have Apserger's (or ASD). I am not an MRA. I don't like being a victim and I take responsibility for my own actions rather than whining about society. I can complain about how life is unfair for someone with my challenges or I can find ways of working with what I got and having the life I want. Your implication is that people with high functioning ASD are more likely to be MRA jerks. Well, I am not one. I get along well with my coworkers, treat women and people who are different than me with respect. None of this technically disproves your statement. However, if you are ever tempted to paint us with a broad brush, please think of me in the future. I am not ashamed of being autistic. I take responsibility for my actions and do my best to be someone people enjoy being around and working with. Being an MRA jerk is quite independent of the autism spectrum.
Really? "So what you're saying is..." Did you really just do that?
So you adhere to "guilty until proven innocent" I see.
So you are completely illiterate, I see. After all, there was no guilt assigned in my post.
It's an accusation. An issue is something that's actually been shown to exist.
And Riot investigated themselves, and apparently felt there was enough proof it existed to change their policy. Since it's an internal investigation, they are under no obligation to share the actual results with the public.
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.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
Past that. It's 'investigate the coverup' time.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
made up stat
I'm just going to leave that there.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
How would you react to an all normal male (by rule) panal?
There's your answer.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Modded troll for telling the truth. The SJW way. Instead of proving him wrong, you try to hide his speech. It isn't working.
You may be okay with being forced to be nice, but a lot of people have a problem with that. I also generally like "nice". But then it gets complex. Is censoring yourself to be "nice" okay? Who gets to decide what "nice" exactly entails? Treating everyone with respect? But isn't it disrepectful and not "nice" to call out things about cultures or whatever that don't fit into "nice"? While I expect everyone to respect the things you mentioned (personal space, private belongings), I don't expect them to have to treat me certain ways otherwise.
"Nice" isn't owned by any on particular group of people. Every group (based on sex, gender, race, ethnicity) has "nice" and "assholes", but they're not all the same.
The problem that a lot of people have when calling out SJWs is that they're *not* nice. These are people who see issues in society (some of those are legit), but the path they take to try and reach the goal of a better society is completely side-lined by their methods (such as fighting racism by encouraging racism). SJWs are the new religious right; the groundwork doesn't sound bad (treat each other nicely, etc.) but the actual execution is terrible (protesting outside of funerals of people they think fit into their religious worldview).
... One of the common demands is hiring higher number of minorities and women, while great as a principle without available qualified candidates the only way to meet targets is to hire unqualified candidates.
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.
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.
You just made my point.
If men and women prefer different kinds of games, a gaming company that hires almost entirely men is missing half the market
A manifesto is something that should be reserved for conceptual artists, philosophers, and poets.
Nobody is doing what you are saying though. That's the problem. Show us one game where the developers said "fuck women, we hate em, so we are going to make our game men only."
If you have only men in the company, you'll never know if your game is driving away women.
(Actually, the evidence is pretty clear that games are driving away women. I should have written "If you have only men in the company, you'll never know why your game is driving away women.)
Sorry, no. When I work, I work. I don't give a fuck about whether my coworker has bigger tits than me, what I care about is whether his work gets done.
I look for a mating partner in my spare time, it's kinda hard to concentrate on work when the blood is in a region where it has more fun than in the brain.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Either works for me, but it has no room anywhere where constructive work is to be done.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
IIRC 'Custer's Last Stand', on the Atari 2600 involved a rapey lowres 'cutscene' between levels.
That was more a troll than a game.
'Duke Nukem' required a sense of humor, hence it was clearly a 'no feminists' game.
You have it exactly. If you never hire women, you don't even know that gang rape seems aren't funny to women. Or that trolls stop being funny when they're saying "I'm going to stick a knife up your cunt, you bitch". You'll think "oh, it's only people with no humor that have problems with this."
When did even "SJW" become an accepted term?
As far as I have noticed, it's used derogatory about people that in many cases actually raise valid concerns about intentional and unintentional mistreatment of women (or - in many cases - other people of various sorts), derogatory language against HBTQ people, and how hard privilege can be to spot when you are the one enjoying privilege (a trap many of us can fall in) ...
You never played duke nukem, it's just obvious.
'Picture Bugs Bunny anally raping Elmer Fudd. It's funny.' Para G. Carlin.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I've organized male only events before. There are genuine reasons for doing so, just like how we have separate men's and women's facilities in lots of places.
So yes, my answer is that it's fine and you should stop being ridiculous about it.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Keep telling yourself that.
You remain a mammal, you notice and it affects your behavior. Which isn't to say it turns you into a pig, more you are extra nice to the tits owner operator.
I'll grant that it's rare in tech. Just based on demographics.
Story: At work, Girl comes in wearing a push-up bra, I notice. Ask: 'Did you change your hair? Something is different today...' Later one of the other women decides I need 'clueing in' tells me she's wearing a new bra...I say: 'Duh, I can't exactly compliment her on that.'
If I was uglier, that would have been harassment, as it was, we were flirting. People do that.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
By wondering what a panal was. Putting spelling mistakes aside it would depend on the context; the fact even you need to point out "by rule" says a lot about why. Panels have been mostly male only without rules for so long in the tech sector that a rule requiring it would seem pointlessly backwards. If you see an all male panel in many fields you don't even notice it. If someone was holding an event on primary school teaching and decided to have a session with an all male panel I could understand that as men only make up 15% of primary teachers. Obviously it'd be nice if the session had at least some tangential relationship to diversity or encouraging more men into teaching etc.
Troll Level: Abject Newb
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Story: At work, Girl comes in wearing a push-up bra, I notice. Ask: 'Did you change your hair? Something is different today...' Later one of the other women decides I need 'clueing in' tells me she's wearing a new bra...I say: 'Duh, I can't exactly compliment her on that.'
How about: "Story: At work, Girl comes in wearing a push-up bra, I notice. Ask: 'Good morning, how was the drive in? Nice work on that presentation yesterday.'" They are you co-worker, not your wife. They don't need compliments on their looks.
You remain a mammal
No shit. I didn't stop liking tits because I went to work. Doesn't mean I have to actively acknowledge at the office.
...as it was, we were flirting. People do that.
And it's fucking creepy, knock it off.
Odd. I guess I'm no mammal. Then again, I have been accused of not being human, so I guess it might just be true.
I really don't care about anything below the neck of a coworker. And above the neck I care about the inside of their cranium, not what's growing on top.
Maybe that's why I get along with the bald fat guy from the mainframe crew so well. After all, he knows something I don't. Mainframes.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I can only deduce that women, too, have something better to talk about than nail polish and which celebrity fucks which one, from how wrong the assumption that guys talk about trucks and "chicks" is.
Or maybe I just know the wrong guys. If we go out for cocktails, the topic is usually computer games and D&D.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I honestly don't get how sex is a thing at work. I work at work. I fuck at home. I don't take work home and I don't fuck in the office.
Yes, it's actually that simple.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You are 100% right, if the initial logic of diversity hiring was remotely followed. Originally, it said that companies could increase their markets by having people with different backgrounds adding input to create new things. What doesn't work is hiring people with different backgrounds to fuck up something people not of their background enjoy.
"Liberalism is a very noble idea, currently controlled by some very bad people. Be sure you do not get the two confused.
I have one base for judgement: Do I like the game?
That's basically all I care about. Do I like the game they produce? Is it something I want to play? Is it engaging? Are the characters believable? Do I care about them? Are the playable characters interesting, preferably equally interesting so I am interested in seeing the different stories they get to tell unfold? Are the enemies and their motivations believable?
That is what people who drop money on a game care about. If I want to change the world and make a statement, I donate to whatever cause I believe in. If I buy a computer game, I want to play an effin' computer game!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You have it exactly. If you never hire women, you don't even know that gang rape seems aren't funny to women.
If you make a game that is funny to women, but not funny to men, is that ok ? No ?
At some point, you guys just have to accept the obvious : Guys and gals just don't enjoy the same kind of stuff. Sure there's overlap sometimes, but some games are simply a better fit to either gender's characteristics.
It's ok that not every game ends up catering to everyone poorly, but caters to specific niches well, at the cost of maybe being "offensive" to other people. The option is simple :
Don't like it, don't buy it.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
At some point, you guys just have to accept the obvious : Guys and gals just don't enjoy the same kind of stuff.
And that, in a nutshell, is why you want to have both men and women work at your game company.
The complaints at Riot games had nothing to do with sharing a beer, BBQ, talking trucks, or the hotness of other employees, or nail salons, or reality TV.
The complaints allege men and women got very different responses when pitching the same idea; that women struggled to advance in the company because of their gender; and managers talking openly about sex with their female employees.
Your straw man argument doesn't work here.