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Riot uses League of Legends chatlogs to weed out toxic employees
- mbesto 10y agoUhh, isn't this illegal?
- techthroway443 10y agoTo take disciplinary action against employees who among other things are "'pulling rank' on other players to intimidate them"?
- squarejaw 10y agoLooks like it is. http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=lab&group=00001-01000&file=980 http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=lab&gr...
- techthroway443 10y agoNope. This article is specifically addressing social media accounts. Trying to lump your 'gamer tag' under that section is pretty sleazy.
- mbesto 10y ago> "social media" means an electronic service or account, or electronic content, including, but not limited to, videos, still photographs, blogs, video blogs, podcasts, instant and text messages, email, online services or accounts, or Internet Web site profiles or locations. Uh, if I play a game ("electronic service or account") and send someone else a message in chat ("instant and text message") then I'm pretty damn sure that is covered under that legislation. However, IANAL. > under that section is pretty sleazy. I guess "being sleazy" means you don't care about data privacy then huh?
- techthroway443 10y ago> However, IANAL. You don't say.
- zZorgz 10y agoEmployees aside, toxic nature is inevitable for competitive online games that allow for open communication. To "fix" this may mean to make chat communication closed, or opt-in with friends, or only have a select few chat rooms with heavy moderation, or only allow a select number of phrases, etc. It would require re-thinking how chat communication in games should work, something that say Nintendo and Disney put effort into.
- blakeyrat 10y agoMOBA games have an additional challenge in that if one player isn't as strong as the others, he actually makes the opposing team stronger. If I'm playing, say, MechWarrior Online, and my Catapult K2 is killed by the enemy, that doesn't make the weapons of all the enemy mechs suddenly do more damage. But that's exactly how MOBA games work. So it seems to me that the game design pretty much encourages this kind of behavior.
- stormbrew 10y agoCouldn't this have a high risk of overfitting (not sure if that's exactly the right word, but I think it conveys the idea) when using it as a predictive or proactive measure? Just because you observe a correlation in the past doesn't mean it will continue into the future, and there's a lot resting on this prediction.
- macintux 10y agoIt sounds like Riot handled this very well: rather than just fire people based on their analysis, they sat down with the employees to discuss the matter. So, yes, making an irrevocable decision based on one ambiguous data point is a bad idea, but using it as an indicator that a conversation should take place strikes me as wise.
- drabiega 10y agoThat's a really good reason for not making decisions outright based on the information. You'd want to use the results of these models as a means to direct attention to where it is most likely to be needed. It sounds like this is exactly what they did. Of course, the other side is that the chat data might create biases. The worry here would be that reading the chat logs might create a unfavorable opinion which then leads to unfair interpretations of workplace behaviors. If I was implementing such an action, I would make sure that the people checking in on those flagged by the system don't actually have access to the chatlogs, except in egregious situations.
- selectron 10y agoWhile overfitting is always possible, in this situation there is an easy causal explanation for why toxic players could be toxic employees. From my experience playing Dota I know that if I was stressed out by work or life I would be more toxic in game. In general another way to phrase it is that correlations in the past strongly suggest correlations in the future. This is especially true when you can think of reasons the variables are causally related. If they did this study and found that employees whose favorite cereal was frosted flakes are more toxic I'd be much more skeptical, as that could indicate they were doing a shoot everywhere and see what sticks approach.
- rhinoceraptor 10y agoIt seems just a little creepy that you are required to give up your in-game username as a condition of employment.
- Zikes 10y agoSounds perfectly reasonable to me. In a competitive online scene, any remote potential for an unfair advantage should be taken very seriously. To ensure that their employees aren't using insider knowledge, tools, or access to gain an unfair advantage, they'd have to know what their employees' accounts are. To do otherwise would potentially undermine the company's very business.
- rickhanlonii 10y agoSee: Draft Kings
- astrobe_ 10y agoYou got it backwards: they are asking for in-game name so they can check their past chat logs and/or current "reputation" (there's an in-game system that allows other players to give you reputation rewards). Once you get the job, you could simply create a new account to do whatever you want. Using it to get a competitive advantage for yourself wouldn't be very smart though, because you would have to sign up with your real name for an event if you want to make money from that. The best option would be to sell advantages to other players, like boosting their ranks or unlocking in-game goodies.
- sp332 10y agoHere's an article with more detail https://rework.withgoogle.com/case-studies/riot-games-assessing-toxicity/ https://rework.withgoogle.com/case-studies/riot-games-assess... Only "a couple" of employees were sent packing, and they were ones with other issues already going on.
- jessaustin 10y agoFrom your link: There are regional nuances, but toxic behaviors include homophobia, racism, sexism, and other forms of hate speech. This would indicate that there are regions in which such speech wouldn't be considered "toxic". I wonder if they've made a map of this?
- sp332 10y agoI took it to mean that sexism and racism are more common in different places.
- Dylan16807 10y agoThat wording doesn't indicate that. Having nuance does not mean something must stop being true, and the nuance could apply to other behaviors not in that small list. But I think what you're asking is probably true anyway. If you go to a country where homophobia is the norm, then saying something homophobic isn't really 'toxic' in the same way. It's a more mundane kind of bad.
- doktrin 10y agoMy first instinct is that this is creepy overreach, and that I'm glad I don't work for Riot. On the other hand, they have the right to big brother their staff - and said staff should probably know better. It's definitely one of the costs of turning a hobby into a job. That said, still glad I don't work there. To my mind, this sort of company behavior sets an unpleasant precedent, and I kind of like knowing I have the freedom to play a game without worrying about being fired for "snarky passive aggression" or something similar. Maybe I'd feel differently if gaming wasn't just something I did in my spare time.
- minimaxir 10y agoLeague of Legends is a 5v5 team game, not a private 1v1 affair. Anything said in in a LoL game is as sufficiently public as a Twitter account.
- doktrin 10y ago> League of Legends is a 5v5 team game, not a private 1v1 affair Does this imply that chat in a 1v1 game is private? That doesn't really follow, since the only difference is the # of immediate spectators > Anything said in in a LoL game is as sufficiently public as a Twitter account. I suppose I see where you're coming from, but this feels like a stretch. For starters, the vast (utterly overwhelming) majority of LoL players do not have a real name associated with their gaming handle. They're theoretically similar, but in practice are far from equivalent.
- huac 10y agoChat disappears after the game, unless someone screenshots (so it's 10x less private than a Snapchat DM or a 1v1 game). But this is orders of magnitude less public than Twitter.
- doktrin 10y ago> But this is orders of magnitude less public than Twitter Couldn't agree more, honestly. However, I had to acknowledge that the parent had a point in that they were theoretically comparable.
- frankmcsherry 10y ago"... a quarter of all fired employees had been unpleasant players. Toxic players tended to be toxic employees, even if the reverse wasn't always true." Isn't this saying the opposite?
- jessriedel 10y agoI don't think so. A = fired employees. B = unpleasant players. B is contained within A, so B implies A ("Toxic players tended to be toxic employees") but not the reverse.
- frankmcsherry 10y agoWe only have that P[B|A] = 1/4; we don't know anything about P[A|B] without more info. It could totally be that all non-fired employees are toxic, and viciously went after their weaker colleagues by having them fired! I guess that would make them toxic, but whatever.
- Dylan16807 10y agoAnd to make it even more complex, we have no idea what portion of the fired employees were toxic. You can be fired for a lot of reasons.
- jessriedel 10y agoI was just demonstrating that there was a consistent interpretation of the quote from the article.
- x1798DE 10y agoThough that seems to be how the sentence is actually parsed, it seems odd that that would be true. That indicates that every toxic player worked there, and some of the horrible people who worked there were actually not horrible in the context of the game.
- evan_ 10y ago
- Pica_soO 10y agoSurely, managements accounts where checked too?
- wnevets 10y agoRiot has a history of doing sleazy business dealings. I wouldn't be surprised if trolling wasn't just an excuse to get rid of these employees.
- enraged_camel 10y agoWhat kinds of sleazy business dealings? Can you give some specific examples, preferably with sources to back them up?
- nonanako 10y agoShuttering the dota community site/forum permanently with no warning and replacing it with a League of Legends ad would be a good start. http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/permastun/blog/sabotage-and-treachery-why-dota-players-hate-riot-/102580/ http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/permastun/blog/sabotage-and...
- chrisdbaldwin 10y agoDon't forget stealing all of the Dota hero/item concepts from said forum. For example, Warwick and Teemo were fan made concepts from the dota-allstars forums, iirc.
- enraged_camel 10y agoThe website dota-allstars was owned by Mescon, and it was acquired by Riot when he was hired by them. At that point, it became their property and they were free to do whatever they wanted, and they chose to display an ad for their main product. They then sold the website to Blizzard. How is that sleazy? I hope you aren't offended by this but all this sounds like some incredibly stupid MOBA/e-sports drama.
- bllguo 10y ago"Sleazy" isn't necessarily "illegal." All you have pointed out is that they were able and within their rights to do what they did. Sure, nobody disputed that. The discussion is about the morality of the move. And come on, why the unnecessary last comment
- Pfhreak 10y agoSaying nothing about the practice or the article, but is this title accurate? From what I read, the employees were brought into discussions about their behavior, and were not fired. (Though the article does present that some fired employees were toxic, it was not insinuated that they were fired based on this analysis.) Edit: Yes, later in the article, it does suggest some employees were let go.
- jtchang 10y agoFor those not familiar League of Legends is played fairly competitively and usually 5v5 (10 players per game). The only thing that matters in ranked play is whether your team wins or loses. League has one of the most toxic communities I have ever been a part of. The problem is if even one person decides to troll in a game then the rest of the players really have no choice. Also I would like to think if you work for Riot you actively try to improve the community. Otherwise I'd fire you too. There is a reason Blizzard GMs are almost routinely respectful.
- Bahamut 10y agoInterestingly enough, games like LoL have communities with heavy influence historically from Blizzard's own Battle.net, as it descends from DotA on Warcraft 3, a UMS cloning other similar UMS maps on wc3/Starcraft.
- namidark 10y agoI actually found league's community refreshing compared to DOTA2 which was a toxic mess in low MMR
- Razengan 10y agoI actually found the opposite. DotA2 actually has some measures in place that lessen the impact of trolls or AKF'ing/quitting players, such as sharing their gold and control among the remaining team, or disabling their abilities that can harm their own allies. In League of Legends, it's a guaranteed defeat if one ally decides to troll or quit (assuming comparable skill on both teams.) I've always thought that instead of reports and bans, team games should have a peer reputation system, like Reddit or HN's voting.* MMR/game skills should not be the only criteria for matchmaking; it should include reputation/social skills as well. Oh and disallow global chat in ranked matches. EDIT: Yes, it makes for a nice thought experiment to come up with a reputation system that would be resistant to "gaming" or abuse, as others have mentioned. One possibility is to associate a cost to upvoting, and/or make downvoting an earned privilege, similar to how new accounts on HN cannot downvote.
- Mendenhall 10y agoPretty crazy to me that they would act "toxic" on their own companies game, personal account or not. In my opinion thats just asking for trouble.
- ionforce 10y agoI'd think that toxic people don't tend to be long-term thinkers.
- at-fates-hands 10y agoAlso passionate gamers are like passionate sports players. Some times the game and your opponents get the best of you and you do or say things you wouldn't normally do in a normal, low stress game.
- astrobe_ 10y agoIt's not that simple. You can be a smart guy but a helpless sore loser, be one of those toxic players and be ashamed of yourself if someone would have you read your chat logs after the fact. Those real time games are very immersive, and players can easily let their ugly true self out if they aren't careful. And that's why Riot is interested in their potential employees' chat logs.
- lubujackson 10y agoIt also means they might only be toxic while playing competitive games online and not working face-to-face with others. I guess I don't see why this would be more useful than judging them on their actual work behavior, kind of like when companies fire someone over their porn habits by reading their Google history. They can do what they want, it just seems a little invasive and probably pointless.
- fhood 10y agoThe article already states that they found a very clear correlation. Besides if someone is turns out to be a complete @$$hole whenever they aren't afraid of repercussions do you really want them working at your company.
- SFJulie 10y agoThe world of companies looks like ranked LoL. Managers really look likes most are trolls
- fapjacks 10y ago> "Pretty much everyone we spoke with was appalled at their own behaviour. We actually received some essays from employees vowing to change their ways and become not just more considerate gamers but better people," Yeah, right. Because that's how you fix toxic behavior. You can just show them they're being assholes. This definitely has nothing to do with threatening their jobs, or anything like that. /s
- Pinatubo 10y agoAre Riot employees required to play LoL? Are they identified as Riot employees in-game and expected to be ambassadors for the company?
- noxToken 10y agoI don't know if they're required to play, but Riot employees who queue up and get matched typically are named Riot${something}. I have heard that users who aren't Riot employees with Riot in their name can have their handle renamed.
- ylou 10y agoI don't think you can have "Riot" in your handle at all unless you're an employee.
- Ftuuky 10y agoMakes sense that employees need to know the game they're working for, right?
- developer2 10y agoIt was stated on a recent (3 weeks ago?) Twitch steam that in order to be part of the Q&A-ish testers team, you not only have to play League, but you need to be higher elo - I think it was Diamond+? - just to be hired. I mean, it's kind of cool to have "real players" handling the game, but it is a barrier to entry, and definitely furthers the culture of "must play LoL (and be good at it) in order to work for LoL".
- joshmn 10y agoI'm interested to see how Blizzard is going to handle its Overwatch community. It's very likely Overwatch will become incredibly competitive, and I don't think Blizzard has ever been a part of that scene (competitive WoW, anyone?) Time will tell.
- thenipper 10y agoWhat about hearthstone? Or you can't chat in that right?
- Cyph0n 10y agoNope, but it's still surprisingly a toxic community. You can select 1 of 6 emotes, all of which can be taken negatively by players. Also, you can play slowly for no reason.
- ntumlin 10y agoTo show an example of this, here's some pro players spamming the sorry emote when they are sure they'll win. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__WBdA5FvE0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__WBdA5FvE0
- Ftuuky 10y agoSometimes players add you to their friends' list just to insult you, I stopped counting the times I was called a faggot in HS.
- erics32 10y agoI don't think Blizzard is a stranger to the esports scene. Every single one of their current game offerings has a competitive scene with the exception of diablo 3.
- Rezo 10y agoOverwatch does several interesting things to try to limit bad behavior. For example, there is no scoreboard at the end of a round like you'd typically find. As a result, there's very little "git gud" trolling or toxic chats were a player will blame his whole team when losing. It's a much friendlier atmosphere overall, and seems to attract a more diverse crowd.
- protomyth 10y agoSo, what prevents Riot from selling this information to other companies?
- doktrin 10y agoNothing whatsoever, assuming this isn't somehow covered by the game's EULA.
- protomyth 10y agoI sense an amazing income opportunity for about to be closed games. Its not like they have to tell you they did it anyway. I'm sure some of those PvP conversations would be sought after by many interested parties. [to the down voters: I'll take bets on when this will happen]
- outworlder 10y agoI hope CCP doesn't do anything like that with their employees. Otherwise, they would all be fired. Or all promoted. In some games(taking Eve Online as an example), being a dick is just part of the game. As long as you are not doing it in any professional capacity, or insulting people (as opposed to their in-game persona).
- davesque 10y agoSeems like a slippery slope. For example, what if these "troll" employees were grumpy because of some on-the-job stress factor? Then, by dismissing those employees, Riot would be hurting its chances of diagnosing and solving that problem i.e. they would be treating the symptom but not the cause. I dunno. Just food for thought.
- chrischen 10y agoNo amount of stress is excuse for bad behavior just like no amount of alcohol is excuse for rape, drunk driving, involuntary manslaughter, etc.
- davesque 10y agoI wasn't saying it was an excuse. I was just saying that it could point the way to identifying a larger problem. And why the hyperbolic analogy with rape, manslaughter, etc.??
- Veratyr 10y agoYour analogy isn't particularly good, as alcohol is something a person makes a choice to engage in, fully aware of the dangers. You can't know how stressful a job or project will be before you take it. Sometimes a stress inducing change (like management) can happen against your will. And regardless of whether bad behavior can be excused, sometimes the most net good comes from from removing the stress rather than the person. I'd further argue that with enough stress bad behavior can be induced in anyone. The bad consequences of the bad behavior should really fall on the person responsible for the stress.
- PhasmaFelis 10y agoThe article is a little unclear on whether they're outright firing anyone over this, but if they are, it's only the worst offenders. (And in the context of MOBA games, "worst offenders" probably means a continuous torrent of abuse and obscenities, not just grumpiness.) The rest (and possibly all of them) are being called to resolution meetings and shown their chatlogs--most of them have been mortified and promised to improve.
- smadge 10y agoWhat terrible working conditions. Management monitors your off duty leisure activity and uses that to evaluate your on duty performance.
- decwakeboarder 10y agoRiot employees are paid to play (on a Riot "sponsored" account). Just like company email, chat, or any other service, it should be assumed that it's going to be monitored. If Riot employees want to troll on LoL, they probably shouldn't do it on a company account.
- developer2 10y agoIt's specified in the article that new employees (who do not have an employee account yet) are expected to provide their League username so it can be inspected. This has nothing to do with "representing the company via an official channel"; this is directly an invasion of privacy of employees' private lives, for the purpose of weeding out those who don't "fit the company culture".
- ffn 10y agoHonestly I don't have an opinion on the creepiness / necessity of riot doing this... but anyone else notice how common the dichotomy between "forced politeness" and "free toxicity" occurs in naturally occurring human interactions? In MOBA games, we have DotA versus LoL In internet forums, we have 4chan versus Reddit In nations, we have USA versus China And even in traditional families, we have dad versus mom For some reason, even though freedom and structure are polar opposites, as humans we apparently demand access to both.
- JeremyBanks 10y agoVisit /r/all and tell me how much "forced politeness" you see.
- draw_down 10y agoNot really sure what you mean with those examples.
- onetwotree 10y agoMOBAs like LoL and Dota2 do bring out the worst in many people, but in a few they bring out the best - the people who go harder when faced with adversity, who offer gentle, constructive advice and assistance to teammates who are doing badly, and keep their spirits up throughout the worst of defeats. These are exactly the traits I want in coworkers. The opposite - blaming everyone but yourself when your team is losing, raging at people who make honest mistakes, playing selfishly, and so on, are the traits I don't want. Edit: this is all very problematic of course, but if I noticed that someone my company was thinking about hiring was one of my Dota2 friends, I'd put in a good word based on their in game behavior.
- alexandercrohde 10y agoThis is ridiculous. Now that people know they're being monitored they will make say nice shit on their work accounts and make non-work accounts where they can "be themselves." The system is now useless.
- multinglets 10y agoIf I worked at Riot, I would go quit right now.
- vonklaus 10y agoI respect the principle. For me it hinges on how much of this was communicated to the employee and in what way. If they explicitly told you, and put it into an employee contract at least it would be a consideration. If it was either not explicitly comunicated by a human it would be a bad overreach, especially for a non riot handle. I think the degree of transparency & communication is important, and whether you represent the company (e.g. Riot handled accts). That said, random employee survellience is extremely fucked up, and I would not condone it.
- sprkyco 10y agohttps://zedshaw.com/2016/06/10/riot-games-is-violating-california-employment-law/ https://zedshaw.com/2016/06/10/riot-games-is-violating-calif...
- developer2 10y agoThe submission site doesn't allow comments from "non-gaming employees", so I will post a response comment here, aimed at Feliz whose comment you can read in the submission site's comments. --- @Feliz, that is exactly the type of indoctrinated response one would expect from a brainwashed, ass-kissing employee. An employer should never be looking into personal lives. Look up what Henry Ford did to his employees for a perfect example of how completely insane it is. Your last paragraph comes across as an egotistical sociopath who is dictating how everyone else should behave. The stat quoted is that it was discovered that 25% of toxic players were determined to be underperforming employees. That's actually a fairly low percentage; I bet that 25% of employees who fell into the non-toxic player pool would also fall under the umbrella of "toxic employees". Correlation does not equal causation. Honestly, you sound like someone posting with your real name in hopes that your managers will see your comment and promote you, or at least look upon you favorably compared to your silent coworkers. Taking an activity that employees partake in during their free time to determine employment status is a disgusting practice that should not be permitted under the law.