12 ms·

Six Months at Riot Games

320 points by nostalgeek 8y ago

unstableph 8y ago
>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 “fggots” 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 “ngger”. 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. 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. 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.
- vaeix 8y ago
  Your gaming culture is not my gaming culture. You can say nasty things to each other without being racist or homophobic, especially at a place of work.
  - unstableph 8y ago
    Of course, I agree. As I said there's this new "egalitarian and respectful and social justice and all of that" culture that is being created by the games I mentioned and many others, but traditional online games will probably always follow the "classic" gaming culture. "A place of work", that's another matter; I agree it's unprofessional. I'm talking purely about videogames and those who play them at home.
    - mnem 8y ago
      Speaking as a dinosaur, that is not classic gaming culture. Anecdotally that highly anatagonistic language became far more the norm in my circle after gamers from the U.S. (and vocal communication) became common. I’ve always unfairly made the assumption that it was a reflection of culture when growing up in the U.S. It is disappointing that it is generally accepted as the norm worldwide now.
    - eeZah7Ux 8y ago
      > I agree it's unprofessional No, professionalism is something else. Not harassing people is basic human decency.
    - pjc50 8y ago
      > "A place of work", that's another matter; I agree it's unprofessional. I'm talking purely about videogames and those who play them at home. At a gaming company where people play the game they make at work, what happens to this boundary?
  - Eochei5h 8y ago
    Most nasty things are rooted in group stereotypes, historic conflicts and the like. If it weren't divisive in some way it wouldn't be used as insult.
- irb 8y ago
  If use of racist and homophobic slurs is 'gaming culture' then there is problem with gaming culture. I don't really see how that kind of language is something that needs protecting.
  - shard972 8y ago
    I think there is something wrong with a culture that feels the need to supress what is effectively amateur comedy going on within small groups. Targeted harassment sure, that's not something to just blindly protect but as a homosexual, i see more harm in trying to police jimmy calling his friends faggots playing CoD than I see in allowing people to speak their minds. Until someone can posit a great explanation for why its funny for me to call my friends faggots when they have kids and I don't and why that is in the end bad for society as a whole, I don't buy the argument we need to be policing speech along these lines.
    - throwaway-hn123 8y ago
      > i see more harm in trying to police jimmy calling his friends faggots playing CoD than I see in allowing people to speak their minds. Who exactly is trying to stop Jimmy? This is about behaviour AT WORK. Jesus wept, how are some people so utterly dumb?
    - exelius 8y ago
      It’s more that you shouldn’t use that word in the first place — it doesn’t matter if your friends are gay or not; the fact it’s a hateful insult that tells gay men they are lesser is enough. Imagine the young little gay kid who hears “f\t” screamed 20 times an hour — how will that make him feel for the rest of his life? Are you just cementing in his head that it’s wrong to be gay? I hate to say it, but the days of absolute freedom of speech may be over. Everything these days is done through a commercial platform, and we’re now saying those platforms have editorial responsibility to monitor that speech (outside of any government mandate so it doesn’t fall afoul of 1st amendment).
      - madengr 8y ago
- antoineMoPa 8y ago
  That's gaming culture to have racist and homophobic speech? There is no valid reason for this. I don't get why people think this is justified and acceptable.
  - Eochei5h 8y ago
    > There is no valid reason for this. Provoking an opponent into irrational behavior seems like a valid game strategy. In other words the language is not necessarily used for its face content but for its psychological effects.
- rmc 8y ago
  It's a workplace, not your personal video game club.
- rhencke 8y ago
  Maybe that's a subset of 'gaming culture' you've experienced. But, I've played in many, many large online areas across a diverse set of games, socialized in many gaming forums online and, simply put, this would not be acceptable behavior at all and would quickly get people tossed out. It feels like you are saying 'well, boys will be boys', and that's honestly just a way to rationalize unacceptable behavior by refusing to taken ownership of it.
- awild 8y ago
  This is not gaming culture at all, and even if it were it's still extremely problematic. Especially as Riot is not a LAN Cafe, but a company. Companies have codes of conduct and people can be reprimanded or let go for not following them inside the companies offices, it's that simple. Additionally this will remain gaming culture as long as noone takes an active stance of fighting against it.
- deleted 8y ago
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- Uberphallus 8y ago
  I agree with you. And the fact that this was posted on Tumblr including a Content Warning only adds icing to this ironic cake. To those who disagree, lemme put it this way: it's not only videogame culture, it is plain old trash talk. Boxing, basketball, soccer, UFC, tennis, you name it, you have it in most competitive sports. It shocks pretty much anyone who hasn't taken part in a competitive sport/e-sport community before, and find it backwards, but from my perspective, they haven't been socialized in that environment. It's not LGBT-phobic, though many insults come off as that because they've traditionally been insults, that's all. If the FIBA or FIFA start having mixed gender leagues, the same would happen: women offended when they stopped being oblivious about how men behave in these environments. Actually even in soccer, many women are turned off when they find out female players spend a significant part of the time calling each other b/c* (in some amateur UK leagues at least). This is just happening with videogames because it happens to be one of the few competitive fields where men and women's ability differs the least, having them playing together more often than most of all other disciplines.
  - pmyteh 8y ago
    It's absolutely LGBT-phobic. Do you know how many out gay professional footballers there are in the UK? Zero. Because the atmosphere around sexuality in professional football is sufficiently toxic that very few people are willing to come out before they retire. These things can change. Thirty years ago black players had bananas thrown at them on the pitch. After a lot of work, racism is now rare at football grounds, and generally stamped on when it appears. We could do the same with anti-gay slurs too, if we cared enough.
    - Uberphallus 8y ago
      Justin Fashanu [0] is a counter example. He came out in 1991(!). I don't see how it's a problem now when it wasn't back then. That said, it's the fandom that's rotten, not the players and the industry itself. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Fashanu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Fashanu
      - 8y ago
eurticket 8y ago
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..
amarant 8y ago
wow, I would expect such behavior from teenage gamers, but I'm surprised to see it reported among (presumably adult) game-devs. what is perhaps even more surprising is that they seem to somehow be able to cooperate enough to deliver a undeniably popular game. 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.
- masklinn 8y ago
  Why? Shared behaviour — even juvenile — creates strong in-group bounds. And some competition within a cooperative environment is common. Especially if most of the group does relatively menial work. Furthermore juvenile behaviour is commonly encouraged by both gaming and SV companies/corps: aside from being convenient to pull in just out of college without necessitating their adaptation to adulthood, it also serves as distraction/misdirection from work environment issues (permanent crunch, burnout, comp'): people who complain can just be feminized and dismissed as needing to "man up". In fact, regular introduction of critics (and their following violent rejection) serves as both outlet for frustration and a strengthening of in-group bonds.
  - amarant 8y ago
    I mean, you would appear to be right. I wont argue the contrary. still, I had not expected it.
    - mozumder 8y ago
      So, in tech, do people not go to strip clubs anymore? Like, what's the culture now? Are all interpersonal relationships now formalized into an algorithm? Do people not get into actual fistfights at the office anymore?
      - pjc50 8y ago
        > do people not go to strip clubs anymore? I've been in the industry 20 years and not had that happen anywhere I worked in the UK. > Are all interpersonal relationships now formalized into an algorithm? Eh? > Do people not get into actual fistfights at the office anymore? The guy I knew who did that at his gaming company Christmas party got put on "final warning" for a year.
deleted 8y ago
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marsrover 8y ago
> While on a team outing, the same senior staff member messaged a new employee’s girlfriend on Facebook asking if she was “DTF” I would probably do something that would get me fired if this happened to me.
- pjc50 8y ago
  You'd complain to HR? (yes, I know you were originally implying that you'd commit violence, but in a lot of dysfunctional workplaces reporting a manager for something they did will have almost the same negative consequences to the reporter as if they'd just punched them)
- beart 8y ago
  My question is, why did a senior staff member have access to a new employee's girlfriend anyway? I'm guessing the new employee friended the senior staff member on Facebook. This just seems like so many cross boundaries.
  - etrevino 8y ago
    Does that really matter?
time0ut 8y ago
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. 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.
- shawn 8y ago
  Uhh, that logic doesn’t folllow. Heh. I’m a former S2 dev (heroes of newerth, a pretty similar game). The player base is uncontrollable. It’s a bunch of testosterone fueled teens. Granted, we didn’t have any women in leadership positions either, but I’d like to think that was more because we were relatively small and it was Kalamazoo.
  - pjc50 8y ago
    > uncontrollable It's not uncontrollable, you'd just rather have their money than ban them.
    - StreamBright 8y ago
      if you ban them they stop spending.
    - shawn 8y ago
      No, I assure you it’s uncontrollable. There are millions of games played per day on Dota. How do you propose to fairly evaluate each of them?
      - adn 8y ago
        The same way ubisoft moderates rainbow six siege: ban anyone who uses slurs etc very quickly. It's not an unsolvable problem.
        chronid 8y ago
ohashi 8y ago
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.
- shawn 8y ago
  It is shocking. It was completely unheard of behavior at S2 Games. I was shocked to even be in the same market segment.
  - erulabs 8y ago
    Except for the CEO?
    - shawn 8y ago
      Saying the N word once in 2009 in the middle of a game is nothing like being casually and obnoxiously racist. I’m not excusing his behavior, but he never acted like that offline. He was a kind and thoughtful manager.
talonx 8y ago
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? [1] https://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html https://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html
- lmm 8y ago
  I would expect that to be true of any industry that people are desperate to work in - especially one that hires mainly grads who don't have any experience of what a "normal" workplace should look like.
lsmarigo 8y ago
Interesting that this one is doing well compared to the longer in-depth kotaku article a few days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17710188 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17710188 - fwiw that piece has since been corroborated by a ton of former riot employees on twitter. 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.
- eksemplar 8y ago
  This is not the way things are though. I’m a manager, and I wouldn’t tolerate any of the painted stories for a second. In fact, none of the people in my network, which includes numerous large Scandinavian tech companies would tolerate anything of the sort. You do see that stuff, of course, but you see it mainly in children aged 10-15, and otherwise only in private, because anyone who keeps it up after that will be unemployable. If this is commonplace in America workplace, then you truely are an odd country.
  - oddthink 8y ago
    I think there are self-reinforcing pockets out there. I'm a manager also, and I know if I heard any of this I'd stamp it down immediately. Heck, if I didn't, I wouldn't be doing my job, and I'd (hopefully) eventually be called on it myself.
  - ritchiea 8y ago
    Well she says in her account the large majority of people at Riot Games are lovely. The problem tends to be that there are powerful people who the company has strong reasons not to fire that perpetuate the worst behavior. Then the culture of ignoring the worst offenders allows other people to get away with little things. And the culture of ignoring things period, eats away at employees's sense of well being and sense that their workplace is fair and looks at them with respect. I'm sure there are plenty of managers at Riot Games who wouldn't tolerate the stories for a second, but there are a few at or near the top that will and that can ruin an entire workplace.
lubonay 8y ago
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. We can have a non-phobic, egalitarian swear-off!
- kgran 8y ago
  Maybe I'm wrong about the offensiveness of these, but lamer and n00b are sort of neutral.
- zimablue 8y ago
  Once something is agreed as an acceptable insult it's not as much of an insult. This it like trying to hold back the tide. Much the same way that the medical word for what used to be called retardation and I don't know the current PC word for has to be constantly rotated. Whatever that word is, is precisely what people want to call each-other.
MatthewWilkes 8y ago
9 clicks to opt out of tracking cookies. Why do these companies bother adding these banners if they're not going to comply with the law?
- majewsky 8y ago
  To instill negative public opinion of GDPR.
  - Zak 8y ago
    It's working. I've found myself unable to access a bunch of US-based local news sites from Europe without using a proxy, and I'm more annoyed with the EU for trying to enforce laws beyond its borders than I am with the sites for seeing geoblocking as the most expedient solution.
almostCEO 8y ago
A woman writes a post saying she’s offended by typical male jokes. The majority of employees are male, but they have to instead adapt to the vocal minority that can’t take a dick joke. I understand there are idiots but stories like this encourages me to never hire women, because they’re obviously over-sensitive and will at some point write a “I have been offended and this company is sexist” post and nobody will question it since it was a woman who wrote it.
- eksemplar 8y ago
  You realize that you are defending a manager naming a one woman team “bros and ho”, right?
- anentropic 8y ago
  > stories like this encourages me to never hire women maybe you're just an asshole
  - almostCEO 8y ago
    Thank you for your respectful response. I’d like to say that, if you were in charge of hiring people, you’d try to calculate the risks when hiring someone. Hiring a women is unfortunately way too risky. You can find dozens of these posts with no proof whatsoever, but people will believe them and support the writer no matter what (some people even go and insult like you, because they can’t handle people having different opinions).
    - Djvacto 8y ago
      Please pm me what company you are almost CEO of. I want to be adequately prepared to avoid this place like the plague. Also, I'd like to point out, you said: >(some people even go and insult like you, because they can’t handle people having different opinions). >stories like this encourages me to never hire women, because they’re obviously over-sensitive and will at some point write a “I have been offended and this company is sexist” post You wrote both of these, unironically, right next to each other. Can you tell me how not hiring women isn't a case of you not being able to handle people having different opinions?
madengr 8y ago
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. What’s wrong with the tech sector when it comes to computer science? Maybe the science is no longer required?
- abledon 8y ago
  You could have amazing software, but if you don’t have a high energy marketing team / operations, you might not reach many people with said amazing software
- alexgmcm 8y ago
  I doubt many of the senior managers mentioned have CS degrees. It's like the old joke about the limit of Engineering as GPA tends to zero is Business Administration.
- michaelcampbell 8y ago
  > What’s wrong with the tech sector when it comes to computer science? Maybe the science is no longer required? That's part of it. I'm a CS grad, but I'm "rare" in my circle. Some of it comes from this "natural born programmer genius" vibe. Don't misread me, I work with some truly talented programmers that weren't CS and some mediocre ones that were, but it has gotten to the point where people are specifically looking at degrees that aren't CS for dev jobs.
- indigochill 8y ago
  My perspective is that in a tech company you usually still have the nerds and bros dichotomy. The nerds are the engineers, while the bros are the ones in sales/management/community/design positions. You can also see this in pop culture portrayals of tech jobs as well, such as Silicon Valley (Bachman is a bro caricature) or Halt and Catch Fire (Joe's about 90% psychopath, 10% bro).
  - taurath 8y ago
    I think this is definitely an outdated dichotomy, especially in the context of a game company. The bros/jocks now are the gamers, who used to be nerds - now the nerds are the hardcore programmers/database people/accountants. Those who are in the gaming culture are every bit as much in hypermasculine jock culture as football players, just without the physical abilities.
zimablue 8y ago
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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Maybe everything should be completely corporatified but I just find the idea deeply depressing.
- glassesman 8y ago
  >I saw men acting the way men do in a very male environment and objectifying/trying to sleep with women. I'm a man and I do none of this, even in a "very male environment."
  - zimablue 8y ago
    Well that's fair enough but in some cultures it's fairly common. I am not a big bro guy but I've definitely discussed women with male friends/colleagues. I don't think it's super demeaning or immoral to discuss girls that you like, it's just getting very taboo in parts of Western culture when done by men. Sex dynamics are like at the core of society it's all still happening whether you're speed to discuss it or not.
pandasun 8y ago
Does she have any recordings of those things that were said? Since it happened so often? Because this entire thread, with lots of people being angry at Riot Games, is based on someone's word. Not saying it's not true, but you might want to proceed with some more caution. I've seen a friend's life destroyed (he committed suicide) by things his ex were saying about him. None of which were true (I heard her admit to this). Anyway, if it's true, then they should be ashamed.
- camel_Snake 8y ago
  She mentions these same claims are drawn directly from her 8 page resignation letter years ago. What exactly would she have to gain from making these accusations up?
mscasts 8y ago
This is kind of typical. So she joins a company that with male gamedevs and gamers, almost instantly complains about their language and how they design stuff then actions and language that is hard to believe gets spoken or done and she finally leaves and all that happens within six months. Take this for example: > "Rape became a punchline to jokes quite frequently, including one instance where an employee went on for several hours about how he was going to rape his male colleague, who was his hotel roommate. He was graphic in exactly how he was going to rape his roommate, who was a new hire, and it was obvious that the individual in question was extremely uncomfortable." That sounds completely bonkers and while I have worked in some bro-like companies even that is a bit hard to believe. It went on for several hours and no one said anything, really several hours? Sorry, I kind of want to believe her story but there is all too often females just trying to ruin male culture because some females just seem to get offended by everything and this scenario seems much more plausible to me. What is more likely, that everything she wrote happened just as described or that she exaggerates most of it because she got offended by some stuff along the way? I would say the second one unless proven otherwise. She makes a lot of grand accusations and for that I demand proof in order to believe it.
Djvacto 8y ago
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.
- mscasts 8y ago
  You mean anything critical against her wild accusations?
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pandasun 8y ago
The amount of white knights in this thread is absurd. She provided zero evidence and everyone is jumping to her rescue. Maybe wait for evidence first? Typical SF culture. Imagine if this was a guy accusing a woman. But that's different right? Yeah yeah, downvotes incoming... I'll take it..
- slivym 8y ago
  Excuse me, but she's writing about her personal experience - what evidence would you expect her to provide? If you hear someone shout the n word in an office and later tell me about it, should I disbelieve you? How about if you tell me, and a number of other people also tell me? Do I say no- you need to provide evidence. Even when no one has actually denied it happened? What about if a reporter who fact checks their stories tells me? Do I still disbelieve it? There is literally nothing anyone can say to persuade you.
  - mscasts 8y ago
    > what evidence would you expect her to provide? 1. Witnesses that confirms her accusations 2. Chats / emails / memos / pictures etc 3. If possible, maybe audio recording would be in order here? Why is it bad to ask about evidence? If someone told me aliens landed on earth I would not believe that person but suddently because she is a woman in tech, everything she say has to be the truth and nothing else is plausible? > There is literally nothing anyone can say to persuade you. What? This is exactly the opposite of what the author of the first comment is writing. He or she is asking for evidence in order to be able to believe it. P.S. Because no one denies that aliens have landed on earth doesn't mean it has happened.
- sctb 8y ago
  You need to fix your commenting by following the guidelines much more closely or we'll ban the account. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
ggregoire 8y ago
Not sure why people are flagging this topic. (was on top of the first page 2min ago, it's on second page now)
- pjc50 8y ago
  There's enough of a pro-sexism faction to flag it off the front page, this usually happens to discussions of sexism in tech.
  - irb 8y ago
    The typical reaction of HN to articles about sexism in tech is basically proof in and of itself of sexism in tech.
    - nathanaldensr 8y ago
      I reject this assertion. I am certainly not sexist, but I flag stories like these because they belong on Reddit discussion forums. Hacker News should be for tech-related discussion, in my opinion.
      - camel_Snake 8y ago
        Out of curiosity did you also flag the recent posts about Tesla going private or the NYT financials?
    - whamlastxmas 8y ago
      I think the real reason people dislike sexism discussions is because there's not a whole lot rational discussion to be had about it. If you try to make a point about a single aspect you might disagree with, you get shouted down as sympathizing with sexists. There's no winning and there's no minds to be changed.
- fenomas 8y ago
  Stuff like this often gets flagged off the front page, but usually it then just sits on page 2 for a while. This one is now down to page 5 (at only two hours old, with 200+ points). It's kind of hard not to suspect brigading...
inertiatic 8y ago
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. 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).
- vertex-four 8y ago
  Perhaps in theory people should be free to express themselves how they want, but we should question why on earth people want to express themselves in these ways and work to solve that. In the meantime, however, we live in an imperfect society where people are terrible, this does have consequences, and there does need to be some counterbalance against that - otherwise we’d be living happily in an anarchist utopia already.
- morgtheborg 8y ago
  > 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 Sure. In non-professional capacities. But in professional areas, we expect a bit of blandness so everyone feels welcome. While some groups might be comfortable mocking or using language that people deem derogatory towards minorities, women, different cultures, different sexual orientations, etc., we've decided that their preferred communication type does not trump the right of a person to feel safe and respected at work. If they'd like to be foul with their own sort outside of work, whatever, people who don't appreciate it can avoid them. Quitting my job to avoid feeling attacked, on the other hand, is an unreasonable burden placed on someone just so some dude can say bitch, fggot, and/or ngger or comment on someone's physical appearance.
- noelsusman 8y ago
  They are opposing goals, and personally I come down squarely on people not being free to express themselves however they want all the time. Work is a special place with special rules because we're forced to be there and we generally have little control over who is around us. There's a very high barrier for somebody to be able to walk away compared to just being out at a bar or something, so the behavioral standards should be more strict to compensate for that. Basically, I think women should be able to work wherever they want without having deal with coworkers commenting on their tits. I'm extremely fine with limiting people's speech in the workplace.
tinderliker 8y ago
Oh wow, another attention seeking woman doing a tell-all. That's new. /s
- sctb 8y ago
  If you post like this again we'll ban the account. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - tinderliker 8y ago
    You are not mad, you're serious.
tebruno99 8y ago
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. I'm male, I can't even imagine what its like for Women.
- sleepybrett 8y ago
  "It's not that I can't, it's that I wont."
tinderliker 8y ago
The only mistake I understood Riot did was: recruiting a person who doesn't understand gaming culture. I know many girl gamers who use the same language as Riot employees. It's almost like going to France and getting offended that everyone is speaking French.
- stormcode 8y ago
  Just because something is the predominant culture does not make it right or okay. It's not like going to France and getting offended that everyone is speaking French. Strip clubs, tit jokes, objectifying others, homophobic slander, and transphobia as part of a company 'culture' is toxic.
  - tinderliker 8y ago
    Don't impose your morals on a community you don't belong to. That's called colonialism btw.
    - stormcode 8y ago
      I've played league for 3 years, and have been a game developer for 12.
- taurath 8y ago
  I'm pretty sure the people being hired DO understand gaming culture, and this is as much of a critique on how much toxic masculinity and the "old boys club" mentality permeates gaming culture. Just as its not a valid argument to say hey its my culture to repress minorities and claim my race and gender is superior, its also not a valid argument to say using the N word and worse and sexually harassing coworkers and their partners is just "my culture". Gaming is a legitimate, large, potentially wonderful community (see GDQ and a lot of other great organizations and subcommunities), but asking people to not be total abusive assholes to female coworkers is NOT much to ask, and the only way it can diminish the community is if the community believes that harassing and being abusive towards women is one of the primary pillars of that community.
tothepixel 8y ago
Seems like companies with "toxic cultures" can actually be extremely successful.
- glenneroo 8y ago
  Why is that a surprise? "Toxic culture" in relation to Riot and Uber is basically defined as a "sexist bro-fest" and women being allowed to work the same jobs as men is a relatively new thing (historically speaking) and thus is still being fought on many fronts. Also look at e.g. Japan where women in the workplace are generally treated quite badly. There was a thread on HN yesterday or the day before which reinforced this trend.
- fineng123 8y ago
  Toxic cultures either come after the success or exist because one extreme talent allows it. I've seen both
erlongsb 8y ago
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.
zetimana 8y ago
So the entire Dublin office is only using lazy American slurs now? No one said something like you damn wanker, git, twit, bieber, maggot, fucker, tosser, daft, chav, prat, knob, sod, ninny, oaf, muppet or slag?
bradhe 8y ago
> 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. This...can't possibly be true. Is this true??
- FlipperBucket 8y ago
  Classic postmodernist eventuality. Everyone is equal, but if you take issue in highlighting that a practice might offend by implying that there is a difference, you become the enemy in reverse... eg what, you think blackface is offensive to those people? What do you mean by THOSE people? The lampoon in Tropic Thunder was eerily prescient.
- mrunkel 8y ago
  In Europe in general, blackface is more "acceptable" than in the US. It doesn't have the same cultural overtones, but I can't imagine that dark skinned people enjoy seeing it here either.
derangedHorse 8y ago
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 This is kind off-topic, but why wouldn't she be able to get home if she didn't agree to their mandates?

320 points by nostalgeek 8y ago

>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 “fggots” 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 “ngger”. 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. 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. 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.

vaeix 8y ago
Your gaming culture is not my gaming culture. You can say nasty things to each other without being racist or homophobic, especially at a place of work.
- unstableph 8y ago
  Of course, I agree. As I said there's this new "egalitarian and respectful and social justice and all of that" culture that is being created by the games I mentioned and many others, but traditional online games will probably always follow the "classic" gaming culture. "A place of work", that's another matter; I agree it's unprofessional. I'm talking purely about videogames and those who play them at home.
  - mnem 8y ago
    Speaking as a dinosaur, that is not classic gaming culture. Anecdotally that highly anatagonistic language became far more the norm in my circle after gamers from the U.S. (and vocal communication) became common. I’ve always unfairly made the assumption that it was a reflection of culture when growing up in the U.S. It is disappointing that it is generally accepted as the norm worldwide now.
  - eeZah7Ux 8y ago
    > I agree it's unprofessional No, professionalism is something else. Not harassing people is basic human decency.
  - pjc50 8y ago
    > "A place of work", that's another matter; I agree it's unprofessional. I'm talking purely about videogames and those who play them at home. At a gaming company where people play the game they make at work, what happens to this boundary?
- Eochei5h 8y ago
  Most nasty things are rooted in group stereotypes, historic conflicts and the like. If it weren't divisive in some way it wouldn't be used as insult.
irb 8y ago
If use of racist and homophobic slurs is 'gaming culture' then there is problem with gaming culture. I don't really see how that kind of language is something that needs protecting.
- shard972 8y ago
  I think there is something wrong with a culture that feels the need to supress what is effectively amateur comedy going on within small groups. Targeted harassment sure, that's not something to just blindly protect but as a homosexual, i see more harm in trying to police jimmy calling his friends faggots playing CoD than I see in allowing people to speak their minds. Until someone can posit a great explanation for why its funny for me to call my friends faggots when they have kids and I don't and why that is in the end bad for society as a whole, I don't buy the argument we need to be policing speech along these lines.
  - throwaway-hn123 8y ago
    > i see more harm in trying to police jimmy calling his friends faggots playing CoD than I see in allowing people to speak their minds. Who exactly is trying to stop Jimmy? This is about behaviour AT WORK. Jesus wept, how are some people so utterly dumb?
  - exelius 8y ago
    It’s more that you shouldn’t use that word in the first place — it doesn’t matter if your friends are gay or not; the fact it’s a hateful insult that tells gay men they are lesser is enough. Imagine the young little gay kid who hears “f\t” screamed 20 times an hour — how will that make him feel for the rest of his life? Are you just cementing in his head that it’s wrong to be gay? I hate to say it, but the days of absolute freedom of speech may be over. Everything these days is done through a commercial platform, and we’re now saying those platforms have editorial responsibility to monitor that speech (outside of any government mandate so it doesn’t fall afoul of 1st amendment).
    - madengr 8y ago
antoineMoPa 8y ago
That's gaming culture to have racist and homophobic speech? There is no valid reason for this. I don't get why people think this is justified and acceptable.
- Eochei5h 8y ago
  > There is no valid reason for this. Provoking an opponent into irrational behavior seems like a valid game strategy. In other words the language is not necessarily used for its face content but for its psychological effects.
rmc 8y ago
It's a workplace, not your personal video game club.
rhencke 8y ago
Maybe that's a subset of 'gaming culture' you've experienced. But, I've played in many, many large online areas across a diverse set of games, socialized in many gaming forums online and, simply put, this would not be acceptable behavior at all and would quickly get people tossed out. It feels like you are saying 'well, boys will be boys', and that's honestly just a way to rationalize unacceptable behavior by refusing to taken ownership of it.
awild 8y ago
This is not gaming culture at all, and even if it were it's still extremely problematic. Especially as Riot is not a LAN Cafe, but a company. Companies have codes of conduct and people can be reprimanded or let go for not following them inside the companies offices, it's that simple. Additionally this will remain gaming culture as long as noone takes an active stance of fighting against it.
deleted 8y ago
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Uberphallus 8y ago
I agree with you. And the fact that this was posted on Tumblr including a Content Warning only adds icing to this ironic cake. To those who disagree, lemme put it this way: it's not only videogame culture, it is plain old trash talk. Boxing, basketball, soccer, UFC, tennis, you name it, you have it in most competitive sports. It shocks pretty much anyone who hasn't taken part in a competitive sport/e-sport community before, and find it backwards, but from my perspective, they haven't been socialized in that environment. It's not LGBT-phobic, though many insults come off as that because they've traditionally been insults, that's all. If the FIBA or FIFA start having mixed gender leagues, the same would happen: women offended when they stopped being oblivious about how men behave in these environments. Actually even in soccer, many women are turned off when they find out female players spend a significant part of the time calling each other b/c* (in some amateur UK leagues at least). This is just happening with videogames because it happens to be one of the few competitive fields where men and women's ability differs the least, having them playing together more often than most of all other disciplines.
- pmyteh 8y ago
  It's absolutely LGBT-phobic. Do you know how many out gay professional footballers there are in the UK? Zero. Because the atmosphere around sexuality in professional football is sufficiently toxic that very few people are willing to come out before they retire. These things can change. Thirty years ago black players had bananas thrown at them on the pitch. After a lot of work, racism is now rare at football grounds, and generally stamped on when it appears. We could do the same with anti-gay slurs too, if we cared enough.
  - Uberphallus 8y ago
    Justin Fashanu [0] is a counter example. He came out in 1991(!). I don't see how it's a problem now when it wasn't back then. That said, it's the fandom that's rotten, not the players and the industry itself. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Fashanu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Fashanu
    - 8y ago

eurticket 8y ago

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..

amarant 8y ago

wow, I would expect such behavior from teenage gamers, but I'm surprised to see it reported among (presumably adult) game-devs. what is perhaps even more surprising is that they seem to somehow be able to cooperate enough to deliver a undeniably popular game. 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.

masklinn 8y ago
Why? Shared behaviour — even juvenile — creates strong in-group bounds. And some competition within a cooperative environment is common. Especially if most of the group does relatively menial work. Furthermore juvenile behaviour is commonly encouraged by both gaming and SV companies/corps: aside from being convenient to pull in just out of college without necessitating their adaptation to adulthood, it also serves as distraction/misdirection from work environment issues (permanent crunch, burnout, comp'): people who complain can just be feminized and dismissed as needing to "man up". In fact, regular introduction of critics (and their following violent rejection) serves as both outlet for frustration and a strengthening of in-group bonds.
- amarant 8y ago
  I mean, you would appear to be right. I wont argue the contrary. still, I had not expected it.
  - mozumder 8y ago
    So, in tech, do people not go to strip clubs anymore? Like, what's the culture now? Are all interpersonal relationships now formalized into an algorithm? Do people not get into actual fistfights at the office anymore?
    - pjc50 8y ago
      > do people not go to strip clubs anymore? I've been in the industry 20 years and not had that happen anywhere I worked in the UK. > Are all interpersonal relationships now formalized into an algorithm? Eh? > Do people not get into actual fistfights at the office anymore? The guy I knew who did that at his gaming company Christmas party got put on "final warning" for a year.

deleted 8y ago

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marsrover 8y ago

> While on a team outing, the same senior staff member messaged a new employee’s girlfriend on Facebook asking if she was “DTF” I would probably do something that would get me fired if this happened to me.

pjc50 8y ago
You'd complain to HR? (yes, I know you were originally implying that you'd commit violence, but in a lot of dysfunctional workplaces reporting a manager for something they did will have almost the same negative consequences to the reporter as if they'd just punched them)
beart 8y ago
My question is, why did a senior staff member have access to a new employee's girlfriend anyway? I'm guessing the new employee friended the senior staff member on Facebook. This just seems like so many cross boundaries.
- etrevino 8y ago
  Does that really matter?

time0ut 8y ago

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. 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.

shawn 8y ago
Uhh, that logic doesn’t folllow. Heh. I’m a former S2 dev (heroes of newerth, a pretty similar game). The player base is uncontrollable. It’s a bunch of testosterone fueled teens. Granted, we didn’t have any women in leadership positions either, but I’d like to think that was more because we were relatively small and it was Kalamazoo.
- pjc50 8y ago
  > uncontrollable It's not uncontrollable, you'd just rather have their money than ban them.
  - StreamBright 8y ago
    if you ban them they stop spending.
  - shawn 8y ago
    No, I assure you it’s uncontrollable. There are millions of games played per day on Dota. How do you propose to fairly evaluate each of them?
    - adn 8y ago
      The same way ubisoft moderates rainbow six siege: ban anyone who uses slurs etc very quickly. It's not an unsolvable problem.
      - chronid 8y ago

ohashi 8y ago

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.

shawn 8y ago
It is shocking. It was completely unheard of behavior at S2 Games. I was shocked to even be in the same market segment.
- erulabs 8y ago
  Except for the CEO?
  - shawn 8y ago
    Saying the N word once in 2009 in the middle of a game is nothing like being casually and obnoxiously racist. I’m not excusing his behavior, but he never acted like that offline. He was a kind and thoughtful manager.

talonx 8y ago

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? [1] https://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html https://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html

lmm 8y ago
I would expect that to be true of any industry that people are desperate to work in - especially one that hires mainly grads who don't have any experience of what a "normal" workplace should look like.

lsmarigo 8y ago

Interesting that this one is doing well compared to the longer in-depth kotaku article a few days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17710188 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17710188 - fwiw that piece has since been corroborated by a ton of former riot employees on twitter. 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.

eksemplar 8y ago
This is not the way things are though. I’m a manager, and I wouldn’t tolerate any of the painted stories for a second. In fact, none of the people in my network, which includes numerous large Scandinavian tech companies would tolerate anything of the sort. You do see that stuff, of course, but you see it mainly in children aged 10-15, and otherwise only in private, because anyone who keeps it up after that will be unemployable. If this is commonplace in America workplace, then you truely are an odd country.
- oddthink 8y ago
  I think there are self-reinforcing pockets out there. I'm a manager also, and I know if I heard any of this I'd stamp it down immediately. Heck, if I didn't, I wouldn't be doing my job, and I'd (hopefully) eventually be called on it myself.
- ritchiea 8y ago
  Well she says in her account the large majority of people at Riot Games are lovely. The problem tends to be that there are powerful people who the company has strong reasons not to fire that perpetuate the worst behavior. Then the culture of ignoring the worst offenders allows other people to get away with little things. And the culture of ignoring things period, eats away at employees's sense of well being and sense that their workplace is fair and looks at them with respect. I'm sure there are plenty of managers at Riot Games who wouldn't tolerate the stories for a second, but there are a few at or near the top that will and that can ruin an entire workplace.

lubonay 8y ago

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. We can have a non-phobic, egalitarian swear-off!

kgran 8y ago
Maybe I'm wrong about the offensiveness of these, but lamer and n00b are sort of neutral.
zimablue 8y ago
Once something is agreed as an acceptable insult it's not as much of an insult. This it like trying to hold back the tide. Much the same way that the medical word for what used to be called retardation and I don't know the current PC word for has to be constantly rotated. Whatever that word is, is precisely what people want to call each-other.

MatthewWilkes 8y ago

9 clicks to opt out of tracking cookies. Why do these companies bother adding these banners if they're not going to comply with the law?

majewsky 8y ago
To instill negative public opinion of GDPR.
- Zak 8y ago
  It's working. I've found myself unable to access a bunch of US-based local news sites from Europe without using a proxy, and I'm more annoyed with the EU for trying to enforce laws beyond its borders than I am with the sites for seeing geoblocking as the most expedient solution.

almostCEO 8y ago

A woman writes a post saying she’s offended by typical male jokes. The majority of employees are male, but they have to instead adapt to the vocal minority that can’t take a dick joke. I understand there are idiots but stories like this encourages me to never hire women, because they’re obviously over-sensitive and will at some point write a “I have been offended and this company is sexist” post and nobody will question it since it was a woman who wrote it.

eksemplar 8y ago
You realize that you are defending a manager naming a one woman team “bros and ho”, right?
anentropic 8y ago
> stories like this encourages me to never hire women maybe you're just an asshole
- almostCEO 8y ago
  Thank you for your respectful response. I’d like to say that, if you were in charge of hiring people, you’d try to calculate the risks when hiring someone. Hiring a women is unfortunately way too risky. You can find dozens of these posts with no proof whatsoever, but people will believe them and support the writer no matter what (some people even go and insult like you, because they can’t handle people having different opinions).
  - Djvacto 8y ago
    Please pm me what company you are almost CEO of. I want to be adequately prepared to avoid this place like the plague. Also, I'd like to point out, you said: >(some people even go and insult like you, because they can’t handle people having different opinions). >stories like this encourages me to never hire women, because they’re obviously over-sensitive and will at some point write a “I have been offended and this company is sexist” post You wrote both of these, unironically, right next to each other. Can you tell me how not hiring women isn't a case of you not being able to handle people having different opinions?

madengr 8y ago

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. What’s wrong with the tech sector when it comes to computer science? Maybe the science is no longer required?

abledon 8y ago
You could have amazing software, but if you don’t have a high energy marketing team / operations, you might not reach many people with said amazing software
alexgmcm 8y ago
I doubt many of the senior managers mentioned have CS degrees. It's like the old joke about the limit of Engineering as GPA tends to zero is Business Administration.
michaelcampbell 8y ago
> What’s wrong with the tech sector when it comes to computer science? Maybe the science is no longer required? That's part of it. I'm a CS grad, but I'm "rare" in my circle. Some of it comes from this "natural born programmer genius" vibe. Don't misread me, I work with some truly talented programmers that weren't CS and some mediocre ones that were, but it has gotten to the point where people are specifically looking at degrees that aren't CS for dev jobs.
indigochill 8y ago
My perspective is that in a tech company you usually still have the nerds and bros dichotomy. The nerds are the engineers, while the bros are the ones in sales/management/community/design positions. You can also see this in pop culture portrayals of tech jobs as well, such as Silicon Valley (Bachman is a bro caricature) or Halt and Catch Fire (Joe's about 90% psychopath, 10% bro).
- taurath 8y ago
  I think this is definitely an outdated dichotomy, especially in the context of a game company. The bros/jocks now are the gamers, who used to be nerds - now the nerds are the hardcore programmers/database people/accountants. Those who are in the gaming culture are every bit as much in hypermasculine jock culture as football players, just without the physical abilities.

zimablue 8y ago

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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Maybe everything should be completely corporatified but I just find the idea deeply depressing.

glassesman 8y ago
>I saw men acting the way men do in a very male environment and objectifying/trying to sleep with women. I'm a man and I do none of this, even in a "very male environment."
- zimablue 8y ago
  Well that's fair enough but in some cultures it's fairly common. I am not a big bro guy but I've definitely discussed women with male friends/colleagues. I don't think it's super demeaning or immoral to discuss girls that you like, it's just getting very taboo in parts of Western culture when done by men. Sex dynamics are like at the core of society it's all still happening whether you're speed to discuss it or not.

pandasun 8y ago

Does she have any recordings of those things that were said? Since it happened so often? Because this entire thread, with lots of people being angry at Riot Games, is based on someone's word. Not saying it's not true, but you might want to proceed with some more caution. I've seen a friend's life destroyed (he committed suicide) by things his ex were saying about him. None of which were true (I heard her admit to this). Anyway, if it's true, then they should be ashamed.

camel_Snake 8y ago
She mentions these same claims are drawn directly from her 8 page resignation letter years ago. What exactly would she have to gain from making these accusations up?

mscasts 8y ago

This is kind of typical. So she joins a company that with male gamedevs and gamers, almost instantly complains about their language and how they design stuff then actions and language that is hard to believe gets spoken or done and she finally leaves and all that happens within six months. Take this for example: > "Rape became a punchline to jokes quite frequently, including one instance where an employee went on for several hours about how he was going to rape his male colleague, who was his hotel roommate. He was graphic in exactly how he was going to rape his roommate, who was a new hire, and it was obvious that the individual in question was extremely uncomfortable." That sounds completely bonkers and while I have worked in some bro-like companies even that is a bit hard to believe. It went on for several hours and no one said anything, really several hours? Sorry, I kind of want to believe her story but there is all too often females just trying to ruin male culture because some females just seem to get offended by everything and this scenario seems much more plausible to me. What is more likely, that everything she wrote happened just as described or that she exaggerates most of it because she got offended by some stuff along the way? I would say the second one unless proven otherwise. She makes a lot of grand accusations and for that I demand proof in order to believe it.

Djvacto 8y ago

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.

mscasts 8y ago
You mean anything critical against her wild accusations?

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

pandasun 8y ago

The amount of white knights in this thread is absurd. She provided zero evidence and everyone is jumping to her rescue. Maybe wait for evidence first? Typical SF culture. Imagine if this was a guy accusing a woman. But that's different right? Yeah yeah, downvotes incoming... I'll take it..

slivym 8y ago
Excuse me, but she's writing about her personal experience - what evidence would you expect her to provide? If you hear someone shout the n word in an office and later tell me about it, should I disbelieve you? How about if you tell me, and a number of other people also tell me? Do I say no- you need to provide evidence. Even when no one has actually denied it happened? What about if a reporter who fact checks their stories tells me? Do I still disbelieve it? There is literally nothing anyone can say to persuade you.
- mscasts 8y ago
  > what evidence would you expect her to provide? 1. Witnesses that confirms her accusations 2. Chats / emails / memos / pictures etc 3. If possible, maybe audio recording would be in order here? Why is it bad to ask about evidence? If someone told me aliens landed on earth I would not believe that person but suddently because she is a woman in tech, everything she say has to be the truth and nothing else is plausible? > There is literally nothing anyone can say to persuade you. What? This is exactly the opposite of what the author of the first comment is writing. He or she is asking for evidence in order to be able to believe it. P.S. Because no one denies that aliens have landed on earth doesn't mean it has happened.
sctb 8y ago
You need to fix your commenting by following the guidelines much more closely or we'll ban the account. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

ggregoire 8y ago

Not sure why people are flagging this topic. (was on top of the first page 2min ago, it's on second page now)

pjc50 8y ago
There's enough of a pro-sexism faction to flag it off the front page, this usually happens to discussions of sexism in tech.
- irb 8y ago
  The typical reaction of HN to articles about sexism in tech is basically proof in and of itself of sexism in tech.
  - nathanaldensr 8y ago
    I reject this assertion. I am certainly not sexist, but I flag stories like these because they belong on Reddit discussion forums. Hacker News should be for tech-related discussion, in my opinion.
    - camel_Snake 8y ago
      Out of curiosity did you also flag the recent posts about Tesla going private or the NYT financials?
  - whamlastxmas 8y ago
    I think the real reason people dislike sexism discussions is because there's not a whole lot rational discussion to be had about it. If you try to make a point about a single aspect you might disagree with, you get shouted down as sympathizing with sexists. There's no winning and there's no minds to be changed.
fenomas 8y ago
Stuff like this often gets flagged off the front page, but usually it then just sits on page 2 for a while. This one is now down to page 5 (at only two hours old, with 200+ points). It's kind of hard not to suspect brigading...

inertiatic 8y ago

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. 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).

vertex-four 8y ago
Perhaps in theory people should be free to express themselves how they want, but we should question why on earth people want to express themselves in these ways and work to solve that. In the meantime, however, we live in an imperfect society where people are terrible, this does have consequences, and there does need to be some counterbalance against that - otherwise we’d be living happily in an anarchist utopia already.
morgtheborg 8y ago
> 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 Sure. In non-professional capacities. But in professional areas, we expect a bit of blandness so everyone feels welcome. While some groups might be comfortable mocking or using language that people deem derogatory towards minorities, women, different cultures, different sexual orientations, etc., we've decided that their preferred communication type does not trump the right of a person to feel safe and respected at work. If they'd like to be foul with their own sort outside of work, whatever, people who don't appreciate it can avoid them. Quitting my job to avoid feeling attacked, on the other hand, is an unreasonable burden placed on someone just so some dude can say bitch, fggot, and/or ngger or comment on someone's physical appearance.
noelsusman 8y ago
They are opposing goals, and personally I come down squarely on people not being free to express themselves however they want all the time. Work is a special place with special rules because we're forced to be there and we generally have little control over who is around us. There's a very high barrier for somebody to be able to walk away compared to just being out at a bar or something, so the behavioral standards should be more strict to compensate for that. Basically, I think women should be able to work wherever they want without having deal with coworkers commenting on their tits. I'm extremely fine with limiting people's speech in the workplace.

tinderliker 8y ago

Oh wow, another attention seeking woman doing a tell-all. That's new. /s

sctb 8y ago
If you post like this again we'll ban the account. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- tinderliker 8y ago
  You are not mad, you're serious.

tebruno99 8y ago

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. I'm male, I can't even imagine what its like for Women.

sleepybrett 8y ago
"It's not that I can't, it's that I wont."

tinderliker 8y ago

The only mistake I understood Riot did was: recruiting a person who doesn't understand gaming culture. I know many girl gamers who use the same language as Riot employees. It's almost like going to France and getting offended that everyone is speaking French.

stormcode 8y ago
Just because something is the predominant culture does not make it right or okay. It's not like going to France and getting offended that everyone is speaking French. Strip clubs, tit jokes, objectifying others, homophobic slander, and transphobia as part of a company 'culture' is toxic.
- tinderliker 8y ago
  Don't impose your morals on a community you don't belong to. That's called colonialism btw.
  - stormcode 8y ago
    I've played league for 3 years, and have been a game developer for 12.
taurath 8y ago
I'm pretty sure the people being hired DO understand gaming culture, and this is as much of a critique on how much toxic masculinity and the "old boys club" mentality permeates gaming culture. Just as its not a valid argument to say hey its my culture to repress minorities and claim my race and gender is superior, its also not a valid argument to say using the N word and worse and sexually harassing coworkers and their partners is just "my culture". Gaming is a legitimate, large, potentially wonderful community (see GDQ and a lot of other great organizations and subcommunities), but asking people to not be total abusive assholes to female coworkers is NOT much to ask, and the only way it can diminish the community is if the community believes that harassing and being abusive towards women is one of the primary pillars of that community.

tothepixel 8y ago

Seems like companies with "toxic cultures" can actually be extremely successful.

glenneroo 8y ago
Why is that a surprise? "Toxic culture" in relation to Riot and Uber is basically defined as a "sexist bro-fest" and women being allowed to work the same jobs as men is a relatively new thing (historically speaking) and thus is still being fought on many fronts. Also look at e.g. Japan where women in the workplace are generally treated quite badly. There was a thread on HN yesterday or the day before which reinforced this trend.
fineng123 8y ago
Toxic cultures either come after the success or exist because one extreme talent allows it. I've seen both

erlongsb 8y ago

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.

zetimana 8y ago

So the entire Dublin office is only using lazy American slurs now? No one said something like you damn wanker, git, twit, bieber, maggot, fucker, tosser, daft, chav, prat, knob, sod, ninny, oaf, muppet or slag?

bradhe 8y ago

> 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. This...can't possibly be true. Is this true??

FlipperBucket 8y ago
Classic postmodernist eventuality. Everyone is equal, but if you take issue in highlighting that a practice might offend by implying that there is a difference, you become the enemy in reverse... eg what, you think blackface is offensive to those people? What do you mean by THOSE people? The lampoon in Tropic Thunder was eerily prescient.
mrunkel 8y ago
In Europe in general, blackface is more "acceptable" than in the US. It doesn't have the same cultural overtones, but I can't imagine that dark skinned people enjoy seeing it here either.

derangedHorse 8y ago

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 This is kind off-topic, but why wouldn't she be able to get home if she didn't agree to their mandates?