Sunday, September 2nd 2018
Riot Games Gaffe Results in Sexism Allegations at Pax West 2018
In what ended up overshadowing most of the news coming out of PAX West 2018, Riot Games delivered a masterclass in how not to handle things in a politically-correct environment. The situation in question concerned a series of sessions that were targeted to, and I quote, "women and non-binary folks" which was well intended and meant to be more of an acknowledgement of the minorities in the gaming industry.
Unfortunately, this wording and then poor-execution and follow-up from their part meant that things quickly turned sour. People at the event were quick to notice that the room reserved for these sessions appeared to have volunteers attempt to keep them away. What was intended to be a support session then turned into allegations flying all around, and social media lit abuzz with what seemed to be discrimination against straight men by the company.These sessions were targeted at increasing the gender diversity in the gaming industry by offering resume reviews, interactions with women employees of Riot Games and were scheduled to be held throughout the event from 10 am to 6 pm. When asked for clarification, a Riot Games recruiter made things worse by saying men were allowed but only after 2:30 pm which was quickly turned into fodder for the ever-growing fire that now added segregation allegations as well. Making things worse were more Riot employees using their social media accounts to double down on this stance by invoking the privilege argument, and calling out some of the complainers as "manbabies". These were primarily targeted at members of the League of Legends subreddit who in turn were, in the author's opinion, extrapolating things beyond reason but ended up being another case study example of how not to handle things. Riot Games ended up having to provide a statement late last night local time, which did little to assuage those who felt that anyone who paid for an event ticket should have received the same treatment as others. This has since resulted in many people, game journalists and industry personnel alike, taking sides and opening up a can of worms that, in this author's opinion, both sides need to acknowledge and work towards a resolution sooner than later.
[Update, September 7 2018: Two Riot Games employees, including one referenced above, have since been let go by the company as reported by The Verge]
Unfortunately, this wording and then poor-execution and follow-up from their part meant that things quickly turned sour. People at the event were quick to notice that the room reserved for these sessions appeared to have volunteers attempt to keep them away. What was intended to be a support session then turned into allegations flying all around, and social media lit abuzz with what seemed to be discrimination against straight men by the company.These sessions were targeted at increasing the gender diversity in the gaming industry by offering resume reviews, interactions with women employees of Riot Games and were scheduled to be held throughout the event from 10 am to 6 pm. When asked for clarification, a Riot Games recruiter made things worse by saying men were allowed but only after 2:30 pm which was quickly turned into fodder for the ever-growing fire that now added segregation allegations as well. Making things worse were more Riot employees using their social media accounts to double down on this stance by invoking the privilege argument, and calling out some of the complainers as "manbabies". These were primarily targeted at members of the League of Legends subreddit who in turn were, in the author's opinion, extrapolating things beyond reason but ended up being another case study example of how not to handle things. Riot Games ended up having to provide a statement late last night local time, which did little to assuage those who felt that anyone who paid for an event ticket should have received the same treatment as others. This has since resulted in many people, game journalists and industry personnel alike, taking sides and opening up a can of worms that, in this author's opinion, both sides need to acknowledge and work towards a resolution sooner than later.
[Update, September 7 2018: Two Riot Games employees, including one referenced above, have since been let go by the company as reported by The Verge]
192 Comments on Riot Games Gaffe Results in Sexism Allegations at Pax West 2018
This world has gotten very angry and ugly. Frankly...I'd prefer to not be a part of it.
Best Regards,
Liquid Cool
Everywhere I go, people are yelling at each other, or into their phones. This country is the worst kind of dysfunctional, groups of people are not fun, because there is too much hate brewing in our lives. Our government seems to relish the divisiveness, from the President on down. There is no Reason left in this country. If there is, it is hiding from my sight!
Yeeeaaahhhh...good luck with that! Narcissist much? Green hair, blue hair, red hair, purple hair, long hair, short hair, no hair...all are my choice. But no need to explain what you really meant by that. I get it. People are "born with" whatever they're "born with". And because they were "born with" it, they don't/shouldn't have to do anything about it. The world should change instead.
Again...good luck with that! If it's them, it's them, it's them...then really...truthfully...in all factuality...IT'S YOU!!! You don't know what I have, or haven't, lived through. I happen to be a professional scapegoat. Systematic discrimination is what I do for a living. Well...I wouldn't exactly call it a "living". But as long as I'm still "alive"...I guess you could call it that.
People need to blame all their faults on someone. And that someone can't possibly be themselves. So they find the person whose fault it is the least...and blame them instead. It's a perfect world I tell ya! Gettin' better every day!!! Not a clue. Had to google it. Still not a clue...:wtf:
Welcome to reality.
Reverse sexism will always exist as long as they claim sexism does.
Want a men only gym, won't happen, but try to join a women only gym, that will never happen either.
I've gotten to the point where I check the site out of habit, not out of desire and I've had enough...hardOCP, Tom's Hardware and the rest might lack a bit, but at least they are not provoking political discussions under the guise of "news"
Looking at this picture again, they don't even hide the fact that the above analysis is correct. Instead of saying "no men allowed" (because that's too blatant, I guess?) they said "women and
LGBTnon-binary allowed." They pretend like not being sexist starting at "2:30 P.M." is okay...Has Riot Games officially commented on it? I expect a "mistakes were made and they will not happen again" type of response from corporate.
While the video above is totally unrelated to technology, the issue here is the lengths people go to try and accommodate everyone when a simple "to everyone" would be enough.
EDIT
Apparently, i remembered wrong and the reason for the speech in the video was not the one i thought. It was in fact a "reply" to a proposed bill for gender diversity, and what a "reply" it was, lol.
The retarded idiots promoting "political correctness" are doing more harm than good by involuntary discriminating the races, sexes or sexual orientation.
People never learn I guess...
When your house is on fire, you tend to not care that there is also an ant infestation of the house. The house really hasn't burned since the fall of the Soviet Union so now we're chasing after ants and everyone is angry because they reproduce faster than they can be squished. If there was an alien invasion, global food shortage, or <insert something else here>, no one would care about minor tribalism strife. The elephant in the room always gets the attention.
For the record, you're factually wrong. USA is 85th in terms of ethnic diversity and 66% of 15-64 females are working versus 77% of 15-64 males. More or less average in both cases. Thing is, virtually everyone in the USA 12 and older has access to a smartphone, Twitter, and Facebook. Anyone can make a lot of noise about nothing--and this is spreading thanks to the rapid modernization of third world countries. Tribalism will get much worse and may never actually get better. It's in our genes as a survival instinct.
a) There are tons of highly iconic female characters in games and movies, but as we all know it, you all conveniently insist on ignoring them to fit your narrative.
b) Who gives a shit if they are openly gay non binary hermaphrodites, just imagine it yourself that they are. How the hell I played through Alien:Isolation imagining I'm Amanda Ripley. While being a dude. Mind blowing, right?
c) 90% of characters used to be male white characters because that was the largest audience in the beginning and because of technical limitations. If you look games from the past, literally all enemies were male and they looked exactly like the protagonist himself. Guess what, technology. They couldn't afford to make 50 different models and paint them with 50 different textures each. It's also ironic when diversity folks want more female characters as NPC's and then cry misogyny when you shoot them. But are fine when we mow down thousands of male characters. It's just so ironic and funny it makes me roll on the ground and laugh like a madman.
d) "used to be reserved for the dirty nerds coz it was too childish, but now everyone wants to have a pie" And here is the usual case of people yet again not understanding the context of words where I literally called myself " dirty nerd"... No one is stealing my toys, I was stating that gaming was considered as something negative in the past and quite frankly, in my country still is. If you say you're a gamer in your 30's they'll consider you childish. And that wasn't any different when I was 15 or 20... We just had our hobby and we had fun in it not really giving two fucks about anything other than having fun and doing crazy shit. And now the Diversity Squad arrived and wants their BS shoved in with full force. That was the statement I made. But you just proved me right by arguing with yourself and stating like someone is stealing my toys. It's not "stealing my games" as much as it's "ruining the games" diversity garbage is screwing up the games because people who demand diversity have no concept of designing games. They just shove in some gay shit totally out of context and call it a day. Like in Mass Effect Andromeda where character first introduces itself and then in the same sentence states it's gay. Do you ever introduce yourself to someone with first sentence about your sexual orientation? Give me a break. And that's just the most obvious example. They are just obsessed with shoving their diversity nonsense in for the sake of having it in. God forbid someone would actually take great care to craft a complex story that potentially includes that. No, just throw it in there flat on the face. Only thing selfish is expecting quality from games and they are trading it for diversity points. A checklist of what all skin colors, sexual orientations and 700 trillion genders they can tick off.
e) The hiring bias has come so far that companies now hire women for the sake of diversity and diversity quotas even if they had a far more qualified man applying for the position as well. Yay, great win for diversity, hiring people because vagina! Also, lets just entirely dismiss the fact that more men apply for mathematics and programming and as a result, more men will end up working in such positions. I just love it how no one ever demands 50% diversity quotas by filling in positions with women and non-binary snowflakes in the ranks of garbage collectors, sewer maintenance, electrical engineers working on high voltage power lines, dep earth miners, oil rig workers and construction site workers. Oh, but that's just inconvenient because they are all nasty dirty jobs and men can do them and no one gives a damn about diversity, but we'll save the nice clean air conditioned jobs for the womynz because yay, diversity everyone! It makes me vomit.
People need to realize that we have WAY MORE in common than we don't! Start giving a shit by listening to your neighbor, guy on the street, whomever. Show empathy, join a cause, do something other than sitting around and bitching about so and so did this.
Be pro-active. Not Re-active. Best advice I have.
The best tool against tribalism is logic (why did the tribes form?) and management (what are the priorities?). Case in point: tribes would form over what to do with elephants in a room (e.g. slaughter or befriend). Logic begs the question why are they inside in the first place when they belong in the wilderness. Management suggests the efforts of the tribes should be focused on relocating the elephants to the wilderness where the needs of all parties are fulfilled satisfactorily.
This Riot Games/PAX/social media thing is yet another case of politically correct outrage that isn't worth anyone's time. It's another textbook example of tribalism gone too far.
It's a tough road, but anyone one can do it. When you are no longer a victim, you can actually help others.
The whole story, Pax/RIOT, is about "Reaction". Any self aware human would not have had an issue with what the "Rita's" wanted to do. It was not a news article until someone felt victimized, wrongly, and made a fuss.
Was it so hard to just say "hey, this room between these times is for female/non-b Riot employees and female/non-b hopefuls to get together and discuss job prospects and look over resumes."
Then once the reddit and 4chan man-childs thrashed and foamed at the mouth at two whole hours of allotted time, they could swiftly be ignored by everyone and no problems would be had. Issue is all those hormonal teenagers think they hold the power over these companies and can get what they want, since historically, various spineless people in high management have listened to and done their bidding.
As for the analogies of "we have no male only X", well yes, we do. In my local area we have 3 male only gyms and 2 female only gyms. You know why we have 2 female only gyms? Because men are cantankerous morons and think their local gym is tinder. Is it so difficult for us dudes to understand that sometimes people want just a wee bit of time away from us?
But to your claims of people "ruining your games" because "people who demand diversity have no concept of designing games", well, again, that's demonstrably not true. It's actually very funny that you use a Mass Effect game as an example, given that that series has always had gay or non-straight characters. That the last chapter was rather poorly written doesn't change that, but makes it entirely unusable for the argument you want to use it for. Do you have any other examples? Also, have you considered that you might have some bias towards this, making you see this as less integrated into the gameworld or story than it actually is? I'm not saying this is the case, but it would be a good thing to look into nonetheless. Hm. First off, can you show me an actual example of what you're saying? Because otherwise, you're just spouting conspiracy theories. Having diversity as one of the desired factors when hiring someone does not equate to passing over better-qualified straight white male candidates in the vast majority of cases. Of course, this is without getting into how bias makes men generally look more competent than women, gives them better opportunities to improve their resumes, and so on. Point being: correcting for systematic discrimination takes an effort, as it is a deep-seated and difficult-to-identify issue, with no clear or obvious fixes. Attempting to solve it does nobody a disservice. Besides, at least here in Norway, there has been quite a lot of effort put into diversifying the jobs you mention here too. Perhaps not trash collectors in specific, but this general type of "nasty dirty job".
But that's enough of a wall of text for today. Sheesh.