“RIOT!”

May 9, 2019 11:38 AM

Riot Games employees walk out over workplace harassment lawsuits [The Guardian] “Employees of Riot Games, makers of popular online battle video game League of Legends, staged a mass walkout on Monday to protest against the company’s handling of lawsuits brought against it alleging workplace sexism and misconduct. It is the largest such walkout in video game industry history. Around 150 workers at Riot’s Los Angeles headquarters participated in the protest,” [Previously. Previously. Previously.]

• Over 150 Riot Employees Walk Out To Protest Forced Arbitration And Sexist Culture [Updated] [Kotaku]

“Toward the end of the walkout, Monahan made an announcement saying that if Riot management doesn’t make any sort of commitment on forced arbitration by May 16—the date of the next Riot Unplugged meeting—she and others involved with the walkout will take further action. Another walkout organizer, Riot writer Indu Reddy, was not able to delve into specifics of what that will mean, but she told Kotaku that “we do have plans, and we do have days that we’re planning, and we do have commitments that we have responses for.” Reddy also said that despite Riot’s statement, retaliation is an ongoing concern. “We might face unforeseen consequences despite leadership’s own commitments, because leadership is one entity, and there are a lot of Rioters throughout the org,” she said. “We will prepare for retaliation. I think it wouldn’t be smart to not plan for it. But we’re not assuming it either because leadership said they wouldn’t retaliate—for this one, anyway. We will continue to ask for confirmation for future demonstrations.””

• 'League of Legends' Studio Faces Employee Walkout, Promises Changes [Waypoint]

“Talk of unionization, greater worker rights, and improved labor conditions have been a steady drumbeat in video games the past few years, prompted by endless reports about crunch—such as Kotaku’s pieces on the brutal developments of Red Dead Redemption 2 and Anthem, and Polygon’s recent report about Fortnite—and the massive layoffs at publishers like Activision Blizzard, even as the company reaps in record-breaking profits.”

Here’s a copy of Roseboro’s message in full:

Hi Rioters, I’ve been off campus for most of yesterday afternoon in meetings and have spent my evening reviewing and absorbing everything you’ve shared. I feel it’s important to address your concerns this morning rather than wait until Monday.

I know yesterday’s article about Riot’s motion to compel arbitration feels like we’re not moving forward. And I have to say for me, it demonstrates we still have work to do. There are pros, cons, and nuances to the discussion of arbitration, especially given the active litigation against Riot. It can be complex so these types of topics are best discussed live where it’s easier to have a conversation. I encourage all of you to ask as many questions in this Thursday’s Unplugged, and our promise to you is we will be as transparent as we possibly can.

We’re also aware there may be an upcoming walkout and recognize some Rioters are not feeling heard. We want to open up a dialogue on Monday and invite Rioters to join us for small group sessions where we can talk through your concerns, and provide as much context as we can about where we’ve landed and why. If you’re interested, please take a moment to add your name to this spreadsheet. We’re planning to keep these sessions smaller so we can have a more candid dialogue.

We are committed to re-earning your trust by having an open and transparent dialogue, and doing the right thing by all of our Rioters. Personally I completely understand how this may feel like a setback, but my hope is that through this storm we will be a better version of ourselves. Hope to see you on Monday.

• As Riot Games employees walk out, discontent swirls among video game industry workers [Salon]

“In the past year, there have been rumblings within the industry that hint that unionization is on many worker's minds. At the 2019 Game Developers Conference, pro-union zines were handed out after the games workers branch of the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain was established, which was the first legal trade union for game workers in the UK. In late 2018, Kevin Agwaze, an organizer and moderator for Game Workers Unite as well as the elected treasurer of that game workers branch, explained to Salon that “the industry is finally admitting that this is an environment where workers of all kinds are exploited, discriminated against, and taken advantage off, that can only be fixed by collective action and worker solidarity.” Similarly, workers across Silicon Valley have been making steps towards unionization. In March, employees at Kickstarter, a crowdfunding platform, announced their plans to unionize. In 2018, software engineers at the startup Lanetix announced their intent to unionize — and were promptly and illegally fired by management (it is illegal to fire employees for trying to unionize). Both this week's forced arbitration protest at Riot Games and the aforementioned previous labor actions point to the swirling discontent among video game industry workers.”

posted by Fizz (33 comments total)

This is one of the bits of living in the future to feel good about. The discrimination and exploitation that drive this are inevitable unless resisted. It's always good to see people resisting.
posted by howfar at 11:50 AM on May 9, 2019 [13 favorites]

Capitalism was a mistake.
posted by Fizz at 12:07 PM on May 9, 2019 [6 favorites]

Capitalism is the step just after feudalism but just before freedom.
posted by howfar at 12:09 PM on May 9, 2019 [15 favorites]

Interesting - very few comments on the various threads over on Hacker News - but I chalk that up to what seems to be a culture there of "venture capitalism" at all costs.

Why shouldn't the game industry unionize? It's fundamentally no different than the TV/movie industry, where unions have been accepted and "the norm" for decades.
posted by jkaczor at 12:11 PM on May 9, 2019 [11 favorites]

It's so bizarre reading internal communications from a company calling its staff "rioters" while discussing a walkout.
posted by ODiV at 12:14 PM on May 9, 2019 [10 favorites]

Forced arbitration is a bad thing in every circumstance I've encountered it. (Like, say, the doctor's office. Try getting a colonoscopy without first signing away your right to sue for malpractice if something goes terribly wrong.) We have a legal system in place for a reason. Forcing me to waive my right to access that judicial system should not be legal.

(Also fuck Riot Games; I've boycotted LoL since the news about the sexism at the company first broke. I run a modest web service for LoL players and put a link front and center on it to the original Kotaku article last year. It feels good.)
posted by Nelson at 12:30 PM on May 9, 2019 [16 favorites]

I’m currently sitting at a table with a big sign that says, “Riot Games is a garbage company and the worst of a terrible tech culture - Change my mind.”
posted by greermahoney at 12:35 PM on May 9, 2019 [21 favorites]

I took a class on the anthropology of law, and the big takeaway from the whole semester was "forced arbitration has made us all powerless." I hope we see more tech walkouts, especially at games companies. Enough of this sick culture of abuse.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 12:41 PM on May 9, 2019 [14 favorites]

Why shouldn't the game industry unionize? It's fundamentally no different than the TV/movie industry, where unions have been accepted and "the norm" for decades.

Well, one reason this will likely never happen is that unlike the TV/movie world, you can make a lot more money and generally have a much better work experience doing the exact same thing, just by moving to a slightly different industry. In the TV/movie world, the union jobs are often the best gig in town, so you have to join the union to work at the top of your job.

As a software engineer, video games are for the suckers who just came off the bus from Full Sail or whatever. If you want to make real money, you literally go work in anything else. Why stay in games and get a union off the ground when you could double your total comp by switching industries?

I actually interviewed at Riot some time ago, and they apparently planned on 50%+ of my compensation coming in the form of "..and you get to work on video games!!!" I initially thought the recruiter was just extremely out of the loop on what someone working at the richest company on the planet with 15 years of experience was making these days, but no, they literally thought that working on League of Legends was enough to entice engineers to give up six figures of yearly income.
posted by sideshow at 12:53 PM on May 9, 2019 [14 favorites]

I mean that's the thing, the whole culture of crunch and taking advantage of game devs stems from the notion that they're young and inexperienced people working for the love of being in the video game industry, and that's bullshit. When you're constantly getting your door beaten down with kids submitting applications for their "dream job" it's hard to not think of them as expendable tools.

Imagine how much better video games could be if devs didn't get burned out and leave for easier, better-paying jobs elsewhere. A good friend of mine is trying to go as an indie developer because he was so tired of being taken advantage of at every studio he went to. It's why we'll never see Bioware make another Mass Effect or Valve make another Half-Life. The people who made those games are long gone. Imagine if they weren't, and Bioware was still making great games with artists and programmers each with 10, 15, 20 years of experience. How good would those games be? How much better would working at that kind of studio be for an inexperienced dev working their first "dream job?"

That's the future I want to see with unionization and fair treatment in the games industry.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 1:05 PM on May 9, 2019 [23 favorites]

Why stay in games and get a union off the ground when you could double your total comp by switching industries?

Because the companies in those industries are just as abusive, just with a "kinder" face - remember the Silicon Valley wage fixing cartel?
posted by NoxAeternum at 1:06 PM on May 9, 2019 [7 favorites]

Sorry, "suckers" is too harsh. But still, people come in with a certain sort of naive attitude, and the companies exploit it because those people don't know any better. And when they do know better, they leave and go other industries, making room for a new round of naive workers.
posted by sideshow at 1:06 PM on May 9, 2019

remember the Silicon Valley wage fixing cartel?

Yep, and as someone who currently works for one of the main culprits (and worked for a another of the other main culprits in the past), you won't hear me complaining too much about it. It actually kinda proves my point, since the companies that weren't in on the deal just picked up the slack on wages.
posted by sideshow at 1:12 PM on May 9, 2019

Capitalism is the step just after feudalism

Think for a moment about corporate structure. There is a liege l... CEO on top, then a bunch of vassa... shareholders, and a whole lot of peasan... employees at the bottom.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 1:14 PM on May 9, 2019 [4 favorites]

And when they do know better, they leave and go other industries, making room for a new round of naive workers.

Or, y'know, they do what they're actually doing and try to make the world a better place and protect each other and us.

SUCKEeeeeeeRS.
posted by howfar at 1:14 PM on May 9, 2019 [3 favorites]

Think for a moment about corporate structure. There is a liege l... CEO on top, then a bunch of vassa... shareholders, and a whole lot of peasan... employees at the bottom.

Yeah yeah Jordan Peterson, all hierarchies are the same whatever.

I am a socialist. This means I believe that capitalism is bad and can and will be destroyed. What it does not mean is that I imagine capitalism to be worse than people literally being owned by their liege lord. Maybe you think that it's all the same and we should just give the capitalists our title deeds and have done with it. Personally I believe in putting up a fight.
posted by howfar at 1:20 PM on May 9, 2019 [8 favorites]

Yep, and as someone who currently works for one of the main culprits (and worked for a another of the other main culprits in the past), you won't hear me complaining too much about it.

And this here is the heart of the problem - your employer, in a very fundamental way, stole from you, and you have no problem with that.

This is something that I cannot comprehend.
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:00 PM on May 9, 2019 [15 favorites]

I am a socialist. This means I believe that capitalism is bad and can and will be destroyed. What it does not mean is that I imagine capitalism to be worse than people literally being owned by their liege lord. Maybe you think that it's all the same and we should just give the capitalists our title deeds and have done with it. Personally I believe in putting up a fight.

I... this is literally what the joke was about. Like, same. The point was that the most pragmatic way forward is the democratization of the workplace..
posted by Pyrogenesis at 2:17 PM on May 9, 2019 [2 favorites]

Yep, and as someone who currently works for one of the main culprits (and worked for a another of the other main culprits in the past), you won't hear me complaining too much about it.

Ironically enough, it is comments like these that outline just how important tech workers need unions and labor protections.

Just like the naive game developers you criticized earlier in the thread, you got screwed by your employer(s). It doesn't matter how you feel about it, but you absolutely got screwed by them.
posted by Ouverture at 2:29 PM on May 9, 2019 [14 favorites]

Sorry, "suckers" is too harsh.

Not really, it just also applies to people who who don't care that their employers engaged in wage fixing.
posted by invitapriore at 3:08 PM on May 9, 2019 [5 favorites]

It doesn't matter how you feel about it, but you absolutely got screwed by them.

I mean...yeah, perhaps. However, you might want to go check how much houses are going for in Los Altos/San Mateo/Burlingame/etc. before you shed any tears about the "poor" software engineers.
posted by sideshow at 3:55 PM on May 9, 2019

No matter how well said engineers are being paid already, I don't see how it's preferable for their bosses to take that money instead.
posted by AnhydrousLove at 4:54 PM on May 9, 2019 [5 favorites]

I remember being told that Netflix's employment model was a possible "future of work". They framed it as being like a football team - you got paid very, very well, and once you were surplus to requirements, you were gone.

The big problem with this is that a football team's performance today is not at all based on their historical roster, whereas Netflix profits every day from the streaming software written by the guy they fired.
posted by Merus at 5:01 PM on May 9, 2019 [4 favorites]

I was also a victim of the wage fixing scandal in Silicon Valley, I worked at Google and was eligible to be a class action member. I sort of understand what sideshow is saying; goodness knows my stock options compensated me very well. But maybe they would have been a better offer if Google wasn't illegally colluding with Apple, Adobe, Intel, Intuit, Pixar, Lucasfilm and eBay to lower our compensation.

I opted out of the class action settlement because the whole process was gross. The initial settlement "my" lawyer and the companies agreed to was so laughably small the judge threw out the agreement and said "no, make the penalty higher". Even so the lawyers saw most of the settlement, the harmed employees very little.

Now Eric Schmidt is off flogging his new book about "Coach" Bill Campbell, the executive consultant that apparently advised so many of those companies about this neat way to not have to pay employees too much. The illegal way.

Most tech employees I know are way too individualistic to imagine collective bargaining and unions. But I could imagine it working in the game industry precisely because it's so close to movie production which has a pretty strong union system. I don't know for sure, but do game companies already page union wages for voice actors they hire out of the movie industry?

I'm not sure unions are necessary to stop this particular abuse from Riot Games though. They're participating in good ol' fashion sexual harassment and there's plenty of legal protections on the books against that. The problem is enforcing them, particularly in the face of binding arbitration agreements.
posted by Nelson at 5:08 PM on May 9, 2019 [8 favorites]

I don't know for sure, but do game companies already page union wages for voice actors they hire out of the movie industry?

Voice actors for games in the big-money sector of the industry are unionized under SAG-AFTRA. There was a high-profile strike of game voice actors a couple years ago over paying residuals and improving work conditions.
posted by skymt at 5:19 PM on May 9, 2019 [4 favorites]

However, you might want to go check how much houses are going for in Los Altos/San Mateo/Burlingame/etc. before you shed any tears about the "poor" software engineers.

This is a bullshit argument. Nobody deserves to have their wages stolen from them, and this attitude is why organization in the professional ranks runs into trouble.
posted by NoxAeternum at 5:20 PM on May 9, 2019 [18 favorites]

I mean...yeah, perhaps. However, you might want to go check how much houses are going for in Los Altos/San Mateo/Burlingame/etc. before you shed any tears about the "poor" software engineers.

I'm well aware. Another irony of the current economic system is that downward redistribution of wealth away from upper management would lead to less wealth inequality and eventually lower housing prices in tech hubs like the Bay Area.
posted by Ouverture at 6:24 PM on May 9, 2019 [5 favorites]

This is a bullshit argument. Nobody deserves to have their wages stolen from them, and this attitude is why organization in the professional ranks runs into trouble.

If the argument is 'just imagine how much richer you'd be if you unionized,' well, I've lived that natural experiment and union wages didn't win out.

But look, more power to the Rioters and shame on Steve Jobs.

Another irony of the current economic system is that downward redistribution of wealth away from upper management would lead to less wealth inequality and eventually lower housing prices in tech hubs like the Bay Area.

I don't quite follow. How does more money in the hands of engineers build more houses? They all retire to Santa Cruz?
posted by pwnguin at 7:50 PM on May 9, 2019

Why shouldn't the game industry unionize? It's fundamentally no different than the TV/movie industry, where unions have been accepted and "the norm" for decades.

This is happening!
posted by divabat at 9:17 PM on May 9, 2019 [3 favorites]

If the argument is 'just imagine how much richer you'd be if you unionized,' well, I've lived that natural experiment and union wages didn't win out.

In any but the most facile readings that is not in fact the argument, which I would argue is instead “just imagine how much more secure and free everyone who currently relies on active income to maintain their standard of living would be if laborers as a class had a level of political influence commensurate with their number,” and so in that light your restatement reduces to F → T, the truth of which is very rightfully deemed as “vacuous.”
posted by invitapriore at 10:53 PM on May 9, 2019 [5 favorites]

EA Spouse was written in 2004...
posted by Cardinal Fang at 1:01 AM on May 10, 2019 [3 favorites]

Unions can and should do an awful lot more than pay increases, they provide freedom from insecurity and precarity. So many of the most permeating and invisibilised ways we are affected by the power of the ruling class, of the ways we learn to self-regulate as subjects come through the workplace.

As many have said on the blue before, freedom outside the workplace is severely limited when you are at the whim of your boss with only thin and ineffectively enforced basic labour laws protecting you. The overtime, the self-training and self-improvement to maximise your productivity, healthcare concerns, all of these are your own free choices, but most certainly influenced by ruling class power.

Unions can provide biopolitical immunisation against the precarity which increasingly pervades all areas of society. It should not be forgotten the role they have played in the past against insuring some workers at the cost of others, and actively increasing the precarity of others, but that does not forbid them a value as institutions now. Workers have rights, and whether or not our state cares, enforcing them is well within our theoretical capacity.

I'm not privy to exactly why unions often choose to advertise only pay increases, and even worse in my view, here they advertise coupon books, admittedly for union shops but hardly meant to be the point of the union. I can see why it might appeal as a course of action, even if I think it's a mistake.
posted by AnhydrousLove at 2:09 AM on May 10, 2019 [2 favorites]

Unions can and should do an awful lot more than pay increases

Exactly - they can also help their members deal with workplace labour, harassment, anti-discrimination laws - unlike a a "company lawyer" working for HR/employer (therefore, mandated to protect company interests and liability and not the employee, remember people HR is not your friend), ones working for the union are typically working for the members...

Maybe unions would help with lobbying government representatives around things like foreign H1B-style visas - which IMO, are not healthy for any party, except the employer. They do little to encourage actual immigration, they handcuff the employee to the employer, they put downward wage pressure on the industry as a whole, etc.

And - yes, software engineers get paid well - but not typically in the games industry at starting and middle-levels - something a union could definitely help with.

Finally - the other dirty thing few people talk about lately, is how medical benefits in the US are typically tied to an employer, making switching jobs more difficult if someone has large/on-going/historic medical expenses. With collective buying power, unions can offer medicare plans to members - SAG-AFTRA was mentioned above and has plans.

Unions in the TV/movie media industry also typically don't lock members into a single employer - they are flexible and understand fixed-length "project work" - and they understand "work for hire/sub-contract/self-employment" which is essentially mandatory in the tech-space.
posted by jkaczor at 6:04 AM on May 10, 2019 [3 favorites]