League developer Riot Games agrees to pay $100m in discrimination case

League of Legends developer, Riot Games, has agreed to pay $100m to settle a 2018 gender discrimination case.

According to California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing, the settlement will accommodate approx. “1,065 women employees and 1,300 women contract workers.”

The decree requires comprehensive injunctive relief in the form of workplace reforms, independent expert analysis of Riot’s pay, hiring, and promotion practices, and independent monitoring of sexual harassment and retaliation at Riot’s California offices for three years. The decree will also resolve claims brought by the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE) in the first case jointly prosecuted by DFEH and DLSE.

The statement said.

Riot said it has to take responsibility of its past. It was found to be engaged in “systemic sex discrimination and harassment.”

The Company faced allegations ranging from harboring a culture of “sexual harassment, discrimination, and retaliation against women employees and temporary agency contractors in its workplace.”

Women were shown images of male genitalia by their bosses and male colleagues. A string of emails also showed Riot employees rating the “hottest” female employees.

Riot has now agreed to “pay $100 million, of which a minimum of $80 million is dedicated to compensating workers.” The amount also includes $4m in penalties which are so far the largest “such penalties assessed by the DLSE in its history.”

Other terms include, creating an $18 million dollar cash reserve for the three-year term of the “consent decree to make pay adjustments and to fund diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.”

Riot will also make sure to have “40 full-time positions in engineer, quality assurance, or art-design roles to qualified class members who worked as temporary contractors in a competitive process.

The Company will also hire and pay for an “independent third-party expert approved by DFEH” who will conduct a “gender-equity analysis of employee pay, job assignments, and promotions for three years. Riot will also “remedy disparities that cannot be explained by bona fide, legitimate reasons.”

Under the final term, Riot will hire and pay for an independent third-party monitor approved by DFEH to “audit compliance with workplace protections, including a review of complaint investigations and outcomes, each year for three years.”

Riot’s female employees who worked with the Company since November 06, 2014 will be eligible to receive the compensation under this agreement.

This announcement comes at a time when other video gaming giants are also undergoing scrutiny for harboring an unsafe culture that preys on women.

Gaming titan Activision Blizzard is also being investigated by the DFEH. The Company has already reached a settlement with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) over claims of sexual harassment, and allegedly harboring a toxic workplace.

After this settlement, other gaming companies will now take preemptive measures to try and curb the growth of such environments if not fully eliminate them.