A California judge has given the green light this Friday to an agreement with which Riot Games, the studio that designed the popular League of Legends, will put an end to a class action lawsuit for discrimination of several former employees. The Los Angeles company will pay 100 million dollars to some 2,300 workers who worked between November 2014 and December 2021, who began the legal process complaining of a macho environment and a hostile climate that allowed sexual harassment. The pact is a triumph for women, who have achieved a figure ten times higher than the amount initially offered, in December 2019.
The case originated in November 2018, when two employees, Jessica Negron and Melanie McCracken, of the company, owned by the Chinese technology giant Tencent, launched the lawsuit based on the California Equal Pay law. Since then, several women who had worked for the company or who still work for it have joined. The amount will depend on the time worked for the successful study. Payments will begin to be made at the end of October.
Negron, for example, testified to having done the job of a manager who was on leave for a year with no increase in salary. The company subsequently offered promotions, none of which went to her. Three male employees kept the promotions. This caused her to leave the company. She and McCracken described a fraternity environment brimming with machismo, where men made frequent sexist jokes and sent women unsolicited photos of their genitalia.
In December 2019, Riot Games agreed to pay $10 million to compensate the women who worked in the five years covered by the lawsuit. The California Agency for Fairness and Housing then stopped the agreement considering that the amount was too low. A new figure was negotiated between the parties on December 21. This was waiting for the endorsement of a judge, who finally arrived this afternoon.
The agreement will benefit employees with permanent positions and those who worked with temporary contracts. Women are expected to receive $77 million. The rest of the money will be divided between the legal team that handled the case in the three years of litigation and the California regulatory agency. In addition, Riot Games has earmarked another $18 million over the next three years to make salary adjustments and to invest in diversity programs. It has also agreed to independent monitoring of its work environment.
As part of the agreement, the company has given permanent positions to some 40 women who were temporary employees. Founded in 2006, the company had 2,500 employees a few years ago. The company obtained in 2020 revenues of more than 1,700 million dollars. Most of these were obtained thanks to League of Legendsa title used on e-sports competition platforms.
The case of Riot Games is repeated within other giants in the industry. Activision Blizzard offered in March to pay $18 million to several victims of its toxic work environment. These demands multiplied in other companies in the industry. Eight women joined the court case against Sony for discrimination. The Japanese company has been facing a collective lawsuit since 2021 like the one Riot Games has resolved. Ubisoft and Riot, competitors of Sony and Microsoft, faced similar accusations. In the video game industry, machismo is the protagonist.
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