Riot Games Settles the Class Action Lawsuit Against it

After Riot Games admitted it had done some bad things and that it needed to do better, one of the sticking points that prevented people from taking their claims more seriously were the many lawsuits that followed the infamous Kotaku report: namely, a class action lawsuit that emerged from current and former employees regarding being refused pay and promotion advancements due to gender. Riot Games had been less-than-transparent about how that class action lawsuit was going, which, to be fair, isn’t exactly unorthodox or unprecedented, but it certainly put a stain on their lackluster efforts to look progressive.

Well, we got our first update on that particular lawsuit (there are several) in a recent blog post, where Riot Games reports that the matter is resolved:
 

“After extensively reviewing these issues, we can confidently state that gender discrimination (in pay or promotion), sexual harassment, and retaliation are not systemic issues at Riot.

But, what we also learned during this process was that some Rioters have had experiences that did not live up to our values or culture. In addition, we’ve encountered considerable fatigue among Rioters, who have been drained by constant engagement with the internal and external dialogues emerging from these lawsuits and recurring media cycles.

…Under these circumstances, we’ve had to look critically at our litigation approach to the class action lawsuit. While we believed that we had a strong position to litigate, we realized that in the long run, doing what is best for both Riot and Rioters was our ideal outcome. Therefore, rather than entrench ourselves and continue to litigate, we chose to pivot and try to take an approach that we believe best demonstrates our commitment to owning our past, and to healing the company so that we can move forward together.”

 
So basically, they’re settling, while also trying to say they didn’t do anything wrong. Which is kind of how these things typically go.

It would be a lot easier to write this off as dismissive, but Kotaku did, in fact, check up on Riot Games a year later, and the report did claim that things are getting better. So while I still think this is a shallow, pointless hand-wave of cash and denial, at least it’s hand-in-hand with some actual change within the company.

So. That’s a thing.