Riot Games has appointed a new CEO following years of workplace discrimination issues. Alongside hiring a new face for the company, the League of Legends developer will also pay reparations to all of the women who sued the company for gender discrimination, sexual harassment and workplace misogyny.
Announced via the official Riot Games website, A. Dylan Jadeja is now the CEO of Riot Games, replacing Nicolo Laurent. Jadeja has been the Chief Financial Officer of Riot since 2011 and will be trained by Laurent before he departs the game studio.
The company also announced its plan to pay $100 million to settle the aforementioned gender discrimination lawsuit. 1,548 women behind the lawsuit will all be paid $2,500 to $5,000 each as part of reparations. According to Axios, three women decided not to receive payment from the game company at this time.
Laurent was cited as one of the reasons why the company felt like a "frat house" which led to the widespread abuse of women at the company. A second lawsuit was also filed against the company and Laurent in 2019 for allegations of inappropriate and sexually suggestive behaviour against women at the company which has seemingly not been settled.
Unfortunately, Riot isn’t the only company with these kinds of accusations. Gamers will remember how both Ubisoft and Activision Blizzard were hit with massive accusations, resulting in lawsuits. Activision Blizzard's widespread sexual harassment of female workers even resulted in a wrongful death lawsuit after a female worker committed suicide.
The fact these issues are industry-wide can’t be ignored, so it’s clear that change is desperately needed. It doesn’t matter if Riot Games makes things people like, including Netflix’s Arcane or League of Legends, repercussions need to happen. Hopefully, there will be a more active movement to make sure this doesn’t happen again.
Female harassment and sexual misconduct lawsuits aren't only appearing at game companies either. In fact, even Jeff Bezos' space company Blue Origin, the company that took Star Trek's William Shatner to space, has been accused of sexual misconduct. It's a worldwide issue.
Read More: Sony’s fight against Xbox’s Activision deal is shooting itself in the foot
Despite all of this controversy, Riot hasn't been hurting too much as their games are still played by the masses. Valorant is still one of the most popular multiplayer shooters out there and League of Legends is loved by many.