Riot Games Will Pay $100 Million to Settle 2018 Gender Discrimination Lawsuit

Yesterday, a press release from the Department of Fair Employment & Housing (DFEH) confirmed that Riot Games has agreed to settle the 2018 lawsuit filed against the company for gender discrimination. Riot will pay over $100 million to “remedy violations against approximately 1,065 women employees and 1,300 women contract workers.”

The lawsuit followed an article written by Kotaku in 2018 which described a culture of sexism at Riot Games, the publisher behind successful games League of Legends, and Valorant.

Riot first agreed to pay $10 million in 2019, but its activities were blocked by the DFEH with a court filing, which argued the sum should be as high as $400 million.

The full terms of the revised settlement (with the DFEH) are as follows:

• Pay $100 million, of which a minimum of $80 million is dedicated to compensating workers. This amount includes $4 million in penalties under the Private Attorney General Act (PAGA), one of the largest such penalties assessed by the DLSE in its history.
• Create a $6 million dollar cash reserve for each year of the three-year term of the consent decree (for a total of $18 million) to make pay adjustments and to fund diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
• Make available 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.
• Hire and pay for an independent third-party expert approved by DFEH to conduct a gender-equity analysis of employee pay, job assignments, and promotions each year for three years and remedy disparities that cannot be explained by bona fide, legitimate reasons.
• 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.

A statement from Riot Games to The Washington Post reads:

“Three years ago, Riot was at the heart of what became a reckoning in our industry. We had to face the fact that despite our best intentions, we hadn’t always lived up to our values. As a company we stood at a crossroads; we could deny the shortcomings of our culture, or we could apologize, correct course, and build a better Riot. We chose the latter. … While we’re proud of how far we’ve come since 2018, we must also take responsibility for the past. We hope that this settlement properly acknowledges those who had negative experiences at Riot.”

This week’s settlement is unrelated to allegations by former executive assistant Sharon O’Donnell earlier this year, who claimed that CEO Nicolas Laurent acted inappropriately and made unwanted sexual advances. Her suing of Laurent was unsuccessful, with Laurent remaining as CEO after a third-party investigation commissioned by the studio found no evidence of wrongdoing.

Riot Games is not the only major video game publisher involved in similar lawsuits over gender discrimination. Activision Blizzard is also under review by the state of California.