Riot Games to Pay $100m Settlement

Riot Games will pay $100 million to settle a class-action gender-discrimination lawsuit, which is 10 times what the company originally agreed to pay.


Published: December 28, 2021 12:03 PM /

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Riot Games

It's been three long years for Riot Games, but it looks like the beleaguered company can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. That light comes at a price, though: a cool $100 million to settle a class-action gender-discrimination lawsuit, with $80 million going to female workers. The $80 million is going to 3,365 eligible female workers at Riot Games that have currently or formerly worked for the company going back to November 2014. This includes contracted workers as well.

Originally, it was only going to be $10 million when it was originally settled back in 2019. This changed when the state of California stepped in a few months later in January 2020, with a theoretical maximum payout of $400 million. Obviously, that didn't happen, but a tenfold increase is nothing to shake a stick at either.

Riot Games' statement is included below:

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. We’re incredibly grateful to every Rioter who has worked to create a culture where inclusivity is the norm, where we’re deeply committed to fairness and equality, and where embracing diversity fuels creativity and innovation.

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 and demonstrates our desire to lead by example in bringing more accountability and equality to the games industry.

The gaming industry as a whole has been seeing a massive shakeup since 2018, especially with everything that's continuing to go down at Activision Blizzard. Still, with this payout it looks as though that the gaming industry will only continue to change from here on out. We'll see.

Thanks, Polygon.

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Patrick is a former Staff Writer for TechRaptor and has been gaming on every console he could get since he could hold a controller. He’s been writing for… More about Patrick