The State Of California Is Investigating Riot Games For Gender Discrimination [Update: Riot Responds]

The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing said today that it is filing an investigation enforcement suit against League of Legends publisher Riot Games, as part of an investigation into gender discrimination at the company.

The DFEH is asking the courts to compel Riot to provide employees’ pay information for “an ongoing investigation into alleged gender discrimination,” according to a press release issued on Wednesday afternoon by the department. It said that it is looking into “alleged unequal pay, sexual harassment, sexual assault, retaliation, and gender discrimination in selection and promotion.”

While the investigation began in October 2018, the DFEH said that Riot has so far “refused to provide the Department with adequate information for DFEH to analyze whether women are paid less than men at the company,” which is why it is now filing the suit. In the suit, the DFEH says that Riot has “impeded” the investigation by withholding “basic employment data that… employment laws require employers to maintain.” The DFEH said it has met with Riot numerous times but has been unable to reach a solution without involving the courts.

Last year, Kotaku published an investigation into these issues at Riot. After the investigation, Riot promised to cleanse house of bad actors, and has made several moves to rectify its employees’ behavior and structural issues that, according to dozens of sources, have disadvantaged women in the workplace. Last month, however, over 150 employees in Riot’s Los Angeles office staged a walkout, the first such action in the history of game development, protesting the company’s decision to force arbitration against two of the five current or former employees suing the company for allegedly violating California’s Equal Pay Act.

Update, 9:05 p.m. ET: Riot has shared a response with Kotaku, which is below.

We’ve been in active conversations with the DFEH since its inquiry began. Investigations like this can arise when there have been allegations of workplace disparity and we’ve been cooperating in good faith with the DFEH to address its concerns. During this time, we’ve promptly responded to the DFEH’s requests, and have produced over 2,500 pages of documents and several thousand lines of pay data so far. We’ve also made several recent requests that the DFEH participate in a call with us to address their requests. To date, these requests have been unanswered, so we’re frankly disappointed to see the DFEH issue a press release alleging that we’ve been non-cooperative. We’re confident that we’ve made substantial progress on diversity, inclusion, and company culture, and look forward to continue demonstrating this to the DFEH.