Riot Games employees are unhappy with a new policy that the company issues in response to lawsuits filed against the company from current and former staff last year. The protest aims to draw attention to the company’s forced arbitration clauses as well as Kotaku’s report of a sexist company culture.
Last month, Riot Games stated that they filed motions to force two employees involved in the lawsuits into private arbitration. This was done to prevent the cases from reaching both a jury and a trial so that matters could be settled privately. Arbitration clauses allow for such things to happen and with Riot Games, arbitration is something that is agreed upon when signing a contract to work for the company.
Riot stated that they received the feedback and made arbitration an opt-out option on their contracts; however, this only pertains to new hires and is not retroactive for any and all current employees. Riot did; however, state that they are still looking for an answer and will reach one so that the opt-out can be extended to current employees as well. The walkout was planned for Monday, May 6. Whether or not the fallout from this protest will have any effect has yet to be seen.
Needless to say, this is a story that is still in development and one that could look at changing contract within the game industry to allow for more legal flexibility for workers. At least, that’s the hope.
Source: Gamasutra
