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Riot Games laying off 11%

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Re: Riot Games laying off 11%

#111

Post by Apocryphon »

imgabe wrote: post #102
Apocryphon wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Decouple health insurance from employment, for starters.

I don't necessarily disagree, but we're getting into the weeds here. My point is just that choosing to voluntarily end a business arrangement, within the the terms of the agreement, does not constitute "victimizing" someone. Otherwise, the employer could claim they're a victim when an employee quits. A store could claim they're a victim if a customer starts shopping at a different store, and so on. It's ridiculous. T…

The way I see it, mass layoffs are one of those situations where it feels unjust. A company might have acted incompetently, even recklessly, leading to people’s lives get disrupted. Are the executives culpable or were they victims of economic fortunes? Who knows? Either way, their positions often don’t change afterwards, and the companies stock price will usually rise as expenses fall with their workforce.

So you have one set of people suffering, and others connected to the suffering being unaffected. Whether that connection is causation is up to interpretation. Either way the ethical calculus certainly feels imbalanced. You can use all the logic you want, but it’s hard to address the feeling of something amiss. It might not be arson, but it still feels like a controlled burn that went out of control.

Re: Riot Games laying off 11%

#112

Post by PH95VuimJjqBqy »

gurchik wrote: post #87
acdha wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If 11% of their employees are “deadwood” they have had a spectacular failure of management.

The failures of Riot's management have been apparent. Three years ago, the company paid $100 million due to sexual harassment and gender discrimination done at all levels of management including the cofounders and their CEO and COO. Over 150 employees held a walkout. It's not just employees either, on the esports side, the North American players walked out last spring which caused the summer split to be delayed.

the player walkout was due to changes in the league made by Riot, specifically that orgs are no longer required to have academy teams (academy teams are the equivalent of college teams, not pro but better than most players).

you're overselling that unnecessarily.

But the point about the abuse is true and it wasn't just sexual abuse, it was harassment at all levels.

for anyone not aware:

https://kotaku.com/top-riot-executive-suspended-without-pay-...

> Earlier this week, Riot’s CEO sent an e-mail to employees describing the punishment its COO, Scott Gelb, will face after multiple employees alleged that, as a comedy bit, he has repeatedly touched subordinates’ balls or butt or farted in their faces. Several employees tell Kotaku that his punishment—two months of unpaid leave and training—is far from satisfactory.

you can't make this shit up, and in fact it's so ridiculous we don't need to mislabel the player walkout, the truth is bad enough by itself.

Re: Riot Games laying off 11%

#113

Post by eganist »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #82
acdha wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sophistry aside, it’s still profoundly disruptive for many people. Whether or not they know there’s a risk, it means people are scrambling to reestablish their finances and routines, and in many cases that can have long-lasting impacts – people have to move, Americans have disruptions to their healthcare access & providers, and older people might never regain their old salary. That doesn’t make it illegal, or even a…

Riot is offering a minumum of six months of severance. I agree, layoffs are disruptive, but this view that somehow if you get hired the company can't ever decide to let you go is totally bizarre to me. Plus, what you would be essentially arguing is that it would have been better to never have hired these people in the first place, which I strongly disagree with in the vast majority of cases. People need to stop actin…

> Riot is offering a minumum of six months of severance. [...] It's important that people are treated with dignity and a financial cushion, and at least according to this blog post that seems to be the case.

It wouldn't surprise me if part of this is because of how much harder it (anecdotally) seems to be for game developers/designers to find new jobs relative to their non-gaming peers. I'm having a hard time finding data to distinguish the two (game devs v. devs, game designers v. e.g UX designers), but going at least from my own network, those in gaming were more profoundly affected.

If that's true on any broader scale, then putting people out with two months pay in an industry that could take four to eight months to find new work could be a bad look for the RIFing company.

Re: Riot Games laying off 11%

#114

Post by Jensson »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #90
alchemist1e9 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please educate yourself properly and try to understand capitalism the single biggest force behind the improvement in the human condition. Vilification of profits is a disgraceful attitude. https://x.com/aphysicist/status/1747868626948907325

I am amazed by this shameless appropriation of credit for scientific breakthroughs and peddling of a self-congratulating fantasy. Nicola Tesla was a successful capitalist? Isaac Neuton? Leu Paster? What about the guy that invented penicillin? Without capitalists, progress reaches the masses a bit slower. Without scientists, capitalists would still trade sheep, live in huts, and wipe their ass with tree bark.

Science is public, everyone can read and learn the results if they want. So why are some countries better off than others? The poor ones could just use the science if they wanted to. The answer is their governing and economic systems, and you are much better off in a capitalist democracy than other kinds of countries.

Re: Riot Games laying off 11%

#117

Post by wilg »

PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote: post #106
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are expected to account for your actions. Like an accountant is expected to keep an accounting of transactions. If an accountant lies in his numbers, they go to prison. Why are you missing the most obvious explanation, it’s simply a political point they have to be seen saying, but have no intention of doing - I.e. it’s a lie

what makes it even worse is just the usage of the word accountable is technically correct but awkward as shit because no one actually uses that word in that manner, they use it in the manner you suggested.

I doubt that. More likely people are just motivated to interpret it negatively because it supports their point if they do.

Re: Riot Games laying off 11%

#118

Post by gurchik »

PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote: post #112
gurchik wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The failures of Riot's management have been apparent. Three years ago, the company paid $100 million due to sexual harassment and gender discrimination done at all levels of management including the cofounders and their CEO and COO. Over 150 employees held a walkout. It's not just employees either, on the esports side, the North American players walked out last spring which caused the summer split to be delayed.

the player walkout was due to changes in the league made by Riot, specifically that orgs are no longer required to have academy teams (academy teams are the equivalent of college teams, not pro but better than most players). you're overselling that unnecessarily. But the point about the abuse is true and it wasn't just sexual abuse, it was harassment at all levels. for anyone not aware: https://kotaku.com/top-riot-ex…

I'm sorry, I didn't intend to say that the player walkout was due to sexual harassment or discrimination claims. The player's association voted for a walkout because the players did not have faith in Riot and in fact believed that their decisions were jeopardizing the health of the esport. I agree the player walkout had nothing to do with the employee walkout and in fact it happened much later, after the lawsuit had already been settled. The way I wrote the comment made it seem like they were the same when it was actually my intention to say the opposite. I was trying to say that Riot has failed in other ways unrelated to sexual harassment and discrimination.

Re: Riot Games laying off 11%

#119

Post by acdha »

wegfawefgawefg wrote: post #101
acdha wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sophistry aside, it’s still profoundly disruptive for many people. Whether or not they know there’s a risk, it means people are scrambling to reestablish their finances and routines, and in many cases that can have long-lasting impacts – people have to move, Americans have disruptions to their healthcare access & providers, and older people might never regain their old salary. That doesn’t make it illegal, or even a…

I agree, but layoffs are not necessarily sacrifices. layoffs really are necessary sometimes.

Definitely sometimes, but my point was simply that whoever is being let loose is taking the downside. It might help their friends who are still employed but they’re feeling the most immediate downsides and likely will not benefit if it does save the business.

Re: Riot Games laying off 11%

#120

Post by xyst »

Guvante wrote: post #65
xyst wrote: post #58

> … We want to make sure Rioters who are leaving us this week have a bit of time to identify and unwind any personal info or accounts that may be tied to their Riot email addresses. TIL: people of recent generations use work e-mails for personal usage. I have only seen this phenomena with older generations when they worked for a single company their entire life until or up to retirement.

Honestly there are grey area things you don't think about. Is your employer provided HSA account work or personal?

My employer contributes to the account. But it’s never tied directly to the e-mail provided by my employer. I can only recall one time where I had to transfer HSA to diff bank but that’s it. Never had to use my work email to login
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