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Two long-time employees of Riot Games have left the company in "fuzzy" circumstances, reports Kotaku.
Seven current and former rioters approached Kotaku on Friday and said they thought systems designer Daniel Klein and communications partner Mattias Lehman had been fired for their public reaction to a recent controversy over a PAX West event. Riot organized several sessions during the convention to support women and non-binary people interested in developing professional games. He offered commentary on the one-on-one CV and presentations on artistic design, narrative writing, production, and so on.
The event was part of Riot's plans to rehabilitate a work culture that many employees, past and present, say are sexist and misogynistic. But this sparked outrage over the League of Legends, with some fans describing the event as "sexist" because it excluded men. Riot told his employees not to engage in public controversy, sources told Kotaku, but Klein and Lehman apparently entered anyway. Klein described a Reddit topic as "toxic dump" and explained that "sexism against men" makes no sense because "men have power".
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"Men are overrepresented in games; they are listened to when women are ignored, promoted when women are overwhelmed, praised for denouncing the fact that women are described as "hard to work," he said.
Lehman, meanwhile, came to Klein's defense on social media. "Being an ally means listening, learning and defending marginalized people. @danielzklein did it over the years that I've known and worked with him, "he said. "It's knowing that people spend more time watching him than expressing those who harass and threaten him."
Departures from Klein and Lehman are similar to an incident in July involving two ArenaNet employees. Writer Jessica Price was reportedly fired from this company after participating in a public discussion on Twitter with a YouTuber. The author Peter Fries was sent back for his defense. At the time, ArenaNet co-founder and president Mike O'Brien said the two partners had failed to meet our standards for communicating with players.
"Their attacks on the community were unacceptable," he said.
Variety contacted Riot about the departures of Klein and Lehman. He provided the following statement:
"These departures are independent of our efforts to evolve our culture. Our culture remains our highest priority and we remain committed to taking the necessary steps to become a leader in diversity and inclusion. We will always encourage rioters to share their views and we fully support rioters' efforts to promote our diversity and inclusion initiatives. We are committed to making real positive changes in Riot's culture and internal advocates are essential to achieving this. Beyond that, we can confirm that these people are no longer with Riot Games, but we can not provide more details on staffing issues. "
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