Riot Games excludes men from PAX West
After a former employee's interview with Kotaku claiming that Riot Games, the developer of League of Legends, discriminated against women in their studio. Riot Games has gone on a full damage control campaign in an attempt to reduce the backlash from gamers and leftists alike.
During the PAX West expo in September 2018, Riot Games hosted several sessions to get people into game design. However, on their website, they mentioned the sessions would be exclusive to women and non-binary. From the website:
"In Room 613 we’re hosting a variety of sessions to support women and non-binary folks who are interested in getting into games professionally. Stop by to learn from and get to know some of the badass women of Riot! Tentative schedule below, but all subject to change—stop by the room Friday-Monday for a daily schedule."
When asked if men would be accepted anyway despite the heading Riot Games responded with:
"The first two events of room 613 will be only open to women and nonbinary folks (there might be some exceptions. I will try and post on Twitter the schedule everyday). However, all the activities of the room will be open to all after 3pm, including the “Ask a Riot” time."
The post was naturally downvoted heavily by frustrated gamers for Riot Games taking a left-wing route.
After the downvotes, one of the game designers, Daniel Z. Klein lashed out at the gamers and used the excuse of men being "privileged" to justify the discrimination and even went so far as to say that the critics were no longer welcome in the gaming community, even ones who pointed out their gender discrimination violated state and federal law.