Riot Identifies Toxic Employees Using League Of Legends Chatlogs

Sometimes when you read what people say online, you really have to wonder if they are really that way in real life. Imagine if you were playing a game and the opposing team had a player who spewed forth the foulest things you’ve ever heard, do you reckon that is a good reflection of their personality?

Apparently there’s some correlation. According to Re:Work, it seems that the folks at Riot Games believed that there is a correlation in an employee’s in-game behavior and that of their in-workplace behavior and they set out to test their theory by going through their previous dismissals and the chatlogs of those employees from League of Legends.

According to their discovery, “They determined that 25% of employees who had been let go in the previous year were players with unusually high in-game toxicity. The most common bad behaviors they found were passive aggression (snarky comments) and the use of authoritative language, sometimes using their authority as a Riot employee to intimidate or threaten others.”

They tend identified 30 of their current most toxic employees and classified them into two groups: one that needed a stern warning, and another that should be more or less fired from the company. Interestingly enough according to Jay Moldenhauer-Salazar, Riot’s head of Talent, “Pretty much everyone we spoke with was appalled at their own behaviour. We actually received some essays from employees vowing to change their ways and become not just more considerate gamers but better people.”

In the past we have seen how some people have been fired from their jobs based on what they write on social media, so we guess how people behave in video games could be potentially used as a gauge as well. Pretty interesting, could be used as a new hiring tactic in the future.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Gaming
Tags: league of legends, Riot