Dismissing employees based on in game behavior

[Jonexe]

How is this any different than a lot of other jobs out there?

You expect your elected officials not to be dickbags off the clock.
You expect your Cops to be held responsible for their actions on and off duty.
Military members are expected to behave a certain ways on and off duty.
CEOs of large companies are scrutinized to the littlest details of their personal lives.
Telling everyone about stupid lines celebrities say when not singing/playing/acting/etc is it's own industry.

You represent the people you work for all day, every day. Many jobs don't care, but some do. Especially when you're interacting with the very people that they serve in your off duty time. If you're giving a negative impression and are known or easily traceable to being affiliate with an organization, people are going to have an inherent negative impression of that organization whether you're on the clock or not.

[Torched]

You're making a huge leap assuming that they're representing Riot. If they're playing anonymously then Riot has no business pulling this shit.

They are representing Riot when they play, they all have "Riot(playername)", unless they are playing on a different account then the one they gave info to Riot about.

[Ripster42]

They are representing Riot when they play, they all have "Riot(playername)", unless they are playing on a different account then the one they gave info to Riot about.

My favorite one I played with was riotjeffjew.

[Sunseeker]

I wouldn't really call this spying, especially when they are employees of the company that produces the game they're playing. If they were regulating their employees by having some kind of back-door deal with say, ArenaNet, and firing their employees based on how they play in Guild Wars 2, I'd take issue with that.

One way of thinking of this that may make it make a little more sense: League is virtual company property. Not really any different than when the employee is in the physical building during regular business hours. Just as Riot can regular the behviour of non-employees while on company property, they can regulate employees as well...they just have a bigger ax to hold over their head.

[kail]

I mean, are we talking about the Riot"x" accounts where anyone knows if they're an employee based on IGN? If so, then sure fire those that misrepresent the company. If Riot is somehow spying on private accounts with IP traces and such, does feel rather invasive to privacy.

[TITAN308]

Wrong. There are federal rules to regulate employer - employee relationships for a reason.
As an employer you definitely cannot do everything you like or else show them the door.

This is a gross over simplification of my statement.

[Trassk]

This seems to go along with employers firing employees based on social media posts.

This is why I'll always protest against social media having your real name attached to it.

[the game]

This is why I'll always protest against social media having your real name attached to it.

Agreed. My facebook is only visible to people on my friends list for a reason. I don't post enough on twitter to care about that. and I don't add anyone in my chain of command to my friends lists. Except for Linkedin but I think linkedin is a different case.

[TITAN308]

This is why I'll always protest against social media having your real name attached to it.

How can you protest something that is completely voluntary?

[Nevcairiel]

Its not like they only took the game stats and fired people because of what they did in-game, instead they used the game as an indicator which employees they might need to look at closer - and then found that their work behavior is also toxic.

Firing solely on behavior in the game would be rather awkward, but if the game accounts are officially flagged as Riot employees and only used as indicators which employees might be problematic, there is nothing wrong with that.

[Deleted]

Your behaviour reflects on your employer.
So i find this normal. Especially if its the game you work for.

[anyaka21]

So they identified 30 groups who they saw as people with mood swings which are a common sign of mental illness, and instead of offering help they fired them?

Lawsuits when?

Riot literally fired people with obvious signs of depression or other form of emotional mental health issues.

I'm guessing you actually didn't read the article you quoted... They didn't fire those employees. They evaluated them based on their chats logs and if they were being rude, because, well, when online on their game, they do represent Riot.

And worth repreating, they didn't fire them. When confronted with their chat logs, they said those employees were appalled and vowed to change.

I would more concerned with someone like you who seems to be litigation happy wanting to sue someone over any perceived but not actual slight.

[Trassk]

How can you protest something that is completely voluntary?

voluntary for now.

[TITAN308]

voluntary for now.

What does this even mean?

[the game]

What does this even mean?

I think he's just going tin foil hat mode with that, I think he means that employers may try to require employees social media to be visible to keep the job. It'll never happen though.

Just make your profile private and it's no problem. Employers can't force you to do anything outside of work.

[Deleted]

I hate being spied on at work by my boss so I don't like this either. Riot games looks at employees in game behavior and chat and uses that in their annual employee review.







http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...oxic-employees

Because all Riot employees play League, and have the same persistent player
records as everyone else, it's a relatively easy matter to take stock of which
employees have been attracting bad feedback from team mates and opponents. That
done, Riot looked back at the dismissals it had made over the last year and
found a correlation between poor in-game reputation and problem behaviour at
work - a quarter of all fired employees had been unpleasant players. Toxic
players tended to be toxic employees, even if the reverse wasn't always true.

Following that realisation, Riot took a proactive stance, looking at the most
problematic LoL records of current employees and examining their workplace
behaviour. Looking at the traits exhibited, snarky passive aggression and over
authoritative behaviour were found to be the most common negative associations,
with some employees 'pulling rank' on other players to intimidate them. This
behaviour tended to fluctuate with mood, unsurprisingly, but the situation was
bad enough that the company singled out the 30 worst offenders and separated
them into two groups: those who needed a warning, and those who needed to
leave.

These 30 employees were brought into resolution meetings and confronted with
their chat logs. Most, the company reports, were appalled when asked to justify
the behaviour, showing contrition almost across the board.

"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," said Riot's Talent
head Jay Moldenhauer-Salazar.

Now, the logs form an active part of recruitment. All prospective employees are
asked for their in-game account names so their behaviour can be tracked. All
are then rated on a traffic light system to highlight any potential troublesome
proclivities. In addition, Riot is now using the study to try and find out
which players work best together, identifying the best team players to create
more efficient employee groups.

Seems completely logical to keep track of the shit your employees say because it reflects how people percieve your company. If they can't even police their own damned employees, how can they be trusted to police anything at all?

[Mad_Murdock]

If the game play results and comments are just a part of the overall review I don't see how it's a bad thing. I wouldn't want an employee who's a total jerk ass to my customers when he's off the clock (or just out of sight). It would be interesting to see how the Awesome employee\terrible LOL player review went.

[Project 501D13R]

completely understandable as the employees in game still represent the company

only if they are declaring themselves as employees of the company, these people are playing the game in their off hours, the people they are playing with or against won't know they work for riot unless they specifically say so.

[Super Friendly Kitty Cat]

I'm guessing you actually didn't read the article you quoted... They didn't fire those employees. They evaluated them based on their chats logs and if they were being rude, because, well, when online on their game, they do represent Riot.

And worth repreating, they didn't fire them. When confronted with their chat logs, they said those employees were appalled and vowed to change.

I would more concerned with someone like you who seems to be litigation happy wanting to sue someone over any perceived but not actual slight.

From the article: singled out the 30 worst offenders and separated
them into two groups: those who needed a warning, and those who needed to
leave.

Not sure about you, but I think they meant leave and never come back, not just leave for the day.

Secondly, the company specifically said these employees exhibited mood swings which any normal person could identify as possible pi-polar disorder which is a very common mental health issue.

Riot has no stand to suddenly become obtuse if they themselves set out to understand what was having an effect on their employees behavior and narrowed it down to "mood swings".

If these "mood swings" happened that often and were that pronounced and they chose to overlook possible mental health reasons, then they are liable and should be shamed for firing people with mental health issues instead of helping their employees.

[Radaney]

Riot employees represent Riot in game which makes this extremely understandable and fine by me.

I believe they all have Riot in their summoner names now.