League of Legends admits to using chat-log analysis in employee reviews

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League of Legends admits to using chat-log analysis in employee reviews
Toxicity analysis looks for context, such as "using their [developer] authority."

by Sam Machkovech - Jun 10, 2016 12:41pm PDT

The hammer comes down—at the workplace.
Riot Games

League of Legends creators Riot Games have never shied away from the fact that some of its players really, really suck. The company's "tribunal" answer to toxic behavior has paid big dividends in the past few years, but it hasn't zeroed out all rude players—which means Riot still had some recent data handy to connect the dots for an intriguing, workplace-related corollary.

The leading question: Does bad in-game behavior carry over to the workplace? Riot was in a position to know, since its staffers are also avid LoL players—and have apparently signed over permissions for their bosses to track their gameplay.

With help from Google's re:Work staff analytics team, Riot picked through the last 12 months of each staffer's LoL gameplay records and chat logs. The analysts found that in the case of fired employees, 25 percent of them exhibited significantly toxic in-game behavior. This wasn't a surface-level search for vulgar and hateful keywords but rather a deeper, context-specific analysis; according to re:Work, the worst behaviors included "passive aggression (snarky comments) and the use of authoritative language, sometimes using their authority as a Riot employee to intimidate or threaten others."

Riot then applied that data to performance reviews for remaining employees. Similar "toxic" gameplay patterns were identified in 30 staffers, which Riot noted were "more junior Rioters, new to the working world," and the company conducted interviews with each of them with LoL chat logs in hand. A few of the interviews ended with employee exits, but most bore fruit. "Pretty much everyone we spoke with was appalled at their own behavior," Riot talent developer Jay Moldenhauer-Salazar told re:Work (who also noted that a few affected employees wrote apologetic essays in response).

The report ended by declaring Riot's intention to request LoL usernames from all future hires for similar chat-log analysis. That means prospective employees should be mindful of a wholly different kind of tribunal before feeding or going AFK.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/...-using-chat-log-analysis-in-employee-reviews/


Never forget big brother is always watching you!

Maybe this is why MA employees don't interact with us much, they are scared of how it will look on their reviews when their boss finds out they tell customers to "Learn how to play noob!" :laugh: I wonder what my employer has on me :scratch2: they haven't said anything about it for 17 years so it can't be anything too bad :laugh:
 
Ferengi Rules of Acquisition #74: Knowledge equals profit.

However, #79 says: Beware of the Vulcan greed for knowledge.
 
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I wonder what my employer has on me :scratch2:
Joking, right? :) You can't seriously think your employer (whoever it is) has any idea what you have said in all those games you've played last 17 years... unless u work for the Ferengi Alliance?

"Always keep your ears open." (Rule #7)
 
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I dont think i could facepalm hard enough to express my feelings on these clearly very hyper high end premium hiring/review practices, That will sure as shit not back fire or foster a non-functional carebear atmosphere that ignores reality completely, yay!
 
It all just means one thing.

There's no such thing as a "game character" being separate from the "real you".

(Nor is your "Internet Persona" different from the "you" in real life.)

Both are one and the same.

:laugh:
 
It all just means one thing.

There's no such thing as a "game character" being separate from the "real you".

(Nor is your "Internet Persona" different from the "you" in real life.)

Both are one and the same.

:laugh:

There are large scale efforts to eliminate anonymity from the internet. Part of the reason is because the Internet is a modern day Milgram experiment. It also breeds a new type of cyber warfare.
 
Well... if they're going to fire all assholes, they'll soon discover what many open source developers have known for years:

It's not nice guys who get things done.
 
Not a credible source but I know it's being talked about.

Neither are mainstream media these days. Yes, he tends to latch onto various conspiracy theories. The alleged power of the 'Bilderbergers' is a recurring topic in this field. But even without them, some trends are more than just a little disturbing. With such sources I strictly discern between verifiable information and opinion. He often does publish information which mainstream media are reluctant to carry, or their being opinionated even worse.
 
Neither are mainstream media these days. Yes, he tends to latch onto various conspiracy theories. The alleged power of the 'Bilderbergers' is a recurring topic in this field. But even without them, some trends are more than just a little disturbing. With such sources I strictly discern between verifiable information and opinion. He often does publish information which mainstream media are reluctant to carry, or their being opinionated even worse.

Even a broken clock is right once or twice a day.
 
Well... if they're going to fire all assholes, they'll soon discover what many open source developers have known for years:

It's not nice guys who get things done.

Actually, I quite agree with what Haruto Rat has mentioned.

Its probably a bit biased to rely too much on the chat-log behaviour to "judge" the employee or potential employee.

It might result in unnecessary discrimination imo.

Though it might predict the person's likely behaviour when given a high post (in the future to come), its ultimately just a probability and not a certainty.

For all we know, the employee may just be venting some fair "stress" and its all in "gaming-fun" when they were committing the deed (depending on severity of course...as its not a reasonable defence if the act was indeed too harsh).

You can surely take it into consideration, but definitely not as a rule.

Besides...

"Nice" personality =/= Job well done
 
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Attempts to control people on the Internet by the governments is nothing new. Bilderberg runs governments that's nothing new either...

My character has no connection with RL person so after the war on terror started Google had this campaign of "personification". Tell us your real name or we will block your content! I said FU and lost access to my YouTube account for over a year as a result. Eventually they realized I won't back down an so they gave me my channel back.

Latest large scale media control campaign was also loosely related to the war on terror. This time they decided the terrorists need defending. Information on both mainstream media and internet was censored. Info about New Year's events in Köln was held back for 3 days. It reached the mainstream media only after "the powers to be" realized they can't control the internet newschannels.
This was when they implemented the Internet censorship. If you said anything critical about migration on YouTube, your comment disappeared in 24 hours, if there was too many "politically incorrect" comments the whole comments section was disabled.
We used to say see how bad it is in China... now we can say well, China got there first.

Long live chairman Mao!
 
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I was going to fight internet censorship but I was censored :laugh:

There is free speech at my company, however you need to be very careful what you freely discuss and with who and to whom is in earshot less you get on the wrong side of those who have influence over your pay and possible future redundancy. I have seen people get their box that have opposing view from the borg for not being a good "cultural fit" or whatever they call it.

Some like to role play the villain, that doesn't make them a villain, I wonder how they consider that in their reviews.
 
Well it's a bit specific isn't it. It's not like theyre tracking other games... I'd behave more here if I actually worked for MA. Same as I behave when I'm around my customers, even when I'm not acting on my companys behalf.

I'd definitely take offence however, it my way real life company gave me a disciplinary over arguing with someone on PCF.
 
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