I'm actually legitimately worried for the future of Riot Games

I've been avoiding the recent threads about the PAX situation like the plague, but honest to god this could have a far reaching impact on the company itself and I feel the need to talk about it. Riot was being incredibly sexist and demeaning to women who work at the company, and their solution is to punish members of the community? Some of the biggest fans of the game who went to PAX and chose of all the companies to visit, to visit Riot? What the hell? And then we have a few incredibly outspoken Rioters calling the community sexist for pointing out that when men aren't allowed in an event, it is by definition sexism. It really boggles my mind. We have an issue where women fear for their safety working at Riot, and the solution is obviously to fuck over the male fanbase who has nothing to do with Riot's internal affairs? I truly, truly do not understand.

And you know what's going to happen next, this isn't going to stay contained on the forums. People will make YouTube videos, tweets, will talk about it on stream, will tell their friends, etc. Basically every new player recruitment effort Riot has done to try and revitalize the game might as well have been for nothing, because whenever people look at League they will just think "oh yeah, that's the company that treats its women like shit and thought the solution to that problem was to treat the male fanbase like shit." Will it kill the game? I doubt it. But this is going to take a hot minute to blow over and in the meantime the actual game of League (I know, talking about the game rather than politics within a game company?) is bleeding out. Old players, new players, and casual fans basically all agree that the game is in a bad spot right now and needs new players. It's an old game, people who aren't playing any free to play games are more likely to go for the new and shiny games like Fortnite. This game NEEDED a bump and instead the company decided to open Pandora's box in a way so stupid I honestly think someone at the company wants it to go out of business.

And what about Riot game 2? It remains to be seen if this takes a chunk out of that as well, but I wouldn't be surprised. People leaving League now because of this event are likely not going to come back for a long time, if not ever. People who have seen what Riot does will likely be turned off at the prospect of playing League or the new game simply based on what they've seen of the company. I like Riot and want it to succeed, but externalizing an internal fuckery was actually just about the worst thing the company could've done right now. Season 9 is make or break for the game, and two months away from preseason 9 starting this happens.

The game won't die but it is going to take a hit from this, all Riot had to do was make an internal structure to insure all their employees felt safe and were being treated equally but they had to try and pander for "good boy points" in public with members of the community as their guinea pigs.