Toxic League of Legends players also also make for toxic workers, Riot finds

Having examined 12 months worth of gameplay for every employee, League of Legends developer Riot discovered "a correlation between in-game and in-Riot toxicity".

Writing for GoogleRe:work, the studio said: The Riot team hypothesised there’d be a correlation between highly toxic in-game play and workplace toxicity; if a Rioter received lots of in-game complaints, the team assumed they’d have more friction with workplace teammates too."

And they were right. Aquarter of staff let go during the same period were found to be ‘unusually’ toxic players in-game, with passive aggression and exploitation of their status as a Riot worker to intimidate competitors the most common offences.

Riot has now said it will trial a ‘stoplight’ system where prospective staff are flagged under green, yellow and red lights, reflecting their conduct. All new applicants are asked for their League of Legends username to allow their in-game behaviour to be reviewed alongside their professional capabilities.

Develop has more details.