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Niantic, Parent Company To Pokémon Go, Is Facing A Class Action Alleging 'Systemic Sexual Bias' Against Women

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Daily, the phrase “You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villian” finds new examples. Remember Pokémon Go? The game seemed to usher in world peace back in 2016 — trainers of all ages, socioeconomic classes, and sexes abandoned their couches to herd everything from common Pidgeys to those elusive Laprases. Since then Niantic, the company behind the global phenom, has been beset with many controversies. Most of them have been about gameplay: reducing the amount of Pokécoins players could earn, failing to police spoofing, and rolling back accommodations made for COVID-19. Now the issues have leapt from rapidly heating up phones to the courtroom. From The Verge:

A former Niantic employee filed a lawsuit against the AR gaming company on Friday, alleging that it devalued the work of female employees and women of color, denied equal pay to women employees and women of color. The lawsuit, which is seeking class-action status, accuses Niantic of creating a “boys club.” The employee was laid off as part of last week’s job cuts at the company, which affected about 230 staffers.

The employee, who is an anonymous Jane Doe but is described in the complaint as an Asian female, started work at Niantic in February 2020 with a salary of $70,000, the complaint says. Later that year, she was promoted and received a raise to about $84,000, but in “approximately” 2021, she learned that Niantic was paying a male colleague more money even though she had a higher job title and more responsibilities than he did.

The facts of the case only get worse. After some sleuthing, the employee discovered that she was being paid over $10k below the posted rate for her position. Thank California’s pay transparency laws for that. After talking to her coworkers and going to HR, Niantic did the only reasonable thing to do in this circumstance. No, not correct her salary and throw in some backpay to compensate for what must have been an obvious error in accounting — they told her to shush and that her job evaluations were lowered because she had the nerve to talk to her coworkers about her paychecks.

Gaming company or not, workplace discrimination is nothing to play with. This is far from the only instance of alleged gender discrimination in gaming: Riot Games was ordered to pay $10M to its female employees; Ubisoft was accused of harassment and discrimination in 2020; and the 2021 suit against Activision Blizzard also drew attention to company’s boys’ club culture. Depending on how widespread the alleged discrimination at Niantic has been, it may be the next company forced to make amends. Let’s hope that the case resolves before the Supreme Court decides that private companies have a right to discriminate against protected classes or something.

Pokémon Go Creator Niantic Accused Of ‘Systemic Sexual Bias’ In Lawsuit [The Verge]

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Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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