Pokémon Go maker Niantic accused of ‘systemic sex bias’ in lawsuit

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

The complaint states that the employee, who is unnamed as Jane Doe but is described in the complaint as an Asian woman, started working at Niantic in February 2020 with a salary of $70,000. Later that year, she was promoted and received a raise of about $84,000, but “around” 2021, she learned that Niantic was paying a male colleague more money, even though she had a higher job title than him. There were more responsibilities.

In 2022, he was reportedly paid $127,000 per year, but was paid $105,000 per year despite being one job level up. In or around the spring of 2023, she received a pay increase to $115,000 per year, still less than her male co-worker.

Around the same time, the employee also noticed that Niantic posted salary ranges for her job title and level — California employers with more than 15 employees, through 2023, must share salary range in the job listing due to salary transparency laws – and noticed she was being paid less than $10,000 less than the low end of that range.

The employee discussed her concerns with other female employees, and the issue of gender discrimination and equal pay was raised in Wolfpack, the company’s employee resource group for women.

But when the employee brought her concerns to Niantic’s Director of Diversity Equity and Inclusion and Principal People Partner, he “made it clear” that “they and male upper management at Niantic were hostile to her complaints about sexism or sexual harassment in the workplace.” Concerns about bias were raised, the complaint states.

The executives at the meeting also reportedly said that discussing workplace issues with their co-workers affected their job evaluations and that they were paid less than the threshold. Because He expressed concern to his co-workers. According to the complaint, the employee “immediately unsubscribed” from the Wolfpack group, “out of fear that her association with the Wolfpack would harm Wolfpack employees.”

This year, Wolfpack found in a survey of employees that “many female employees view Niantic as having a sexist work culture that disadvantages female employees” and that a majority of respondents “expressed concerns about equal pay at Niantic”. ,” the complaint said. When those survey findings were shared with upper management, “Niantic’s chief marketing officer, Mike Quigley, asked Wolfpack to make references to the Boys Club and similar comments about sexism in the workplace to Wolfpack members regarding the survey results.” demanded his removal from his presentation before the The group was also told that they could not survey employees without upper management’s approval.

Niantic did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuit against Niantic is the latest legal action against a major gaming company based on allegations from female employees. The state of California sued Activision Blizzard in 2021 alleging it fostered a culture of “persistent sexual harassment”, while Riot Games announced that year it would pay $100 million to settle the gender discrimination lawsuit. Will do

As part of its recent layoffs, CEO John Hanke reiterated the company’s focus pokemon go, it’s a cash cow, The company has struggled to find its next big hit, with games being discontinued based on harry potter, CatanAnd, like last week, it’s an NBA game.