Cecilia D'Anastasio wins Writers Guild of America Award
Kotaku journalist honored for exposé on culture of sexism at Riot Games
Yesterday, Kotaku reporter Cecilia D'Anastasio was the recipient of the Writer's Guild of America award in digital news for her 2018 article "Inside The Culture Of Sexism At Riot Games," which exposed a toxic, sexist culture at the studio going back years.
In a Twitter post after the ceremony, D'Anastasio expressed gratitude to her sources on the piece - 28 current and former Riot Games employees who came forward with alarming stories of the studio's "bro culture" that included individual accounts of inappropriate behavior from male employees as well as difficulty moving up in the company as a woman and other forms of discrimination due to sexist attitudes from even senior staff.
Since the publication of the piece, Riot has since updated its company values as well as launched an internal investgation that led to a two-month suspension-without-pay of its COO, Scott Gelb.
In addition to D'Anastasio's award, God of War also took home the Writer's Guild of America Award for video game writing. Other nominees were Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Batman: The Enemy Within, Marvel's Spider-Man, and Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire.