8 Times Video Game Developers Publicly Insulted Their Players

5. Daniel Klein Calls Fans "Manbabies" Amidst Riot Games Sexism Allegations

League of legends minions
Riot Games

Another Riot Games developer who took things a bit too far in a public forum is Daniel Klein, who used to work at the company as a Systems Designer.

In 2018, Riot was accused of having a toxic workplace - including, but not limited to, sexism allegations - and naturally, this led many people who worked at the company to voice their own opinions on the subject, and share their own stories.

Klein was one of the employees who did just that. In the aftermath of the accusations against Riot, the company decided to hold a panel at PAX West that was only open to women and non-binary attendees. This drew a lot of criticism from the League Of Legends community, so Klein stepped in to defend the decision in a lengthy Twitter thread. Unfortunately, he struggled to stay fully calm while doing so, and this led to him being fired for violating Riot's social media policy.

In a series of tweets, Klein referred to outspoken fans as "manbabies" and "overgrown toddlers", and urged them to grow up. In the replies to his thread, he also told another person to "f*** off".

While Klein was absolutely entitled to his own views on this sensitive subject, there was probably a nicer way for him to word things than simply resorting to insults.

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Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!