Riot Games Announces Layoffs

gamerant.com:

In yet another blow to workers in the video game industry, Riot Games has announced that it will lay off 530 staff members, or roughly 11% of its employees. The decision follows the unfortunate trend of studio shutdowns, game cancelations, and AAA game studio layoffs that dominated the industry in 2023.

Founded in 2006, Riot Games is the video game developer behind the popular titles League of Legends and Valorant. Its subsidiary, Riot Forge, has served as publisher on a number of games set in the League of Legends universe, such as Ruined King and Song of Nunu. However, this newly announced set of layoffs is set to massively reshape Riot Games and the company's future.

First announced in a public letter on the official Riot Games website, CEO A. Dylan Jadeja announced that Riot Games will be letting go of 11% of its staff, resulting in 530 layoffs and the shutdown of Riot Forge. Jadeja stated that Riot has become unsustainable, noting a number of «big bets» that did not pay off. The letter highlights growing costs and a failure to drive player value as key reasons for the layoffs. Jadeja emphasized the workforce cutbacks as a necessity and not simply a tactic to please shareholders. Employees across the company will start receiving emails notifying them of termination, with the first layoffs beginning today and the completion of the staff reductions likely to end over the next few weeks. The CEO assured fans that titles from Riot Games would not be impacted, though Legends of Runeterra will see some team resizing.

«Today, we’re a company without a sharp enough focus, and simply put, we have too many things underway. Some of the significant investments we’ve made aren’t paying off the way we expected them to… Unfortunately, this involves making changes in the area where we invest the most — our headcount.»

— A. Dylan Jadeja, CEO Riot Games

This latest round of layoffs by Riot Games marks yet another downsizing move by an AAA game studio. Last year saw dozens of major