Riot Games, known for developing the popular video game League of Legends, has announced the dismissal of 530 employees: approximately 11% of its global workforce. This 2024 seems difficult for any sector.
In a statement addressed to the players on their website, Dylan Jadeja, CEO of Riot, wrote: “For most of our history, we have managed to avoid days like this, but today’s decision is critical for the future of Riot. It’s not about appeasing shareholders or reaching quarterly profit figures: it’s a necessity“.
The CEO went into more specific details about the business circumstances that led to today’s layoffs in an email to Riot employees, also shared on the studio’s website.
Too many projects at once, few benefits?
“Since 2019, we have made a series of big bets throughout the company with the goal of being better for players. We dove headfirst into creating new experiences and expanding our portfolio, and we grew rapidly as we became a multi-game, multi-experience company: we expanded our global footprint, changed our operating model, brought in new talent to match our ambitions, and ultimately doubled the size of Riot in a few years,” the letter begins.
“Currently, we are a company without a sufficiently defined focus,” he continued, “and simply put, we have too many things going on. Some of the important investments we have made are not yielding the results we expected. Our costs have grown to an unsustainable point and we have run out of margin to experiment or fail, something vital for a creative company like ours. All of this jeopardizes the core of our business.”
Riot says that these “changes” will mean that around 530 employees will lose their jobs worldwide, “with the biggest impact [being] on teams outside of core development.”
The company will also close RiotForge: the initiative that has allowed them to work with smaller independent studios to develop a series of highly acclaimed titles based on their intellectual property, such as Ruined King, Song of Nunu, and the upcoming Bandle Tale. And they will reduce the size of their Legends of Runeterra team.
