After there were over 9,000 layoffs in the video game industry last year, the trend is set to continue in 2024, and League of Legends maker Riot Games is the latest example. On Monday evening, the company announced that “we are refocusing on fewer, high-impact projects to move toward a more sustainable future,” which means cutting jobs for 530 people worldwide, or about 11 percent of the total workforce.
Legends of Runeterra and Riot Forge cuts are part of the “Adjustments”
CEO Dylan Jadeja said in a company-wide statement, “Some of the significant investments we have made are not paying off as we expected,” citing Riot's 10th anniversary expansions in 2019 The League of Legends spread the universe through new games and other forms of entertainment. Employees “whose role is or may be affected” will have a meeting with their relevant managers within the next 48 hours and will be offered at least six months’ severance pay, with more for those who have been with the company longer. as well as other advantages.
What Riot says it is prioritizing are the main live games it produces, such as League of Legends, Valorant, Teamfight Tactics and Wild Rift, as well as esports and events associated with those titles. Likewise, the still-in-development 2D fighting game Project L is said to be “making great progress” with League characters, and the second season of its Arcane TV show for Netflix is expected to release in November.
Projects directly affected by the changes include Legends of Runeterra, the free-to-play card game announced in 2019, which Jadeja said “didn't work as well as we needed it to.” This team will be downsized and will focus on the PvE game mode. The other target in Riot's current gaming portfolio is the publishing label Riot Forge, also announced in 2019, to work with smaller studios that would develop more League-related titles.
According to Jadeja, the cuts are not intended to appease investors, but rather: “We need to do more to focus our business and concentrate our efforts on the things that create the most value for players – the things that make it happen But that won't undo the impact on those directly affected, nor the chill that's spreading across the industry – a layoff tracker run by Kotaku counts that over 3,800 jobs have already been lost in 2024 gone and it's still January.