Riot Games, makers of the impossibly successful The League of Legends franchise, has today announced it will be laying off 11% of its global workforce, accounting for approximately 530 employees who now find themselves without a job a mere three weeks into 2024. The Tencent-owned developer/publisher announced the news via an open letter to fans on Twitter, using the letter to also announce the closure of Riot Forge, an internal production team dedicated to varying Riot’s output with the help of external developers. The wording of the post below seems to indicate that the affected employees, who were notified via a staff email, were only informed mere moments before the public also learnt of Riot’s decision.
Minutes ago, we shared an important update with Rioters about the future of Riot Games. Here’s what these changes mean for our games and what players can expect from us going forward: https://t.co/SPjvtANGdK pic.twitter.com/WGSr6fkvjp
— Riot Games (@riotgames) January 22, 2024
Riot CEO Dylan Jadeja writes to the now-former employees in the email, using the communication as a chance to convey the circumstances that led to this choice and highlight the ways Riot intends to support those affected in the months following termination. “Rioters,” the email begins, “Today, I’m sharing a decision we hoped we would never have to make at Riot. We’re changing some of the bets we’ve made and shifting how we work across the company to create focus and move us toward a more sustainable future. This decision means we’re eliminating about 530 roles globally, which represents around 11% of our workforce, with the biggest impact to teams outside of core development. This also sadly means we’ll be saying goodbye to many talented colleagues and friends across all areas of Riot.”
In a subsection of the email titled ‘How we got here’, Jadeja goes on to explain that Riot’s attempts at expansion since 2019 have now seen the company spread too thin and lacking in focus. “Today, we’re a company without a sharp enough focus, and simply put, we have too many things underway.” says Jadeja, continuing, “Some of the significant investments we’ve made aren’t paying off the way we expected them to. Our costs have grown to the point where they’re unsustainable, and we’ve left ourselves with no room for experimentation or failure – which is vital to a creative company like ours. All of this puts the core of our business at risk. Over the past several months, we’ve tried to alter our trajectory in many different ways. We asked leaders to make tradeoffs in the things their teams are working on. We rolled out hiring slowdowns, and in some cases hiring freezes. We put an emphasis on controlling costs while strengthening our revenue growth. All of which has without a doubt been tough for our teams. But as I’ve dug in with leaders across Riot, it’s become clear to all of us that these changes aren’t enough. We have to do more to focus our business and center our efforts on the things that drive the most player value – the things that are truly worth players’ time. Unfortunately, this involves making changes in the area where we invest the most — our headcount.”
The email goes on to detail the support Riot will be offering to those it let go of, including six months severence, “…in line with local laws”, cash bonuses, health care until last working date, limited time continued access to company email (which the letter is very proud to point out is uncommon in these moments), VISA support and more. Elsewhere, Riot has assured its customers in a seperate statement that “…This isn’t to appease shareholders or to hit a quarterly earnings number—it’s a necessity” and that it understood that taking the time to recentre games as its focus was the correct path forward. The letter also goes on at length about how “esports, music, and entertainment” are also the focus.
The news comes as the video game industry continues to experience a devestating financial collapse, with 2024’s lay off total already sitting somewhere around 3,800 before today’s latest additions.
Jadeja, who’s estimated annual networth sits around $30 million USD, told ex-staff via email “As CEO, I’m accountable for the changes we’re making and where we’re headed in the future.”
One part pretentious academic and one part goofy dickhead, James is often found defending strange games and frowning at the popular ones, but he's happy to play just about everything in between. An unbridled love for FromSoftware's pantheon, a keen eye for vibes first experiences, and an insistence on the Oxford comma have marked his time in the industry.
