UPDATE: Riot confirms 32 employees affected.
Image credit: Riot Games
UPDATE 11.01pm: A Riot Games spokesperson has confirmed to Eurogamer that today’s layoffs will impact 32 employees. 27 roles have been cut on the League of Legends team, plus a further five roles in publishing. “Rioters who were laid off will have the ability to use our internal job board to apply for any open roles across the company,” the spokesperson added.
ORIGINAL STORY 9.29pm: League of Legends developer Riot Games has announced it’s laying off an unspecified number of employees in the studio’s second round of job cuts since the start of this year.
Riot began 2024 by laying off 530 employees in a move it insisted was a “necessity”, saying its costs had “grown to the point where they’re unsustainable… [leaving] no room for experimentation or failure”. Ten months on, however, and the studio says it’s latest round of job cuts “isn’t about reducing headcount to save money – it’s about making sure we have the right expertise so that League continues to be great for another 15 years and beyond.”
“While team effectiveness is more important than team size,” Riot co-founder Marc Merrill wrote in a statement shared on social media, “the League team will eventually be even larger than it is today as we develop the next phase of League. For Rioters who are laid off, we’re supporting them with a severance package that includes a minimum of six months’ pay, annual bonus, job placement assistance, health coverage, and more.”
Despite Riot having now seen three rounds of layoffs since the start of 2023 (the studio also announced 46 job cuts last year), Merrill attempted to reassure League of Legends fans in his statement, saying, “I want to be clear: we’re not slowing down work on the game you love. We’re investing heavily in solving today’s challenges faster while also building for the future.”
Eurogamer has contacted Riot for additional information, including the number of employees affected by today’s layoffs, and we’ll update the story if more is shared.
Today’s news continues a devastating 2024 for the games industry, with around 13,000 industry employees believed to have lost their jobs since the start of the year – and that’s in addition to the 10,500 workers laid off in 2023. So why are these layoffs occurring? GamesIndustry.biz’s Chris Dring shared his thoughts earlier this year.
