“This isn’t about reducing headcount to save money.” Riot Games is laying off even more workers on the League of Legends team.
More cuts are hitting Riot Games, but the company leadership insists the teams will eventually be even bigger.
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What you need to know
Another week brings even more layoffs across the gaming industry.
This time, the cuts are coming fromRiot Games, the developer and publisher of games like League of Legends andValorant. Riot Games co-founder Marc Merrill shared the news viaTwitter (X), where he wrote that the teams were “investing heavily in solving today’s challenges faster while also building for the future,” before explaining that members of the team were being cut.
“This 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,” Merrill says, adding that the team on League of Legends will eventually be “even larger” than it is right now. Affected employees are getting six months of severance, as well as other benefits like health insurance and job placement assistance.
Riot Games already laid off about 530 employeesat the start of the year. At the time, that was 11% of the publisher’s overall workforce. It’s not clear right now exactly how many employees have been affected by this latest round of cuts, but I’ve verified that the layoffs hit art and production teams at the company, with character artists, producers, and others being let go.
2024 brought mass layoffs across the gaming industry
While 2023 saw a number of job cuts and studio closures, 2024 has been even more brutal, with massive layoffs atMicrosoft Gaming,PlayStation,Electronic Arts, and many, many more. The juxtaposition between companies working on bigger games than ever before while also cutting hundreds or thousands of employees is brutal to watch unfold.
Merrill’s comments about the League of Legends team eventually being bigger than it is now feel extra-egregious, even in the greater context of widespread layoffs. Riot Games appears to be taking the stance that it’ll be easier to eventually hire top talent rather than training existing workers to get teams to where they need to be. That’s certainly a choice to opt for.
As always, my thoughts are with those affected by the cuts and their families.
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Samuel Tolbert is a freelance writer covering gaming news, previews, reviews, interviews and different aspects of the gaming industry, specifically focusing on Xbox and PC gaming on Windows Central. You can find him on Twitter@SamuelTolbert.
