Valorant, League of Legends Developer is Laying Off Around 530 Employees, Shutting Down Riot Forge

23.01.2024 - 03:09 / gamingbolt.com / Dylan Jadeja

League of Legends developer Riot Games has announced that it will be laying off around 530 employees from its workforce. This roughly amounts to around 11 percent of the people working at the studio and its subsidiaries. CEO A. Dylan Jadeja made the announcement with a letter to Riot Games staff that has been shared publicly.

“Today, I’m sharing a decision we hoped we would never have to make at Riot,” said Jadeja in the announcement. “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.”

As part of the announcement, Jadeja explains that the company has had to take these drastic measures because some of the bets it took with “significant” investments haven’t been paying off as well as they were expected to, leading to the company’s general costs growing to an “unsustainable” point.

“Since 2019, we’ve made a number of big bets across the company with the goal of making it better to be a player,” he said. “We jumped headfirst into creating new experiences and broadening our portfolio, and grew quickly as we became a multi-game, multi-experience company — expanding our global footprint, changing our operating model, bringing in new talent to match our ambitions, and ultimately doubling the size of Riot in just a few years.”

“Today, we’re a company without a sharp enough focus, and simply put, we have too many things underway. 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.”

Layoffs throughout Riot Games have already started, and are expected to be completed over the coming weeks. As part of the layoffs, Riot Games is giving its ex-employees six months of salary minimum, along with cash bonuses, and support. The company is also telling its staff to cancel upcoming meetings and to work from home to help process the layoffs.

Along with these layoffs, Riot Games is also killing its Riot Forge label. Riot Forge was responsible for the release of several single-player titles set in the League of Legends universe, and Bandle Tale: A League of Legends Story will be the label’s final release.

Despite the layoffs, Riot Games has revealed that its other major titles—Le