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Riot Games has recently announced that it has laid off around 530 employees. Those who have been affected due to the layoffs are going to receive a minimum of six months severance pay, cash bonus, and extensive support for job placement services, additional health insurance pay, and hardware if needed. Following the layoffs, the company has also announced Riot Forge shutdown and the reduction of Legends of Runeterra.
CEO Dylan Jadeja made a statement that “Legends of Runeterra hasn’t performed as well as we need it to, despite our best efforts” claiming that the digital collectible card game was only surviving thanks to funds that were being earned through other games. “We’ve been subsidizing the cost of development on LoR through our other games, but at this point, that’s just not a viable option. So, we’re reducing the size of the team and shifting our focus to the ‘Path of Champions’ PvE game mode.”
As for the publishing label that focused on the League of Legends universe, Riot Forge, it’s set to release one last game next month before shutting down. The launch of Bandle Tale is set on February 24. “Forge has been our collaboration with external studios to develop smaller scale games in our IP. While we’re proud of what we’ve created in this space, and we’re grateful for the Forge team and for our external partners who made these games happen, we don’t view this as core to our strategy moving forward.”
Dylan Jadeja explained the history leading up to this decision from reducing cost, reducing scope on projects, and slowing down the hiring process, but unfortunately it was not enough. Thus finally leading to the next step, “Unfortunately, this involves making changes in the area where we invest the most — our headcount.”
Jadeja and Riot plans to hold an upcoming meeting in February called Riotnow to provide more details about their upcoming plans.
Source: GamesIndustry.biz
