A crisis in the video game sector. It’s Riot Games Studios’ turn to announce its layoff plans: 10% of employees consider themselves unemployed.
After a period of over-hiring driven by extremely low interest rates and impressive growth during periods of confinement, the video game industry has decided to shed what it considers a surplus. In turn, we see video game studios announcing massive layoffs, in waves of hundreds of developers and employees. Even when it comes to studios making huge profits.
This is the case again with the announcement of a wave of layoffs at Riot Games this Tuesday, January 23, 2024. This video game studio, a subsidiary of Chinese giant Tencent Games, is particularly known for its creations. League of Legends, Teamfight Tactics And the brave. On its blog, the studio announced an 11% reduction in its workforce.
The end of Riot Forge
We find a similar statement for waves of layoffs at other studios. A desire to focus on a few high-potential developments and reduce the number of projects to ensure the studio’s future. The blog article is primarily aimed at players in the Storm community. As a result, while the studio announced it was cutting 530 positions, it promised that it would ” Position outside the core of our development teams “Oh, we’re sure.
Officially, two studio projects will still be affected. is the first Legends of Runeterra. Its development costs will be much higher than the revenue generated and therefore the development team will have to ” Road of Champions “
Another victim of this cost reduction is Riot Forge, the part of Riot Games dedicated to publishing games developed by outside studios. Game Bendall’s Tale: A League of Legends Story This will be the last to come from the formation. From now on, Riot Games’ projects will be focused on internal productions.
Riot Games CEO Dylan Jadeja insists that the decision is not motivated by a desire to please shareholders, ie Tencent Games or to achieve quarterly targets. It turns out that this is a “requirement” for Riot Games, and the synchronization in the calendar with all the other studios that have recently pulled the same lever seems to be a coincidence.
The firm’s boss recalls “ As CEO, I am responsible for the changes we make and the direction we take for the future ” However, and unlike what we saw in the Japanese studio, for example, Dylan Jadeja does not announce any results on the level of his own remuneration.
