Riot Games, the developer and publisher of popular video game titles such as “League of Legends,” “Valorant,” and “Teamfight Tactics,” has announced it will cut around 11% of its staff globally.
The Los Angeles-headquartered company’s decision to reduce headcount by 11%—equalling 530 jobs—is due to unsustainable costs following years of expansion, according to the company’s CEO, Dylan Jadeja.
The chief executive pointed to “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” as the causes behind the unmanageable costs.
“Today, we’re a company without a sharp enough focus, and simply put, we have too many things underway,” he wrote in a letter to employees. “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.”
Jadeja stated that all employees—known as “Rioters”—would receive an email within an hour of the letting telling them whether their role would be impacted or not, and that a calendar invite would be sent to affected staff to discuss next steps.
“This isn’t the usual way we do things, but we wanted to optimize for letting people know as soon as possible, and that’s tough to do at our scale without using email,” he noted.
It was said that those impacted will receive a minimum of six months salary in severance pay, additional pay for health benefits, job placement services, and visa support, among other layoff benefits.
“I realize this is awful news to hear, and especially hard for those who will be leaving us. To all the Rioters who are being laid off, we are deeply sorry that it has come to this,” the CEO said.
In addition to the layoffs, the video game company will also sunset its “Riot Forge” label, a third-party publishing label of and for League of Legends-related games. It was launched in 2019, and has put out titles such as “Hextech Mayhem,” “The Mageseeker,” and “Bandle Tale.”
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Riot Games is but one of the video game companies to have made sizable layoffs in recent months.
Around two weeks ago, Unity Software—the company behind the Unity game engine which is used for lucrative games such as “Pokemon Go,” “Subnautica,” and “Pillars of Eternity”—submitted a regulatory filing which stated it would cut around 25% of its staff, or about 1,800 jobs.
Unity decided to reduce its headcount to “position itself for long-term and profitable growth,” according to the filing.





