Riot Games Lays Off 46 Employees

Riot Games is the latest company to institute layoffs. The League of Legends developer and publisher is enacting 46 layoffs in the coming weeks as part of what the company deems a “normal course of our business.” The layoffs have been suggested to affect those in the recruiting, human resources, support, and esports divisions of the company. This is simply the latest in a relatively long line of companies that have been making similar layoffs.

 

The news was broken by Jacob Wolf, an esports reporter, via Twitter. He stated that he had received word of these layoffs from multiple people, and that they started the day he reported on this, which was the 19th. However, the news has since been confirmed by Riot Games itself. The company responded to a query by Eurogamer and released a statement which includes the above quote about it being a normal part of business to get rid of people.

The response also states the number of those affected and that this is because of changes in the corporate structure of Riot Games and that these kinds of changes are necessary because they supposedly “deliver the best content and experiences for players.” However, they do also assure us that these decisions were not made lightly but that such things have to occur. It is also worth pointing out that Eurogamer adds a small note to the end of their statement by casually remarking that Riot Games currently has 150 positions open globally at present.

This news comes immediately after the news that Microsoft is set to lay off thousands of employees, which is significantly worse than 46 employees, but it does show an overall trend. The move towards laying off rather than engaging in other kinds of cost-cutting and re-organizing is par for the course in the games industry, and it will likely continue to be this way for the foreseeable future. Hopefully these laid off employees manage to find work elsewhere sooner rather than later.
 

Justin van Huyssteen (@LC_Lupus)
Senior Editor, NoobFeed