Riot Games is laying off staff for the second time this year, the studio confirmed on Tuesday. The latest series of cuts will affect the PC development team behind Riot’s wildly popular MOBA title League of Legends. Riot said the layoffs are part of larger changes to its teams that will ensure the long-term growth and improvement of League. Injured employees will receive severance pay, the studio reports.
Riot Games is cutting more jobs
In its announcement, Riot Games said that the decision to eliminate roles was not made to “save money” and that the League of Legends team will grow over time.
“As part of these changes, we have made the difficult decision to eliminate some roles. It’s not about downsizing to save money, it’s about making sure we have the right experience so that League continues to be great for 15 years and beyond,” Riot Games co-founder Mark Merrill said in a post on X Tuesday. “While team performance is more important than team size, the League team will eventually become even bigger than today as we develop the next phase of the League,” he added.
In its announcement, Riot did not confirm the number of employees affected by the latest round of layoffs, but a studio representative confirmed to Eurogamer that 32 employees will be affected, including 27 roles on the League of Legends team and five more roles in publishing. .
The laid-off workers will receive severance pay that includes six months’ minimum salary, an annual bonus, employment assistance, health insurance and more, Merrill said in his post.
According to Riot’s co-founder, the studio is working on the “next phase” of League of Legends and will reveal more about its “ambitious plans” for the game in the future.
This is the second round of layoffs at Riot Games this year. In January, the studio laid off 530 employees – roughly 11 percent of its global workforce. Non-core development teams were the most affected by the layoffs.
“Today, we are a company without enough focus, and simply put, we have too much going on. Some of the significant investments we’ve made aren’t paying off the way we expected. Our costs have increased to the point where they are becoming unsustainable,” Riot Games CEO Dylan Jadeja said in a letter to employees.