League of Legends dev Riot Games to lay off 530 employees
Riot Games will be laying off 530 employees.
The studio, which is behind titles like 'League of Legends' and 'Valorant', has announced that roughly 11 per cent of their staff will be let go to ensure they can move towards a "more sustainable future".
In an email shared with employees, Riot Games' CEO Dylan Jadeja wrote: "Today, we're a company without a sharp enough focus, and simply put, we have too many things underway.
"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, and we've left ourselves with no room for experimentation or failure – which is vital to a creative company like ours. All of this puts the core of our business at risk.
"Over the past several months, we've tried to alter our trajectory in many different ways. We asked leaders to make tradeoffs in the things their teams are working on. We rolled out hiring slowdowns, and in some cases hiring freezes. We put an emphasis on controlling costs while strengthening our revenue growth. All of which has without a doubt been tough for our teams.
"But as I've dug in with leaders across Riot, it's become clear to all of us that these changes aren't enough. We have to do more to focus our business and center our efforts on the things that drive the most player value – the things that are truly worth players' time. Unfortunately, this involves making changes in the area where we invest the most — our headcount."