On Tuesday, October 15th, Marc "
Tryndamere" Merrill, co-founder of Riot Games, announced that the company is undergoing a restructuring process, which includes additional layoffs. While the specifics on the number of affected positions or their roles were not disclosed, a Riot Games spokesperson has confirmed to
Eurogamer that the layoffs will impact 32 employees — 27 from the
League of Legends team and 5 from roles in Publishing.
Merrill indicated that the goal is to refocus the company on its most important projects and avoid spreading resources too thin. This decision reflects Riot's ongoing efforts to achieve profitability this year by reducing its workforce and creating a more sustainable operational structure.
This announcement follows an
earlier wave of layoffs in late January of this year, which saw around 530 Rioters, representing about 11% of the workforce, leave the company abruptly. The impacted persons will be given a minimum of 6 months of severance pay and annual bonus, along with health coverage and job placement assistance.
They are trying to reassure on one key point: this restructuring shouldn't affect the speed of game development. They emphasize that the main goal remains to keep League of Legends as the top competitive game. While they claim the company is entering a new development phase, they haven't provided specific details on what this entails nor any potential roadmap for upcoming changes. In practice, however, this remains to be proven.
