League of Legends is firing 11 per cent of its work force to manage cost

New Delhi,UPDATED: Jan 23, 2024 10:25 IST

In another announcement of layoffs, League of Legends developer Riot Games confirmed on Monday that it is restructuring and implementing cost-cutting measures. This will involve eliminating 530 roles globally, representing roughly 11 per cent of its entire workforce. The company stated, "We're refocusing on fewer, high-impact projects to ensure a more sustainable future."

Similar to the tech industry, the video game industry also has been facing a wave of layoffs since last year with over 9,000 workers losing their jobs. A recent survey by the Game Developers Conference (GDC) revealed that 56 percent of the employees expected more layoffs in their studios as a result of a “post-pandemic course correction.” Riot Games, the maker of League of Legends, is the newest case of this trend, as it announced the elimination of 530 roles globally.

A message from CEO Dylan Jadeja informed all Riot Games employees of layoffs. He pointed to the 2019 expansion of the League of Legends world into new games and media as one of the significant investments that failed to meet their expectations, ““Some of the significant investments we’ve made aren’t paying off the way we expected them to.” He assured the employees who may be impacted by this move that they will have a meeting with their leads within the next two days, and they will be offered at least six months of severance pay, as well as other benefits that vary with their length of service at Riot.

Jadeja said that the layoffs are not to please investors, but rather, “We need to do more to streamline our business and concentrate our efforts on the things that create the most value for players – the things that are really worthy of players’ time.” However, this does not change the fact that those who are affected by this decision will suffer, or the fact that the whole industry is feeling the cold — a layoff tracker by Kotaku shows that more than 3,800 jobs have been cut already in 2024, and January is not over yet.

As for the layoffs trend recently, Google, kicked off 2024 with a series of layoffs affecting over 1,000 employees across divisions like hardware and engineering, attributes the cuts to a broader restructuring plan aimed at streamlining operations and prioritising key initiatives. CEO Sundar Pichai warns of potential future job cuts amidst rising competition and regulatory challenges.
In a parallel move, YouTube, a Google subsidiary, announced around 100 job cuts as part of a restructuring plan focusing on music, sports, media, film, and TV to address challenges in ad revenue growth and competition with platforms like TikTok. Similarly, Amazon, in a bid to streamline operations, reveals job cuts in its Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios divisions.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, confirmed a reduction of 60 employees, mainly in technical program management, as part of a larger effort to simplify the organisation and focus on core priorities like the metaverse.