Riot Games, a division of Tencent Holdings, announced plans to eliminate 530 positions, or around 11% of its total staff worldwide. CEO Dylan Jadeja stated that “our costs have grown to the point where they’re unsustainable” in a letter to the workers. Based in Los Angeles Layoffs will have the biggest effect on teams outside of core development, according to Riot. According to the online gaming company, its primary focus will be on its selection of live games, which includes Teamfight Tactics, League of Legends, Wild Rift, and Valorant.
The most recent company to slash staff in the gaming sector is Riot Games. Last year, Niantic, the company behind Pokemon Go, Ubisoft, the company behind Assassin’s Creed, and Amazon both announced cuts to their gaming operations. ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, also shrunk its gaming branch. The widespread hiring that took place at the onset of the pandemic in 2020 is partially to blame for the sector’s job losses. Riot Games admitted to have “more than doubled in headcount” in the previous years. Sales began to decline as lockdowns were lifted globally. In addition, buyers are delaying purchasing pricey games or playing fewer of them due to the high rate of inflation.
This is true even if players have access to a wide selection of highly regarded games, such as Spider-Man 2, Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and Baldur’s Gate 3. While unexpected hits like Sea of Stars, Hi-Fi Rush, and Dave the Diver were released, new entries in the Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog franchises have also received positive reviews. “Today, we’re a company without a sharp enough focus, and simply put, we have too many things underway,” Mr. Jadeja said, announcing the cut. Riot has announced that it will no longer be developing new games under Riot Forge and will be removing several elements from Legends of Runeterra, citing the game’s poor performance. In addition to its 2011 acquisition of Riot Games, Tencent also owns stock in Epic Games.
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