Riot Games will be saying goodbye to 11% of its workforce or 530 employees globally in the latest report of game developers cutting off its staff roster.
The League of Legends and Valorant creator announced on Monday that majority of the layoffs will occur outside of its core development team.
CEO Dylan Jadeja said the decision was made after several "significant investments" were unable to succeed.
Affected staff members are expected to receive an email in the following hours. Jadeja assured that all laid-off employees will receive six months of salary, cash bonus, and other severance packages.
The announcement came almost exactly a year after the game company laid off 46 employees to "sharpen [its] focus" to the beginning of 2023.
Jadeja cited similar reasons to the same effect in this year's statement.
Riot Games Halt, Reduces Development Team for Spin-Off Games
The layoffs also come with a sweeping change across the developer studio's titles.
Legends of Runeterra, a spin-off trading card game set in the same universe as League of Legends, will have its development team greatly reduced with some of the work be subsidized to other departments.
Riot Games reasoned that the game "hasn't performed as well as we need it to, despite our best efforts."
The studio is also "sunsetting" its Riot Forge program with the release of Bandle Tale next month.
Riot Forge was a collaboration with external game developers that have released games like Hextech Mayhem, The Mageseeker, and Ruined King.
With the exception of Ruined King, all of the collaboration's titles did not make past $2 million in revenue despite the good reviews, according to Video Game Insights' Steam Statistics.
Threats of More Game Layoffs Looming
Riot Games joins the growing list of big game companies cutting off staff members in the beginning of the year.
Just a few weeks earlier, Unity announced that it is eliminating 25% of its roles as part of a corporate restructuring.
A decision met with criticism from many developers and players using their game development software.
It is worth noting that a similar series of layoffs across the gaming industry happened in January last year
Related Article : Unity to Cut Off 25% of Its Workforce for Company Restructuring
