Sad News From Riot Games

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[flavoracid]

I lost my job at EA last year due to layoffs. My friend lost his job last week at Lost Boys. The industry is on fire. I don't think people who are not involved in the day-to-day of the video game/VFX/Film/Animation community understand.. my LinkedIn is a wasteland of people announcing their layoffs, from Riot to Blizzard, Microsoft to LB. It's heartbreaking to see posts like "I'm going into month 6 of unemployment, and I've submitted over 200 applications and only had 6 interviews". The tech sphere is imploding, and it's not affecting nameless numbers, these are real people who have families, who have mortgages, people who need health coverage - for themselves or their family, or both. It's gut wrenching to watch this unfold in real time. And another thing people don't understand - even though remote work is on the rise, it's rare you get to stay where you are when you get a new job in this industry. It's not like being a doctor, or a mechanic, or a sales rep, you can't just go on down the street to the next business and apply there. Often, for games and film, if you switch studios, you move. I saw a Twitter post by a Riot employee that was pinned to their profile. They drove some 3500 miles from Toronto to LA or something in 2022 for their Riot job. Now it's gone. Where do they go? Stay in LA? Back to Canada? Sit tight and wait for the next job to make them move to Seattle or Austin or SF? It sucks.

[JMaverick]

Your closing statement is why I didn’t want to go with a snap judgment. Things suck right now for those who are affected by the layoffs, but the whole thing is super complex. Wishing people well and for them to find a new home quickly and painlessly

[faniskouklas]

It's not only Riot Games. It seems like every major company has been laying off a huge percentage of their workforce, similar to last year's January. Hope this doesn't become the norm for every single year.

[sayjii]

Remember when we had the Lore drought? I think that's when Riot started to realize that they were focusing on too much and almost abandoned their game. 2023 really shook them down because they started that year with promises and barely managed to save it by rushing 2v2v2v2 and more on the second half of the year.

What I think is disappointing though is that Riot probably got too scared by what happened last year that they might not try to expand or lay their focus on other things other than their main games anymore.

Hopefully Riot doesn't do us bad anymore by not releasing Lore for 6 months again because I think that's what caused Necrit to have the ability to squeeze 20 mins of content from a 30 second video.

[actuallygin]

I already brought this up on Nickibois video on this, but Graham McNeill's story "Where Icathia once stood" to this day is the best League of Legends story I have ever read. This guy managed to make Malphite interesting. What a loss. And this is only one of 500+ extremely talented Rioters. Every single one of them will be dearly missed and deserved to be treated better.


What a shame.

[antroz]

I'm a multi-season masters 100+ LP player in LOR (actually high elo). I've not found a cardgame on computer that scratched my PvP itch quite like LOR did, this is honestly devastating for me.

[thegoat]

I nearly cried with the LoR mention.
They said "despite our best efforts" but really didn't do anything. Not an ad, not a mention on articles and not even a shout-out on the league client.
I will miss this game so much.

[Shaco.]

They should have fired their entire incompetent higher-ups.

[QuanXi]

I am so sorry for all the 530 people who were laid off hope they get a new job asap

[cain]

the CEO "takes on responsibility" by basically writting "my bad" and then gets to keep his job, title and MASSIVE pay plus bonus.
WOW that's true accountability

[hemanthgajapathi]

RIP Legends of Runeterra. You were the best of them all

[Ray-wzsg]

It is so strange how Riot is now saying they over hired when just last year they were talking about being short staffed and needed more people in order to complete more projects...

[herobayer]

man. I really enjoyed Ruined King. If it wasn't overshadowed by that shittiest event of Sentinels of Light, it could had been really cool. Tho I think Mageseeker should had been a larger game, I did enjoyed it too. Hope I can play Nunu's game and the Bandle City too.

[sophiamakawana]

As someone who just got into university for animation, my dream of becoming a concept artist for video games is slowly becoming too distant… if this is happening now, who’s to say that by the time I graduate from university I’ll be able to find a job in the industry? And even if I do find a job, it’s not even guarantied to be a stable one with how frequently these lay offs are happening across the board

My heart goes out to all the rioters who were laid off, and creatives from other companies as well. 💔💔💔

[nemtudom]

rest in peace my love Lor, i will play until i am the last player

[Tacboss]

one of my friends was an employee that was hit by this layoff. Its very sad that this happened over night and over email.

[MrEagorath]

I agree that this practice is absolutely horrible, the "parachute" from Riot is insane all things concidered.
Also a smart move to actually fire them and give them the parachute + benefits.. rather than a 6 month notice and then they lose their job at the 6 month mark.
This will add to them that.. whilst it sucks losing their jobs, they feel a positive thing is still there for them.. Riot still cares in that matter.. rather than people continiously working for 6 months.. with the looming "firing" hanging over them.. morale etc. gets crushed

[joetri]

The oddest thing to me is some of the people they sacked off are MANAGERS of major departments. They'll have to obviously fill those spots back. I mean; ' Business Development and Partnerships Manager'? How do you not have one of those. One of them is a GAME DESIGENR, NA Esports Comms Lead!?, Senior Game Producer for WR!!!, a Creative Producer for KDA/Heartsteel.

And they're telling us they're refocusing on these areas? Do me a favor. They're in trouble and they know it.

[manamune]

It was disheartening to witness when I feel like Riot is building up good things for the players for quite some time (promises on deeper lore, gameplay changes, new games, etc.) and then laying off people, who makes their IP grow and be better, instantly and through a tweet at that 😢 I hope the 11% are doing well and find new opportunities very soon!

[pyrojkl]

At the same time, the second you send this stuff to employees on this scale, you have to have a press release ready. Letting people know internally is usually going to react in heresay. The one tip would have been to have them scheduled for a meeting. Tell them in person that morning, then have the post on twitter after the meeting with the article posted a few hours later to give most people a heads up. with potentially a few employees in other timezones still having to find out the hard way if they couldnt reasonably meet at midnight if they were in china