Riot Games Issues Second Set Of Layoffs This Month

Riot Games has undergone two rounds of layoffs in the last few weeks. In the first, the League of Legends developer laid off approximately 80 members of staff working on the LoL-themed fighting game 2XKO. That’s around half the game’s staff. According to the game’s executive producer, Tom Cannon, that particular set of layoffs was due to the game not achieving the right “momentum”. To put it plainly, some players are super invested, but there are not enough players.

The second set of layoffs occurred more recently and was confirmed to Game Developer by a company spokesperson. This set is smaller but more widespread, affecting about 12 individuals across three publishing teams.

With the total number of individuals let go sitting at around 100, these aren’t the worst numbers we’ve seen when it comes to layoffs. That said, it’s not great when those numbers make up half of a game’s development team.

As always, we wish the best for those affected and hope that Riot is helping them with the transition.