Over the past year, the games industry has undergone extensive restructuring, leading to thousands of layoffs across studios both large and small. Riot is the latest to take a hit, adding on to the few hundred layoffs announced earlier this year.
Riot Games, the company behind mega hits like League of Legends and Valorant, announced plans to let go of over 500 employees earlier this year. As confirmed by Riot co-founder, Marc Merrill, another 30+ employees are being let go from Riot, with the majority of them being developers from the League of Legends team.
This adds on to the record number of layoffs across the games industry this year. While this whole process began in 2023 as the industry began returning to its pre-pandemic state, there have been far more cuts in 2024, leading to the loss of over 13,000 jobs. According to Insider Gaming, that number has likely risen to the 16,000 mark at this point.
Riot Games will be offering six months' severance pay to those impacted, as well as their annual bonus pay, extended health insurance and job placement assistance for those who need it.
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KitGuru Says: The great games industry reset continues. Hopefully after all of this recent downsizing, we can start to see the industry bounce back a bit.