Riot Games, developer of the games League of Legends and Valorant, will lay off 530 workers, 11% of the workforce, in a measure that it presents as “necessary” as it wants to cover too much. The company has offices in Barcelona, ??opened in 2017.
Riot, owned by Chinese tech giant Tencent, acknowledges that it has taken on too many projects in recent years. “Today we are a company that does not have a clear enough focus and, simply put, we have too many things to do,” CEO Dylan Jadeja wrote in an email to staff on Monday. “Our costs have become unsustainable,” he justified, after doubling the workforce in a few years. Thus, the decision does not seek to please shareholders or improve results. “It’s a necessity,” he emphasizes.
The company has one of its greatest successes in League of Legends. The game has enjoyed tremendous success, one of the most played video games in the world and is followed by millions of people in live broadcasts of its competitions each year. When defining outputs, the company will protect League of Legends teams and other video games with frequent updates. “With this we will once again put games at the center of everything we do,” reads a statement.
In addition to its headquarters in Los Angeles, California, the company has around twenty offices abroad, including Barcelona, ??Berlin, Sao Paulo, Seoul and Sydney. In the Catalan city, the adoption of projects for players from Spain, Portugal and Italy is being worked on. Events, communications, social networks and associations with local actors are managed from this headquarters, it is explained on its website. The company has not specified whether it will be affected.
Affected employees are offered six months’ salary, a cash bonus, career support and even a computer.
The layoffs at Riot come after a difficult year in the video game industry, marked by workforce reductions. Decisions have also been made in large companies such as Electronic Arts, Ubisoft and Twitch.