Riot Games, the developer behind massive games like League of Legends and Valorant, recently suffered a round of layoffs after the middling console launch of 2XKO, its new 2v2 fighting game. Now, just over two weeks later, the studio has confirmed to Game Developer that it has laid off “around 12” more employees, this time in its publishing division. This round of layoffs doesn’t only affect a single team after an ailing launch though, with the publication reporting that three teams have been affected by the layoffs.
Riot Games has been owned by Tencent since 2015, and it was recently revealed that Tencent shuttered a newly formed studio, TiMi Montreal, which was working on AAA, open-world, cross-platform games, but had yet to release or even announce any of those games. Tencent’s other hulking Chinese rival, NetEase, also recently implemented a round of layoffs at another studio that had yet to announce or release any games, and it seems like that studio may not be in it for the long haul, if the employees posting about those layoffs are to be believed.
