LoL: Community debates the dismissal of 530 Riot Games employees

This past Monday (22/01), the Riot Games announced the shutdown of 530 employees. The community reacted to the mass shutdown and questioned some promises from the past.

A deeper debate about Riot

Before looking at the discussion itself, it is important how it arises. It all started in a Reddit debate, where the following questions were asked:

As a company that approved the biggest budget in its history last year is it capable of firing 11% of its employees and still not fulfilling its promises?

The mention of the budget came from a statement by one of Riot’s CEOs, Nicolo Laurent, when in an interview he said that Riot had accomplished the feat. Check out:

Riot promises

In the same video it is possible to see some promises from Riot such as: new season of Arcane, Project L (LoL fighting game) and Riot Forge, which was canceled along with the layoff of employees.

The promises were not fulfilled and fans and leakers discovered that a large part of Riot’s spending was on offices.

Diff office

A leaker SpiderAxe030 published his opinion about Riot’s budget on X (formerly Twitter) when the announcement of the major shutdown came out:

Riot shouldn’t have approved the biggest budget if they were spending more than they could, it takes time for results to manifest and now it’s all been useless because of the cuts.

SpiderAxe030 continued in another post:

There are also other things they shouldn’t have spent money on, like buying more office space despite negative reactions (from employees) to returning to the in-person model.

Former Game Designer, Dylan Mermott, opened up about his situation of having to move to meet the requirements of the in-person model:

I moved out 6 months ago and barely have enough compensation for the rent on my apartment. It’s a struggle knowing that I’ll probably have to move again eventually.

Leaker SpiderAxe030 ends his rant by saying:

I wouldn’t mind so much if these people could still keep their jobs. Riot used to be decent at retaining talent, but this is just terrible.

He also mentions that previously, as far as he knows, employees were relocated within the company itself.

Community reaction

The community reacted in different ways, in X itself, a fan reported that Shyvana’s rework project had RiotRaptorr, one of the disconnected ones, as one of the project’s main names.

I’m sorry to main Shyvana

I’m so sorry Shyvana mains. pic.twitter.com/c7Ir0GxsJF

— Koma (@LoLKoma) January 23, 2024

On Reddit itself, several issues caught the community’s attention, such as the office factor, check it out:

It’s not enough that Riot has a huge campus in Seattle that no one uses, but they also opened an 8-story office in one of the most expensive buildings in Los Angeles 3 WEEKS ago.

And another user maintains the same line of thought and quips:

Investing in offices in this era of remote work really seems like a great decision.

Another community member comments:

Yeah, so the budget isn’t really for consumers, but for Riot itself

A fan seeks to defend the company:

In fairness to Riot – the whole situation is boring, but their profit sharing plan is insane. 6 months + health plan + mental health care provided by Riot + their HR team will help you build a solid resume and help people in extreme situations – not to mention that they will still be able to use professional peripherals and get a top laptop.

A thought that came from the opposite side of this profit sharing plan was from a member of the Brazilian community, check it out:

“oh but the profit sharing plan” “oh but they improved the condition of those who stayed”

yes… that’s good… really… but if you don’t understand why this was announced along with the dismissal of 11% of the company’s base.

I’m sorry you fell into the smoke screen

— thi (@thinchila) January 23, 2024