The developer behind LoL, Riot Games, has announced that 530 employees worldwide will be laid off. They are also scrapping their plans for their own Twitch and discussing it. MeinMMO reveals what is behind it.
Riot Games, known for the popular MOBA League of Legends, recently experienced a setback. They announced on X that they must lay off 530 employees worldwide from Riot Games, which corresponds to 11% of the company. The reason given is that many new employees have been hired for new projects since 2019, but these projects have not generated the expected returns.
Among the hired projects was also a dedicated livestream platform that was meant to compete with Twitch.
Riot Games planned its own Twitch, but is now scrapping it
What is the story behind the scrapped idea? The project, which was estimated to be in development for two years, was supposed to offer an alternative to Twitch. In 2021, Riot Games acquired the company Kanga, which specializes in creating new forms of interaction between e-sports teams and their fans.
The idea of having its own platform that would directly compete with Twitch was said to be an ambitious endeavor. Riot Games invested resources and time into the project, which was supposed to launch under the name Riot Esports Network (REN). How much money was spent on the project in total is unknown – but it is estimated to be a significant amount.
This platform was supposed to allow fans to watch professional players in games like LoL and Valorant. It was also planned to deeply integrate the platform with Riot Games’ games – for example, by offering rewards for players who actively watch live streams.
Reports about the failure came to light through research by the business site Bloomberg .
We tested some ideas for watch platforms, but decided last week to shut down our REN initiative
, said the decision announced by John Needham, President of eSports at Riot Games. You can read more about his visions regarding the scrapped idea in the official Riot Games blog post.
Overall, the project was relatively unknown to the public, but was already in internal testing phases. After the announcement of layoffs at Riot Games, other projects of the company were also abandoned, such as Riot Forge, the publishing label for indie developer games – for example: Song of Nunu.
Not only did Riot Games decide on layoffs, but other companies in the gaming industry are also struggling, including an important gaming studio: The most important German gaming studio for role-playing games is likely closing down
