TLDR: Riot is downscaling. The severance package is great but it’s another round of layoffs in the industry.
This will also majorly affect Legends of Runeterra. They’re putting the game on life support it seems, and will focus on the PvE mode.
They’re also shutting down Riot Forge, their collaboration with other studios to make smaller games with their IP.
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So basically…
- CEO claims responsibility.
- Employees face the consequences.
That tracks.
Yeah it’s weird how the C-suites never have to personally bear responsibility despite being the one either making these decisions or fostering the environment in which these decisions are made.
How come companies are allowed to fire even one employee before the decision makers are bled of all money they have? Shouldn’t the life-ruining start with the ones who are responsible?!
I could be wrong here, but the CEO is at the mercy of the board as well in many situations. If they could just manage the company well without pressure to make decisions that benefit the shareholders more than the company itself, you would see more good CEOs.
Since they’re basically pressured into ruining companies a lot of the time, the only reasonable way to hire people is to offer them good severance packages and incentives to do so. If you really held them responsible, no one in their right mind would do it.
But doesn’t that just move the same point?
Why is the board not held accountable for fostering the atmosphere via pressure on the CEO then? So the buck ultimately passes to them, they had every chance to rectify the situation, including replacing the C-suites if they don’t think the current ones are fit for the job?
I know, they just think of the shareholders and their pockets, but that’s my point: If you get money when your decisions make the company more profitable, maybe your decisions should lose you money when they do the opposite.
And specifically, I mean long-term. Not just based on share-price. You meddled with the company. If it tanks, you held X% of their money for Y% of the time, that’s how much you’re in the hole for now as your decisions were ultimately responsible for that percentage of the total decision space cash the company ever had in its time.Plus, I don’t think that excuses CEOs from having 0 integrity. Yeah they could get voted to be replaced, but that doesn’t excuse it. Correct me if I’m wrong, but as an analogy, soldiers are supposed to refuse inhuman orders, no? Just that the board tells them to ruin 1900 people’s lives doesn’t mean they get a clean bill for the moral implications of being the one to pull the trigger on that.
Pluuuuuuus… isn’t it the CEO who would make the decision to take a company private again? So they could always reverse course if they mind the shareholders meddling too much?Neither CEOs nor Boards are less accountable IMO. That just explains why they behave the way that they do. In a better world, there’d be incentives for those in power to do the right thing, but it just doesn’t play out that way much of the time. It’s probably because it’s hard to design those incentives well in the first place while simultaneously preventing bad actors from ruining it.
The severance package is great
It always baffles me to think that there is no minimum mandatory severance pay in the good old US of A, but considering 6 months of salary is “great” is saying even more about how low the bar is.
Yeah, in most of Europe, 6 months would be bare minimum on top of whatever else the employee’s contract buyout requires. But since the good ol US of A is at-will and doesn’t have employment contracts, employers can just let you go without any notice or severance package.
I don’t take any company seriously that expects their customer base to willingly allow ring zero access.
Riot is a trash company.
I feel for the employees who lost their jobs.
Its always grating when CEOs say they “take responsibility” but they’re not taking a demotion and paycut. No, somehow, the idiots who made the shitty decisions get to keep making them. Apparently that’s “responsibility.”
I was laid off from my small warehouse job because the company wasn’t making enough money. The next month my boss took his family on an African safari. Eat the rich.
I don’t really think riot is trash. But I don’t follow the media around gaming that much. Their layoff plan seems extremely generous and caring considering other bullshit I’ve seen. It sounds like they care about people - so it’s good pr at least .
Literally the very first thing Riot did was steal and intentionally attempt to sabotage a beloved free game cause they were greedy and wanted all the money.
It’s just a shame it worked.
I never heard about that
Pendragon used to maintain Dota, when he passed it over to IceFrog he (for some reason) kept control over the Dota website (you used to have to go to the website and download the Dota map everytime it updated), so it was pretty important, as well as the forum community.
When Pendragon decided to start Riot and LoL, instead of just giving the website to IceFrog he took the site offline and replaced it with a redirect advert for LoL.
The forums were also taken offline where he went into the data and stole a whole bunch of hero designs that were suggested and under discussion.
Overall a dick move, and what a way to introduce your new company and game to millions of people.
Even though I don’t play Dota anymore, I’m very pleased that both Riot and Blizzard failed to seize the copyrights to Dota from Valve.
Damn. That’s fucked up. Thanks for the rundown.
I feel for the employees who lost their jobs.
I don’t. They got exactly what they deserved.
Care to elaborate? It sounds like you’re cheering for folks, who have little to no control over how the company operates, loosing their way of making a living.
To put it another way, the leopards ate their face.
They chose to work for a scummy company, probably because they’re greedy too.
I disagree. In a society where people need to work to support themselves working for Riot is not beyond the pale. If we had a UBI, universal jobs program, or a plethora of cooperative enterprises I’d agree.
I just hope that these companies don’t have the gall to complain about a lack of manpower or expertise availability a few years down the line. Because by coordinating all these layoffs, they are currently creating a vacuum in which a lot of professionals in the industry won’t have any chance to acquire experience and develop their skills, and many will probably have to change their career trajectory significantly just to ensure their economic well-being. And once they see how greener the grass is outside the videogame industry, let me assure you, they won’t be coming back.
If you are not willing to stick with your professionals through your thin, you don’t deserve their availability and effort through your thick.
I mean, the whole point of layoffs, in any industry, is to get rid of more experienced staff who are higher paid, and replace them with noobs that you can pay less.
don’t have the gall to complain about a lack of manpower or expertise availability a few years down the line.
Don’t worry, they will.
Companies aren’t like people with friends who hold them accountable for lying.
My friend got “downscaled” today. Real dick move.
To be honest, he got what he deserved working for a company like riot.
In the tech industry, I’ve always enjoyed watching what those laid-off employees end up moving onto. While most find jobs elsewhere, you occasionally see some employees form new startups, or try something different with what they’ve learned from their big tech job.
I’d love to see a resource that follows up on people that were laid off from X company, and to see what their offshoots are working on themselves, supporting them where possible.
I’ve always enjoyed watching what those laid-off employees end up moving onto.
almost all of the people currently being laid off in tech end up leaving the industry or being unemployed. there are no jobs, and there are massive waves of layoffs everywhere.
Have you got a source on that?
Some industries in tech are hit extremely hard (i.e. recruitment), but as someone that has spent the last year helping those laid off from Amazon to find roles internally and externally, that’s definitely not true in software engineering.
I’m not playing League, I stopped many years ago. But I liked the lore and am sad to see them shut down further collaborations - they made some nice games.
They made a lot of competitive shit for losers who want to pretend they’ll make it to the big leagues one day.
