Ma ”Pony” Huateng, chairman and chief executive officer of Tencent Holdings Ltd., speaks in the course of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Forum in Hong Kong, China, on Tuesday, June 20, 2017. In an unusual move, Ma has chosen to convene a summit of government academics and business chieftains in Hong Kong days before the twentieth anniversary of its return to China.
Paul Yeung | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Tencent’s Riot Games unit said Monday it’s eliminating 11% of its workforce, or about 530 jobs, and scaling back on its division that publishes games from small developers.
“We’re changing some of the bets we have made and shifting how we work across the corporate to create focus and move us toward a more sustainable future,” Riot CEO Dylan Jadeja told employees in a letter published on the corporate’s blog.
The downsizing follows job cuts across the media and technology world in recent weeks, and continues a trend from last yr, when firms went into belt-tightening mode to meet tougher economic conditions. Amazon and Google are amongst tech firms which have confirmed layoffs to this point in 2024.
Riot, publisher of the League of Legends and Valorant video games, said it’s going to lower headcount for its Legends of Runeterra title released in 2020.
“We have been subsidizing the fee of development on LoR through our other games, but at this point, that is just not a viable option,” wrote Jadeja, who spent six years as Riot’s president before taking up from Nicolo Laurent as CEO in September.
Eric Shen will develop into Legends of Runeterra’s executive producer, replacing Dave Guskin, accroding to a blog post from Guskin, who said he’ll work on other Riot games.
Riot can also be pulling back in its Forge division, which publishes games from indie developers.
“We’re proud of what we have done together to bring these stories to life, however it’s time to refocus our efforts on the ambitious projects underway internally at Riot,” Jadeja wrote within the letter.
Tencent, based in China, invested in Riot Games in 2011 and have become its outright owner 4 years later. Riot is headquartered in Los Angeles.
When Microsoft announced its plan to acquire Activision Blizzard in 2022, the software company said the deal would make it the third-largest gaming company on the earth, behind Tencent and Sony. Last yr Microsoft cut 10,000 employees because it faced slowing revenue growth.
Tencent, which also owns the WeChat app with broad usage in China, has encountered challenges recently. It has seen revenue increase in the only digits or decline for the past seven quarters after a pandemic-era growth spurt. In September, Tencent-backed Epic Games announced it was cutting 16% of its staff. Shares slid 12% in late December after China announced latest rules designed to limit excessive gaming.
Pony Ma, Tencent’s co-founder and CEO, told analysts in November that the corporate is shifting “away from less scalable activities” and boosting investments in artificial intelligence.
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