Riot Games and Bandai Namco reportedly cut jobs as King opens new Berlin office

There is still very little stability to be had in the games industry, which continues to have layoffs, foundings, and expansion all in parallel. Most recently, there have been developments at Bandai Namco, Riot Games, and King.

Riot Games, which already laid off 530 people earlier this year, is cutting another 32 jobs – the majority coming from its League of Legends team. 

Co-founder Marc Merrill stated that the LoL team would eventually regrow and even surpass its previous size: “While team effectiveness is more important than team size, the League team will eventually be even larger than it is today as we develop the next phase of League.”

He wrote that the departing employees will be supported with “a severance package that includes a minimum of six months’ pay, annual bonus, job placement assistance, health coverage, and more.”

Merrill assured fans that these developments would not slow down content production or support for League of Legends at Riot in the meantime.

According to a report by Bloomberg, around 200 jobs are on the chopping block at Bandai Namco after the developer and publisher canceled “several games” citing “lackluster demand.”

Bloomberg described that the company is “sending workers to rooms where they are given nothing to do, putting pressure on them to leave voluntarily.” However, Bandai Namco denied such intentions in a statement to the outlet.

Things are looking less bleak for mobile game powerhouse King, which has opened a new office in Berlin, replacing its previous presence in the German capital first established in 2014.

King CTO Eric Bowman told mobilegamer that the company now employs over 2000 people and is trying a new approach to projects. Previously, games were only developed at a specific office, meaning anyone who wanted to work on something specific had to be relocated. However, titles are now being developed across offices, giving employees more flexibility. Hence, the office in Berlin, where Bowman himself is based, will be working on several projects simultaneously.

King has been part of Microsoft since the ABK acquisition last year and seems to have been the only part of the business that remained unaffected by the layoffs that followed the takeover in January and September 2024.