#riot forge

[ohnoitstbskyen]

Yes, I've seen this, and yes, it's a fucking clownshoes travesty. Riot CEO Dylan Jadeja and Marc Merrill can both eat a big fat sack of shit, the executive class at that company is staffed by incompetent vultures who will throw five hundred people's lives into turmoil because interest rates aren't zero anymore, but who will never so much as shave the five o' clock shadow on their own compensation packages.

If they gave a single solitary shit about sustainability, they would have built a company that can operate when the interest rates are Anything Other Than Zero. They didn't do that because they don't actually care about that, and these layoffs are ENTIRELY about appeasing shareholders and meeting quarterly growth targets, no matter how pathetically Jadeja may protest that He Would Never.

Legends of Runeterra struggled because Riot catastrophically mismanaged it, as evidenced by the DOUBLE 180 degree turn they've now done on Path of Champions as a product. Riot Forge is getting shut down so Riot Games Inc. can go jerk off Saudi Arabia with PR laundering esports events and gag on MBS' veiny, shriveled faucet of oil money, I remember when the LCS tried to get away with promoting NEOM.

Since I cannot repeat it enough: eat shit, Riot CEO Dylan Jadeja, and also Marc Merrill, you incompetent fucking vultures.

[aurelion-solar]

Riot Games are eliminating 530 roles - laying off 11% of Rioters globally.

They say they want to focus on their "core live games" - League of Legends, VALORANT, Teamfight Tactics, and Wild Rift. Development of R&D games such as Project L (the tag-team fighting game) will continue.

Legends of Runeterra will be significantly hit, because it "has faced financial challenges since launch, costing significantly more to develop and support than it generates".

Riot Forge will also be shutting down after the release of Bandle Tale as they "don’t view this as core to our strategy moving forward".

You can read Riot's official statements here:

https://www.riotgames.com/en/news/2024-player-update

https://www.riotgames.com/en/news/2024-rioter-update

[me-and-my-hyperfixations]

Jinx: Pow-Pow wants to give you a kiss.

Ekko: I do not want Pow-Pow's kisses.

Jinx: POW-POW WANTS TO GIVE YOU A KISS.

[proudchimera]

It's Ahri-versary~~~ yayyyy

[league-of-skins]

Riot Layoffs

Below is a list of Rioters (especially creatives) affected by the recent layoffs. Some seem to point to the generous severance package as reason for why Riot is a “good company” but I think it’s the least they could do considering that many received no warning of their termination and had to find out at the same time as the players while others were left to wonder if they still have a job.

Small edit based on some of the responses I’ve been seeing on Twitter: League of Legends is as successful as it is because of the passionate people behind it. Your favorite skin concepts and music groups and even Arcane only exist because of their creativity and determination, not because Riot, the company itself, created them.

I will try to keep updating this list.

George Ahlmeyer - Concept Artist

Stephen Auker - Design Manager (I also want to highlight that he was the lead gameplay designer for Shyvana’s VGU and this may lead to a delay)

Audrey Axt - Concept Artist

Ellie Beutler - 3D Environment Artist

Matt Burdette - Senior Environment Artist

Luana Bueno - 3D Character Artist

Sonny Burge - Animator

Crystal Chang - Illustration Lead

Zoë Chang - CG Animator

Angelina Che - Illustrator

Jason Cura - Sound Designer

Caytie Davenport - Marketing Writer

Sabrina Futch - Narrative Editor (Comics and Cinematics)

Christopher Hsing - Senior Animator

Emmanuel Lagumbay - Sound Designer

Graham McNeill - Principal Narrative Writer

Jon Moormann - Senior Designer

Natacha Nielsen - Senior Character Artist

Nick Oei - Concept Artist

samiiybl - Riot Games Music Creative Producer

Julia Shi - Senior Story/Visual Development Artist

Beckett Snedecker-Short - Riot Games Music Creative Director

Tyler Soo - 3D Character Artist

Riot Llama - Champion Designer

Tart - Concept Artist

Sean Tay - Art Lead

Tomukus - Principal Visual Designer

Nicholas Werner - Narrative Editor

Maisie Yang - Principal Concept Artist

[kishiskolaash]

I LOVE THE MAGESEEKER OKAY

[explodingquails]

Morgana and her animal friend in The Mageseeker: A League of Legends Story 💜

[bestwitchsam]

[dastardlydumb]

there’s a very cute note in the convergence game from Zeri featuring her and blitzcrank getting into some shenanigans in the sump.

[nadia-cannot-think-straight]

Honestly fuck riot games for screwing over their employees like they are nothing. Lore has been the one thing that kept me interested in this game, why i decided to even master some of my favorite champions. Season 2024 dev blog gave me hope for the future of this universe, but right now? This is just one big pile of bullshit. Lor is on life support, Riot Forge is dead, no color stories, no universe map. Laying off some of their most talented writers and artists and ruining their lifes. It's truly baffling how one thing that keeps me away from actually playing league of legends is a fucking Riot company. And you know what, maybe i should finally listen to them. Well, i am mainly invested in lore and now Arcane seems to be the only source of lore we have. Fantastic deal, perfect for me. I can spend less of my time on shitty moba rather than having false hopes that shit will get better. Fuck you riot, sincerly.

[league-of-blorbos]

I don't think I had "Volibear wearing clothes" in my Song of Nunu predictions...

[ohnoitstbskyen]

Since Riot Forge has been offed by management, what other characters and storylines would you want a game about?

Honestly, not even necessarily champions. You know what would be cool? An honest to god Stardew Valley style farm simulator where you're, like, trying to run a farm in the Demacian hinterlands. All the usual mechanics: growing crops, mining, crafting, maybe some light combat, lots of dateable NPCs, your grandad's ghost appears and judges you if you haven't gotten laid by the end of year 4, all the usual normal stuff.

But then also there's a mage or two who lives in town, one of the villagers who helps you out, that hot NPC you're trying to date. Maybe the kid you'll eventually have with your spouse could be a mage. And the Mageseekers come around every few years looking, and asking questions, and taking people away from your community, and you need to make some decisions about what you're going to do about that. Do you sell your fellow villagers out to the authorities, in return for rewards, or do you find a way to resist?

Like, that kind of a thing. Or a 4x or Total War style game where you play as a Noxian commander trying to expand and colonize the Valoran continent, pushing against the borders of Demacia and the Freljord. Crusader Kings-like set in Shurima where Azir is trying to unite his new empire.

Heartless Frostpunk-style management game where your goal is to help your Freljord tribe survive an especially harsh winter. Tavern management game set in Bilgewater where you're trying not to run afoul of pirate gang politics. Visual novel where you play as a tormented soul on the Shadow Isles trying to escape from Ruination by finding the Hallowed Mist manor from Legends of Runeterra.

This is one of the things that frustrated me about Forge, that it was still stuck in this "THE LEAGUE OF LEGENDS CHAMPIONS ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF OUR UNIVERSE!" framework that League of Legends itself is stuck to, rather than trying to profile and expand the universe itself as an interesting setting that people might love all on its own, the way people love Middle Earth whether or not Aragorn happens to be there, or the Star Trek universe regardless of who's captaining the Enterprise that day.

Oh, also, dating sim set in Piltover and Zaun where none of the dateable options is a champion, but every playthrough, one of them is randomly selected to actually be Evelynn in disguise, and if you can't see through her act in time, she kills you in agonizing (horny) ways.

[aurelion-solar]

Song of Nunu Character Concept Art - Ramón Acedo

[me-and-my-hyperfixations]

Ekko: So Zaun is in trouble right now?

Future!Ekko: If you would just listen, we’ll be keeping this city safe from...a devastating future.

Ekko: This must be about Jinx! You want us to stop her from working for Silco and blowing everything up! Right?

Future!Ekko: Huh, I guess we could do that too. I mean, It doesn’t set a good example for our kids to have mom blowing stuff up all the time.

Ekko: Our

Ekko: WHAT????

[proudchimera]

A Sacred Place.

[zephyr-rat]

The State of League Lore Sucks

So riot made a post where they "regretfully" laid off 11% of its staff and listed their direction for their future.

It does not look great.

Like, we all knew that the decommissioning of the short stories and the lore universe page in favor of a "single canon" around Arcane was always going to be a bad sign.

Now, the decommissioning of Riot Forge, sidelining of Legends of Runeterra (which the writing was always on the wall for that but now they said it), and laying off 11% of their staff, including major writers like Graham McNeill just confirmed my belief.

When they said that Riot wanted to make a singular canon, it came off to me as "we will only make it canon, if it makes us money."

Now we're seeing that in action with how much deprioritizing, retconning, and decommissioning of efforts to expand on the League of Legends story IP because traditional lore engagement doesn't make money. It doesn't drive player engagement in their eyes.

The one time lore does make money for them (Arcane), they immediately try to have the lore revolve around it in a gauche effort to capitalize on it and make more money. In that effort, they throw away the lore writers' work and essentially called them worthless while enforcing a lore ban with no additional short stories to ensure a "singular canon."

I will guarantee you that once Arcane is over and the cow cannot be milked anymore, lore is back to being disposable. The executives will focus on the next craze instead of developing their IP and expect lore fans to cheer when they throw pathetic scraps merely hinting at a story instead of actually giving us one.

It was probably always like this, given Riot's history. Either way, I'll try to commit myself to Twitch and ZAC. I rped as them back in high school, I made a game prototype surrounding Twitch, and I'm currently writing a story about the first time the 2 met right now. I am deeply personally invested in these characters, and they've always given me comfort. I know that riot will never touch those 2 characters. They don't make money and they don't appeal to the wider audience, but they appeal to me. I'll make sure that they'll live concretely somewhere as actual characters instead of cardboard cutouts because it's what they deserve.