Riot Games is laying off employees across several departments like Publishing, HR and esports. The company behind League of Legends announced the layoffs of 46 employees, citing them as ‘strategic shifts’ within a few teams to sharpen our focus in a number of areas.”

“Riot Games implemented strategic shifts within a few teams to sharpen our focus in a number of areas. With these shifts, certain roles were eliminated, impacting a total of 46 Rioters. This is part of the normal course of our business: We periodically make changes to our structure and our teams based on what we believe will allow us to deliver the best content and experiences for players,” Riot Games said, according to a report by Jacob Wolf.

“We never make these decisions lightly and will always start from a place of wanting to retain Rioters and have them focus on our highest priorities. While that’s not always possible, it’s our primary goal,” the company added.

Only 1% of Riot’s workforce, which now numbers over 4,500 people working across more than 20 offices worldwide, would be laid off, according to the company. A minor number of layoffs were made in the recruiting and esports areas, according to Riot Games, while the majority occurred in the publishing section.

While the company also said that they are hiring over 150 open job positions in the company. The studio claimed that while it typically works to keep and move staff, it could not do so in this instance due to shifting ‘strategic priorities,’ leaving other unrelated positions that still needed to be filled.

The layoffs came amidst other job cuts in big firms, with Microsoft laying off 10,000 employees, which included studios like Coalition, 343 Industries, and Bethesda, Amazon laying off 18,000 and Fandom laying off around 40–50 employees.