"People that decided the financials for those games should not work": Asmongold talks about layoffs and Riot shutting down Forge

In a recent livestream, popular Twitch creator Zack "Asmongold" gave his opinion on the recent layoffs at Riot Games and the company's shutdown of the Forge project. Riot Forge, for those unaware, was a series of collaborations between the esports giant and other developers to make video games based on IPs such as Runeterra.

The studio recently announced that it is cutting 530 jobs, which amounts to 11% of the employees in the company on a global scale. The news naturally caught the eyes of the gaming community.

Speaking on the failure of Riot Forge, Asmongold stated that people who market the games and decide their pricing should be the ones to get fired:

"The marketing department at Riot? Like, those are the people that they should ger rid of. The people who decided the financials for those games should not work in the company anymore. It was such a bad idea to go to market and sell a game at an omega premium, to an audience of people who are used to consuming games for free."

For context, major gaming titles, such as Valorant, League of Legends, and Teamfight Tactics, are all free-to-play with paid cosmetics.

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"They were priced according to their IP": Asmongold on why Riot Forge games such as Magekeeper failed financially

Riot Games is undoubtedly one of the biggest names in esports right now. The studio even bagged the Publisher of the Year award at the 2023 Esports Awards, with its tactical shooter, Valorant, winning the Esports Game of the Year.

In a recent statement, the company announced that it would be laying off 11% of its employees, surprising many in the community.

Another part of the press release stated that the studio would be axing the "experimental" Riot Forge section. As mentioned before, this project has produced several games based on Runeterra, such as The Mageseeker and Song of Nunu. The upcoming title, Bandle Tale: A League of Legends, appears to be the last in the lineup.

While reacting to the press release, Asmongold focused on the shutdown of Riot Forge and told his audience that the reason most of the titles failed to make a splash in the market was their exorbitant pricing. He then cited the Steam charts for Mageseeker, saying it should not have been priced at $40:

"Why did these games not perform well? They did not perform well because they were not priced accordingly to their value. They were priced according to their IP. Mageseeker was a $15 game that was in the League of Legends universe, so it was $40. It's too much money."

Showcasing some of his old Mageseeker gameplay, Asmongold continued:

"The perception of the audience for a game that is like this. How much money do you pay for this? 15-20 dollars if it is brand-new and it's as good as Blasphemous. Was this a good name? Yeah, it was. Is it any better than a lot of the indie games in the same genre? No, at best it's as good."

Fans of Asmongold were quite in tune with what the streamer was saying. Here are some of the reactions to the clip from YouTube:

Fans agreeing with the pricing issue (Image via Asmongold Clips/YouTube)

Recently, Twitch, the streaming platform owned by Amazon, laid off several employees, leading a lot of people in the content creation space to raise concerns.