Changes at Riot Games and the road ahead

Re:Changes at Riot Games and the road ahead by uudecoded on Tuesday January 23, 2024 @12:26AM (#39099938)

Has anyone noticed that there are now 78 comments on this post and no Rioters checking in? Have I missed something?

On any HN corporate layoff post, we should expect some volume of named company FTEs or impacted folks commenting. There seems to be a pattern here that has been ebbing and flowing over the last few years.

Should this be a titled phenomenon/effect? I see at least 3 options here:

1) Named company employees do not read/post on HN (if true, is this HN content? divergent topic...)

2) Named company employees are coerced or otherwise compensated to not comment on these matters, even if they do not directly impact them

3) Named company employees do not care about this n% layoff and are withholding comment

edit: formatting

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Re:Changes at Riot Games and the road ahead by biotopia on Tuesday January 23, 2024 @01:43AM (#39100290)

The layoff announcement mentioned that the 11% staff laid off is global. It's possible a lot of people laid off are actually in China, since Tencent owns 100% of Riot Games.

It's doubtful that these Chinese employees are chatting about it on hacker news, since it would draw attention of the authorities. Also, there is a trend for Chinese companies to not hire workers that are over 35 years old, so most of these employees are probably in shock on how they would pay their mortgages and support their parents at the same time. And Chinese economy is in the crapper right now.

Tencent is doing pretty horrible as well. Tencent Leads $80 Billion Rout as China Rekindles Crackdown Fear https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tencent-plunges-china-unveils...

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Re:Changes at Riot Games and the road ahead by silisili on Tuesday January 23, 2024 @12:54AM (#39100073)

I always assumed, perhaps naively, that gamedev folks skewed younger on the whole due to work life balance and burnout, whereas this site skews a bit older. Maybe just a demographic mismatch?

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Re:Changes at Riot Games and the road ahead by coffeebeqn on Tuesday January 23, 2024 @01:04AM (#39100116)

Most software engineers I know in games go to HN. I used to work in games and always read it

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Re:Changes at Riot Games and the road ahead by whateveracct on Tuesday January 23, 2024 @01:32AM (#39100247)

(2) feels most likely - there's probably something in the severance package about it. I know I've seen that before.

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Re:Changes at Riot Games and the road ahead by goalonetwo on Tuesday January 23, 2024 @01:40AM (#39100277)

What are the chances that a company figures out which employee is posting on HN? Especially if they use a throwaway as is usually the case?

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Re:Changes at Riot Games and the road ahead by badpun on Tuesday January 23, 2024 @04:15AM (#39101183)

Perhaps most people laid off weren't software developers.

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Re:Changes at Riot Games and the road ahead by meheleventyone on Tuesday January 23, 2024 @02:20AM (#39100493)

Games has a more developed culture of not talking outside the company in public spaces mostly around in development games but that tends to extend beyond that as well.

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