TLDR: Riot is downscaling. The severance package is great but it’s another round of layoffs in the industry.
This will also majorly affect Legends of Runeterra. They’re putting the game on life support it seems, and will focus on the PvE mode.
They’re also shutting down Riot Forge, their collaboration with other studios to make smaller games with their IP.
Pendragon used to maintain Dota, when he passed it over to IceFrog he (for some reason) kept control over the Dota website (you used to have to go to the website and download the Dota map everytime it updated), so it was pretty important, as well as the forum community.
When Pendragon decided to start Riot and LoL, instead of just giving the website to IceFrog he took the site offline and replaced it with a redirect advert for LoL.
The forums were also taken offline where he went into the data and stole a whole bunch of hero designs that were suggested and under discussion.
Overall a dick move, and what a way to introduce your new company and game to millions of people.
Even though I don’t play Dota anymore, I’m very pleased that both Riot and Blizzard failed to seize the copyrights to Dota from Valve.
Damn. That’s fucked up. Thanks for the rundown.