Riot Games Hit By Massive Cyber Attack, Affecting Updates For Multiple Titles

Riot Games, the video game developer, publisher and esports tournament company owned by Tencent Holdings ADR TCEHY disclosed it has been a victim of a cyber attack.

What Happened: The company behind huge titles such as League of Legends and Valorant announced the security breach via Twitter.

See Also: Why New 'League of Legends' Trailer Is So Bad Riot Games Had To Apologize [VIDEO]

The company assured no important data had been compromised, including player information.

“Earlier this week, systems in our development environment were compromised via a social engineering attack. We don’t have all the answers right now, but we wanted to communicate early and let you know there is no indication that player data or personal information was obtained,” Riot tweeted.

Earlier this week, systems in our development environment were compromised via a social engineering attack. We don’t have all the answers right now, but we wanted to communicate early and let you know there is no indication that player data or personal information was obtained.

— Riot Games (@riotgames) January 20, 2023

Furthermore, the company — created in 2006 by two college friends, Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill — declared the hack would delay upcoming games' upcoming updates.

“Unfortunately, this has temporarily affected our ability to release content. While our teams are working hard on a fix, we expect this to impact our upcoming patch cadence across multiple games,” wrote the company valued at $1.04 billion, as per Macrotrends.

Why It Matters: This news arrived just as Riot Games laid off 46 employees as part of a larger trend of industry-wide layoffs.

See Also: China's Video Game Market Experiences First Slump In 18 Years With 10.3% Decrease

According to IGN, the layoffs mainly affected positions in talent acquisition, recruiting and publishing departments, as well as a few roles in esports and support. The company currently employed around 4,500 people worldwide.

Photo: Max Bender on Unsplash