Earlier today, Microsoft announced a massive wave of layoffs. A total of 1900 employees were laid off across many of their gaming companies, including Activision Blizzard.
Here’s an official statement from the CEO of Microsoft Gaming and the head of Xbox, Phil Spencer:
It’s been a little over three months since the Activision, Blizzard, and King teams joined Microsoft. As we move forward in 2024, the leadership of Microsoft Gaming and Activision Blizzard is committed to aligning on a strategy and an execution plan with a sustainable cost structure that will support the whole of our growing business. Together, we’ve set priorities, identified areas of overlap, and ensured that we’re all aligned on the best opportunities for growth.
As part of this process, we have made the painful decision to reduce the size of our gaming workforce by approximately 1900 roles out of the 22,000 people on our team. The Gaming Leadership Team and I are committed to navigating this process as thoughtfully as possible. The people who are directly impacted by these reductions have all played an important part in the success of Activision Blizzard, ZeniMax and the Xbox teams, and they should be proud of everything they’ve accomplished here. We are grateful for all of the creativity, passion and dedication they have brought to our games, our players and our colleagues. We will provide our full support to those who are impacted during the transition, including severance benefits informed by local employment laws. Those whose roles will be impacted will be notified, and we ask that you please treat your departing colleagues with the respect and compassion that is consistent with our values.
Looking ahead, we’ll continue to invest in areas that will grow our business and support our strategy of bringing more games to more players around the world. Although this is a difficult moment for our team, I’m as confident as ever in your ability to create and nurture the games, stories and worlds that bring players together.
Phil
Amid the layoffs, Blizzard’s president Mike Ybarra and senior vice-president Allen Adham announced that they were leaving the company. Ybarra joined Blizzard in October 2019 as an executive vice-president, before becoming president in 2022. Meanwhile Adham was one of the original founders of the company back in 1991. Apparently they weren’t a part of the lay-off, but rather decided to quit on their own. Microsoft will name a new Blizzard president next week.
I want to thank everyone who is impacted today for their meaningful contributions to their teams, to Blizzard, and to players’ lives. It’s an incredibly hard day and my energy and support will be focused on all those amazing individuals impacted – this is in no way a reflection…
— Mike Ybarra ???? (@Qwik) January 25, 2024
Additionally, the “unannounced survival game” revealed 2 years ago is now canceled. I’m pretty sure that some designers previously working on Hearthstone shifted over to that team, though I have no information whether they were still working on the game at the time of layoffs.
The story is still developing. Many devs don’t even know whether they lost their jobs or not. Once again most of them have learned about the layoffs from the press. So far I didn’t see anyone from the Hearthstone team getting fired, and I hope they’re safe, but I’ll update you if I hear anything.
