SUMMARY
- Activision Blizzard becomes the latest victim of layoffs after Microsoft's announcement to lay off 1900 employees.
- Activision Blizzard and Microsoft finalized their merger last year and the layoffs come because of 'overlapping'.
Merely months after acquiring Activision Blizzard, Microsoft is heavily laying off its employees. The news especially comes just after the company touched the $3 trillion barrier market cap earlier this week.
Microsoft is reportedly laying off roles at Activision Blizzard, some employees from Xbox and ZeniMax will also be impacted by the layoffs. The CEO, Phil Spencer broke the news of the layoffs via an internal memo to the company’s employees. Microsoft finalized its $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard in October 2023, after almost 20 months of legal battles with regulators in the UK and the US.
Following the acquisition, the company underwent massive restructuring with major changes in Xbox leadership. Former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick also exited the company at the end of December. While no direct replacement had been appointed, several Activision Blizzard executives were asked to report to Matt Booty, Microsoft’s game content and studio president.
Microsoft announces layoffs for Activision Blizzard
According to Phil’s memo, the company is laying off as much as 8 percent of the overall workforce of the Microsoft Gaming division. Reports suggest that the total strength of the company before the announcement was around 22,000 employees in total. This means more than 1,700 employees have been asked to leave.
Along with the layoffs, Blizzard president Mike Ybarra has also decided to leave the company. The Microsoft’s game content and studios president in an internal memo stated, “As many of you know, Mike previously spent more than 20 years at Microsoft. Now that he has seen the acquisition through as Blizzard’s president, he has decided to leave the company.” Consequently, Microsoft plans to appoint a new Blizzard president next week.
Microsoft lays off 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees 📝
Mike Ybarra, President of Blizzard Entertainment, has departed from the company, and the previously unannounced Survival IP has been canceled.
Best wishes to any and all employees affected 💔 pic.twitter.com/RBEpaj9qb1
— Overwatch Cavalry (@OWCavalry) January 25, 2024
On the other Blizzard’s chief design officer, Allen Adham will also be exiting the company. Talking about Allen, Matt says, “As one of Blizzard’s cofounders, Allen has had a broad impact on all of Blizzard’s games. His influence will be felt for years to come, both directly and indirectly as Allen plans to continue mentoring young designers across the industry.”
Besides, Blizzard had also previously announced the cancellation of an unannounced survival game as part of these changes. Matt said that Microsoft will be moving some of the people working on the title to one of several promising new projects that Blizzard has in the early stages of development.
Other recent layoffs in the gaming industry
The massive Microsoft layoff just adds to the unfortunately long list of gaming companies that have let go of their workforce in the past few months. As alarming as it may sound, this is the fifth layoff of the year 2024. This implies the fifth layoff in just 25 days.
Microsoft announces mass layoffs of 1,900 employees.
Other recent video game industry layoffs include:
• 11% of Riot Games employees
• Twitch layoffs 500 employees
• Unity cuts 25% of its staff
• Discord layoffs up to 17% of their workforce pic.twitter.com/C5dZNuD0zX— esports.gg (@esports) January 25, 2024
The most recent one is Riot Games laying off 11% of its employees just three days ago on January 23, 2024. This included 530 employees citing the reason as ballooning expenses and risky investments that failed to materialize.
Game streaming platform Twitch also laid off as many as 500 employees, that is 35% of its workforce on January 10, 2024. Developer Unity also announced a 25% cut in its staff accounting for 1,800 jobs on January 9, 2024. Discord also laid off up to 1,700 employees, which is 17% of its workforce on January 12, 2024.