Activision Blizzard to lay off 899 people

https://gameworldobserver.com/2024/02/07/activision-blizzard-layoffs-899-employees-infinity-ward

Information about the upcoming layoffs at Activision Blizzard was first reported by What Layoff?, an account that tracks layoffs at different companies in real time.

According to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) notice filed with the state of California, all the cuts will be made on March 30. When looking at the addresses in the full WARN report, employees in the following divisions will be affected:

• Blizzard Entertainment (WoW, Diablo, Overwatch) — 479 employees;
• Toys For Bob (Skylanders, Crash Bandicoot and Spyro remasters) — 86 employees;
• Sledgehammer Games (Call of Duty) — 76 employees;
• Infinity Ward (Call of Duty) — 49 employees.

Activision will also lay off 79 workers at its corporate Santa Monica headquarters and 130 employees at its publishing division.

Wow, never thought I’d see a massive layoff like this coming from a successful company. Especially concerned for Toys for Bob, since they brought back Crash Bandicoot and did a good job at it. Thoughts, SW? Were you expecting this after the merger happened? I didn’t think it would be this big.

Definitely some bad shit going on in the industry lately

There will be great concerns if the recent industry layoffs cause a domino effect of the type that brought the video game crash of 1983. Interesting, it has been forty years since the crash.

That sucks. I hope these people land on their feet. Maybe they'll do the thing where they leave and form their own studio.

Is this part of the original layoff they did at ABK?

All these layoffs are leading the FTC to continue their fuckery

Fucking MS eh. Spend $69 billion and the first thing you do is lay off people 🤦‍♂️

Wow MS just fired 2k and now another 900?

Always sad to see. Unfortunately it’s just a sign of the times these days especially in the tech industry.

@ghostofgolden: Good, hope they get stuff done.

@last_lap: this is always the first step in any aquisition, the redundancy from overlap.

This is what happens when you build your economic system off of unsustainable, unreasonable, and unrealistic infinite growth instead of basic profitability.

I hate to whine and not have any answers, but this can't continue. You shouldn't be a company that manages to generate billions in profit (profit!) every quarter but then have to downsize because you didn't grow.

The only saving grace here is:

One can only hope this is the truth, and we don't see any massive layoffs like this in the near future.

@blaznwiipspman1: As of 2021 Toys for Bob had 180 staff, MS is laying off 86 almost HALF of its total staff, overlap my arse.

@blaznwiipspman1 wasn't that last weeks excuse that lems were touting?

Lay-off always come after major mergers.

Growth expectations are not the problem. Redundancy. This occurs with most mergers.

With automation, AI and improvements to engine efficiency there simply won't be as many employees required to make games into the future. I can see this trend continuing for awhile. In this case mergers also result in layoffs

@mrbojangles25: Toys for Bob had 180 (last reported in 2021 that I could find) and MS is laying off 86, how can half of a studio be an overlap.

I smell the usual BS.

According to all of the coping nuts in this thread, the entire Toys for Bob was "Redundancy" Normally I would laugh at such nonsense, but justifying this is insane. Fanboys will excuse treachery when it is for their favorite mega corporation, which in this case happens to be the biggest company in the world.

I hope the CEOs bonuses didn't take a hit. Now that would be tragic.

That's fair then, though it'd be nice if they could find places for these people to go. I hope they at least got good severance packages.

Not to mention all the cuts from the Xbox side... It's like they're trying to sweep internal layoffs into the "redundancy" cuts.

They spent a bunch of money on acquisitions and this is the correction due to missed performance targets. But they don't hit those stock market records without being a little disingenuous here and there. Everybody does it.

Sounds like stripping the quality and keeping or increasing the price... that's what shady car dealers do.

First thing they did was dismantle customer support, and now this?

Usually I stay out of this kind of stuff, but that's scuzzy as hell, I hope all those employees find work soon and their families don't suffer.

They will have to steal breastmilk elsewhere.

Seriously though, that's a lot of people. At least like.... 0.2% of the company.

That's the thing, According to MS's testimony to FTC it wasn't supposed to be a merger.

MS lied as usual

@4:53

According to this report. MS misrepresented their acquisition of Activision/Blizzard

It was supposed to be a virtual integration allowing them operate independently (like Sony ACTUALLY did with Bungie) not a merger.

He's wrong for the simple fact that it was not supposed to be a "merger" to begin with.

Upon making the offer to buy them this was already baked into the cake. ;o

:P

@SecretPolice said:

Upon making the offer to buy them this was already baked into the cake. ;o

:P

Lol read post #5

@SolidGame_basic:

lol :P

Yeah Toys for Bob's office is being closed...

Man I really wished they got the opportunity to do another Banjo Kazooie for Microsoft.

I wonder do xbox zelots still want MS to buy out all the publishers and studios in the industry?

That 3 Trillion in Microsoft money is doing wonders for all those xbox acquisition newly fired workers

^^^^

I'm thinking R* should be next on the list. lol :P

To be fair, Blizzard staff for the most part has been nothing but shits! This is not me saying they deserved the layoff but the staff was just bad faith and no desired to do better.

And another thing is, Covid-19 played a huge role for the past few years with overhauling staff and once the pandemic had somewhat disappeared, the layoff were slowing happening but the whole MS/Activision buyout speed up that layoff process.

Sad to say but this whole merging was bound for layoffs. I'm just speculating, the gaming industry could end up on a massive collapse if these layoffs aren't taking care of.

I know this question would cause you to suffer a meltdown but what is the acquisition of ABK into Xbox then?

Not exactly independent with Bungie. One of the reasons they had layoffs was because there's a clause in the contract that if they don't make enough revenue consistently, Sony can sack the board or something.

https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2023/12/lead-bungie-staff-fear-total-sony-takeover-after-layoffs-delays

Getting laid off sucks and is very stressful. Hope they give them the resources they need.

I dropped a video and there are links provided by others.

Why don't you use that peanut between your ears to do something other than spewing nonsense & speaking on topics you did zero research on and educate yourself before trying to post.

I think its funny that they are lemmings who truly care for the state of these employees, and their are lemmings who make up any excuse to protect MS. especially this redundancy excuse they keep pushing, when MS stated

Microsoft said it would treat Activision Blizzard as a vertical acquisition and suggested that it wouldn't need to institute layoffs, since there would be no redundancies.

I guess we can put the whole redundancies excuse to rest now.

https://www.engadget.com/ftc-accuses-microsoft-of-misrepresenting-its-activision-blizzard-plans-after-layoffs-215502314.html

@daredevils2k said:

@blaznwiipspman1 said:

: this is always the first step in any aquisition, the redundancy from overlap.

@Pedro said:

@mrbojangles25 said:

This is what happens when you build your economic system off of unsustainable, unreasonable, and unrealistic infinite growth instead of basic profitability.

I hate to whine and not have any answers, but this can't continue. You shouldn't be a company that manages to generate billions in profit (profit!) every quarter but then have to downsize because you didn't grow.

The only saving grace here is:

@blaznwiipspman1 said:

: this is always the first step in any aquisition, the redundancy from overlap.

One can only hope this is the truth, and we don't see any massive layoffs like this in the near future.

Growth expectations are not the problem. Redundancy. This occurs with most mergers.

@mesome713 said:

Lay-off always come after major mergers.

I think its funny that they are lemmings who truly care for the state of these employees, and their are lemmings who make up any excuse to protect MS. especially this redundancy excuse they keep pushing, when MS stated

Microsoft said it would treat Activision Blizzard as a vertical acquisition and suggested that it wouldn't need to institute layoffs, since there would be no redundancies.

I guess we can put the whole redundancies excuse to rest now.

https://www.engadget.com/ftc-accuses-microsoft-of-misrepresenting-its-activision-blizzard-plans-after-layoffs-215502314.html

It's no wonder xbox fans are in the terrible state they are currently in.

They'll just run to defend ANY Microsoft action; good, bad or ugly for the sake of protecting MS's honor. ZERO information or research on the matter needed for them to go full cheerleader fanboy defense layer.

I really do not get the tribalism of defending a company by many gamers on this forum even when they never worked or have a financial interest in the said company. Are they really gamers or they are corporate partisans, treating corporations like sport teams and political parties?

That is why you don't become a game developer. You are expendable asset to your corpo overlord. And honestly what were these people doing on a daily basis besides collecting paychecks? Most were not actively working on a game at all.

Yeah it's still expected. Lay off the 1900....see how things lay, find more overlap and continue to cut. I suspect job loses from the merger will be closer to 3000 when all is said and done.

Sad to see but a reality of mergers and acquisitions.

Please fire everyone who worked on D4.

@above_average said:

@daredevils2k said:

@blaznwiipspman1 said:

: this is always the first step in any aquisition, the redundancy from overlap.

@Pedro said:

@mrbojangles25 said:

This is what happens when you build your economic system off of unsustainable, unreasonable, and unrealistic infinite growth instead of basic profitability.

I hate to whine and not have any answers, but this can't continue. You shouldn't be a company that manages to generate billions in profit (profit!) every quarter but then have to downsize because you didn't grow.

The only saving grace here is:

One can only hope this is the truth, and we don't see any massive layoffs like this in the near future.

Growth expectations are not the problem. Redundancy. This occurs with most mergers.

@mesome713 said:

Lay-off always come after major mergers.

I think its funny that they are lemmings who truly care for the state of these employees, and their are lemmings who make up any excuse to protect MS. especially this redundancy excuse they keep pushing, when MS stated

Microsoft said it would treat Activision Blizzard as a vertical acquisition and suggested that it wouldn't need to institute layoffs, since there would be no redundancies.

I guess we can put the whole redundancies excuse to rest now.

https://www.engadget.com/ftc-accuses-microsoft-of-misrepresenting-its-activision-blizzard-plans-after-layoffs-215502314.html

It's no wonder xbox fans are in the terrible state they are currently in.

They'll just run to defend ANY Microsoft action; good, bad or ugly for the sake of protecting MS's honor. ZERO information or research on the matter needed for them to go full cheerleader fanboy defense layer.

name one merger where they didn't lay people off from redundancy? Even sony did it with bungie, did you forget THAT? How convenient 🤡. Also F the ftc...lol jk, I like the FTC but they're really going after the wrong company this time. AB is much better off being acquired by MS, and consumers are better off too.

Also about people being laid off, I think its a terrible thing of course, but its natural part of the economy. Gaming industry is booming, and there is lots of opportunity. Indie devs are also making huge titles these days, and gamepass is one of the reasons for their popularity. Thank you uncle Phil, SAINT Phil, and Microsoft for this beautiful platform.

@blaznwiipspman1 said:

@above_average said:

@daredevils2k said:

@blaznwiipspman1 said:

: this is always the first step in any aquisition, the redundancy from overlap.

@Pedro said:

Growth expectations are not the problem. Redundancy. This occurs with most mergers.

@mesome713 said:

Lay-off always come after major mergers.

I think its funny that they are lemmings who truly care for the state of these employees, and their are lemmings who make up any excuse to protect MS. especially this redundancy excuse they keep pushing, when MS stated

Microsoft said it would treat Activision Blizzard as a vertical acquisition and suggested that it wouldn't need to institute layoffs, since there would be no redundancies.

I guess we can put the whole redundancies excuse to rest now.

https://www.engadget.com/ftc-accuses-microsoft-of-misrepresenting-its-activision-blizzard-plans-after-layoffs-215502314.html

It's no wonder xbox fans are in the terrible state they are currently in.

They'll just run to defend ANY Microsoft action; good, bad or ugly for the sake of protecting MS's honor. ZERO information or research on the matter needed for them to go full cheerleader fanboy defense layer.

name one merger where they didn't lay people off from redundancy? Even sony did it with bungie, did you forget THAT? How convenient 🤡. Also F the ftc...lol jk, I like the FTC but they're really going after the wrong company this time. AB is much better off being acquired by MS, and consumers are better off too.

m.

Once again I have shut down @blaznwiipspman1 uninformed post, He makes it so easy. I am so glad he doesn't do any form of researching, makes my job easy.

Meltdown confirmed.😂

Well, ms as a whole also grew a lot as per their latest earnings report. They didn't become the most valuable company on earth for nothing. Needed an excuse to fire the peasants because the execs keep f**king up but needed their bonuses.