The first substantial fallout of the Microsoft-Activision Blizzard merger has arrived. Microsoft has let go 1,900 of its employees across Zenimax, Xbox, and Activision Blizzard, with the majority of the layoffs affecting the latter. Amidst this, Blizzard's current president, Mike Ybarra, is stepping down from his role at the company, as well as Blizzard co-founder Allan Adham.

Xbox's CEO Phil Spencer explained the reasoning for the massive layoffs in an email to staff (courtesy of The Verge).

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.

However, it appears that the employees who were let go from the company were not well informed as to who lost their job and who got to stay, as notable journalist Jason Schreier commented that those within Xbox were not directly told, and had to wait to be notified as to whether or not they were still employed by Microsoft. These firings represent 8% of Microsoft's gaming divisions across the board.

Also affected by this was one of Blizzard's upcoming titles, which was originally announced in 2022. It was set to be a survival game, and had been in development for over six years. Now, the game is canceled, and a majority of the team working on the title have been fired, with the remainder being moved to other Blizzard projects.

Source

 

[Foxi4]

View attachment 416228​

The first substantial fallout of the Microsoft-Activision Blizzard merger has arrived. Microsoft has let go 1,900 of its employees across Zenimax, Xbox, and Activision Blizzard, with the majority of the layoffs affecting the latter. Amidst this, Blizzard's current president, Mike Ybarra, is stepping down from his role at the company, as well as Blizzard co-founder Allan Adham.

Xbox's CEO Phil Spencer explained the reasoning for the massive layoffs in an email to staff (courtesy of The Verge).



However, it appears that the employees who were let go from the company were not well informed as to who lost their job and who got to stay, as notable journalist Jason Schreier commented that those within Xbox were not directly told, and had to wait to be notified as to whether or not they were still employed by Microsoft. These firings represent 8% of Microsoft's gaming divisions across the board.

Also affected by this was one of Blizzard's upcoming titles, which was originally announced in 2022. It was set to be a survival game, and had been in development for over six years. Now, the game is canceled, and a majority of the team working on the title have been fired, with the remainder being moved to other Blizzard projects.

Source

This is not the first time Blizzard employees are facing surprise sackings - they’ve got a weird way to go about it and it *never* works right. I remember a story from one of their former devs, a couple years back they had lay-offs and the management basically waited in the lobby. When employees walked into the building, they were either directed left, where their offices were or right, where they’d be sacked on the down-low. What they forgot about is that a lot of people parked behind the building, so they had a bunch of “sacked” devs working at the office blissfully unaware that they were no longer employed. They screw this up every time and by the looks of things they’ve learned nothing. Hey dummies - send a letter. It’s not hard.

 

[HextarVigar]

Wow! It's almost like everyone who were screaming about how big a mistake allowing this to go through were right the whole time or something!

 

[Deleted member 194275]

2000 developers without a job means 2000 new campaigns about games on kick starter, some will be on gamepass...

 

[Foxi4]

Wow! It's almost like everyone who were screaming about how big a mistake allowing this to go through were right the whole time or something!

Are you implying that Activision-Blizzard wasn’t well-overdue for a round of lay-offs after the bombs they’ve released recently? Player count in Overwatch 2 was cut in half since the all-time peak with people migrating to Valorant en masse and to say that the reception of Modern Warfare 3 was lukewarm is an understatement. Diablo 4 was a big success, but other than that what do they have going for them right now? World of Warcraft? Okay.

 

[osaka35]

Honestly, I'm surprised it wasn't more. They haven't been making good decisions with their games, and their terrible decisions is what made them vulnerable to a buy-out. There was no way this wasn't going to happen. I was hoping it would be mainly just the suits, managers, and directors making terrible decisions who got fired...but those people are almost never fired for some reason.

On a related note, never have loyalty to a company, as they will never have loyalty to you. Your position is only as safe as how the person in charge of firing you feels that day. Update your resume and portfolio bi-weekly or monthly, network at your current job and write those details down, and keep a thorough document at home which details all projects you are involved in (specific numbers detailing scope and impact look far far better on resumes than vague accomplishments). Also remember: HR is there to protect the company, not you. Treat HR as lawful evil, not lawful neutral or good. Keep receipts and know their rules. Always helps when the devil comes to screw you over.

But back on topic, yeah, it really sucks for those let go. Probably a lot of excellent talent. Let's hope they form their own company and make some quality games.

Are you implying that Activision-Blizzard wasn’t well-overdue for a round of lay-offs after the bombs they’ve released recently? Player counts in Overwatch 2 was cut in half since the all-time peak with people migrating to Valorant en masse and to say that the reception of Modern Warfare 3 was lukewarm is an understatement. Diablo 4 was a big success, but other than that what do they have going for them right now? World of Warcraft? Okay.

and even diablo 4 image of success fizzled out very quickly due to their terrible handling of the product. I can't imagine how greater their success would have been if they hadn't messed up all with those terrible "updates", even if they kinda sorta fixed it maybe eventually.

 

[Hanafuda]

That's pretty rough, but who can honestly say that Activision or Blizzard had been making a lot of good decisions lately? Microsoft already had a lot of overlapping talent, so they may have just wanted the IPs more than anything. Hopefully they kept the former devs of Vicarious Visions, at least.

Like the decision to sell their companies to Microsoft, for example. Anyone who wants to be angry about this should be directing that at the Activision and Blizzard people at the top who said yes and cashed in, not Microsoft.

 

[jeremy2020]

They were all sexual harassment lawyers. They've been replaced with a sign in the lobby "We've fired all of bobby's lawyers, please keep your hands and other body parts to yourself"

 

[Xzi]

Like the decision to sell their companies to Microsoft, for example. Anyone who wants to be angry about this should be directing that at the Activision and Blizzard people at the top who said yes and cashed in, not Microsoft.

Anything's an improvement over what they did with OW2, the Diablo 4 launch, and WC3 Reforged. Should go without saying that Call of Duty can easily be improved too.

 

[Marc_LFD]

They are extremely good at retaining talent, so I am sure that the ones left behind are not necessarily the best of the bunch.

I can't give an opinion about the games they decide to produce, and can't get behind the hate after they dissolved Rare. They left the studio go around with free reign and the results were not that good.

They do what they need and are, for now, the only company that SEEMS to give a damn about their user base.

Mote than that, I can't speculate.

In a massive merger like this there was bound to have a pretty significant cut on the workforce. 8% is quite low. There are tales of a bigger company scooping another and making it dissappear in its entirety (I worked at a company that did that).

So yeah, all I see are standard business processes.

I'm sure they are aware of that, but for example Windows 11 is a downgrade from 10 and 10 itself wasn't anything to write home about, but in comparison it's better as it's a more traditional OS-focused than 11 is.

Windows 12 is apparently going to be even worse, like a subscription with AI or some shit.

 

[such]

Activision was always too bloated. Nearly 2000 people making 8% of the workforce is impressive.

From what I read, and expected as well, is that a lot of positions were redundant, as happens frequently in these mergers, and people working there are always waiting to receive the notification in these events.

Sucks, true, but not at all unexpected.

That percentage is ABK, Zenimax and Xbox, not just Activision, and not even just ABK.

 

[HextarVigar]

Anything's an improvement over what they did with OW2, the Diablo 4 launch, and WC3 Reforged. Should go without saying that Call of Duty can easily be improved too.

Generally the first thing Microsoft does to a company it buys is shut them down and then feed on the leftovers.

 

[eyeliner]

That percentage is ABK, Zenimax and Xbox, not just Activision, and not even just ABK.

My bad, but still, the point remains. 20000 people on a gaming division is completely nuts.

But still it was known that Activision had way too much people, and that surely didn't help.

 

[Kioku]

I'm sure they are aware of that, but for example Windows 11 is a downgrade from 10 and 10 itself wasn't anything to write home about, but in comparison it's better as it's a more traditional OS-focused than 11 is.

Windows 12 is apparently going to be even worse, like a subscription with AI or some shit.

They push AI like that, and I’m nuking every windows install I have.

 

[Xzi]

Generally the first thing Microsoft does to a company it buys is shut them down and then feed on the leftovers.

Except in this case the company was already a husk of its former self, so it's no big loss. At least there's a sliver of hope that Microsoft might do something positive with some of the IPs, and that's a sliver more than existed before the acquisition.

 

[Noctosphere]

We're never going to get StarCraft: Ghost, are we?

View attachment 416247

well, considering what Activision is most known for, and how Project Titan ended up becoming Overwatch, I wouldn't be surprised if this game actually comes to life...

 

[RedColoredStars]

Oh no!!! Not a cancelled survival game!!! What ever are we going to do? Good riddance.

 

[Error-1-2435-8325]

Typical Microsoft moment. I'm going back to play "Sakuya Izayoi Gives You Advice and Dabs" in peace.

 

[SeventhSon7]

Jason Schreier is neither notable nor a journalist.

 

[Foxi4]

Anything's an improvement over what they did with OW2, the Diablo 4 launch, and WC3 Reforged. Should go without saying that Call of Duty can easily be improved too.

Don’t worry - all of Blizzard’s worthwhile employees have already left a long time ago and started their own companies.

Except in this case the company was already a husk of its former self, so it's no big loss. At least there's a sliver of hope that Microsoft might do something positive with some of the IPs, and that's a sliver more than existed before the acquisition.

It has been *checks calendar* 14 years since StarCraft 2 was released, and *checks again* 9 years since Legacy of the Void.

Not enough time for StarCraft 3, but apparently plenty enough for… *checks release list* Warcraft Rumble.

Sack’em.

 

[such]

My bad, but still, the point remains. 20000 people on a gaming division is completely nuts.

But still it was known that Activision had way too much people, and that surely didn't help.

I doubt those numbers are including all the outsourcing that's going on, so in terms of an actual number of people making all those huge games for all those huge companies... there's even more, likely many more. Didn't Blizzard claim at some point last year that about 9000 individuals contributed in some shape or form to Diablo 4? Their W3... thing was largely outsourced, and Warcraft is arguably their flagship property.

And then you need to factor in that the average production cycle for a large game has already exceeded 6 years for titles that have been shipping recently. So there's games which are starting development just now with around a thousand people working on them that we won't be seeing until the 2030s.

Yeah, it's unsustainably out of control.