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Guru3D.com » News » Activision Blizzard fires almost 800 employees

Activision Blizzard fires almost 800 employees

by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 02/13/2019 09:49 AM | source: kotaku | 56 comment(s)
Activision Blizzard fires almost 800 employees

Activision Blizzard published its quarterly earnings for 2018. The company achieved a record turnover, but at the same time 8 percent of the employees were made redundant, which is 800 people out of 9600 employees.

They announced in their publication of the quarterly figures that it is increasingly going to focus on its largest franchises with titles like Call of Duty, Candy Crush, Overwatch, Warcraft and Diablo. Mostly, staff are dismissed that is not directly involved in the development of games. According to sources of game site Kotaku there is cut in the publishing and e-sports divisions. 

“Over the last few years, many of our non-development teams expanded to support various needs,” Blizzard president J. Allen Brack said in a note to staff around 1pm PT that was obtained by Kotaku. “Currently staffing levels on some teams are out of proportion with our current release slate. This means we need to scale down some areas of our organization. I’m sorry to share that we will be parting ways with some of our colleagues in the U.S. today. In our regional offices, we anticipate similar evaluations, subject to local requirements.”

The letter also promised “a comprehensive severance package,” continued health benefits, career coaching, and job placement assistance as well as profit-sharing bonuses for the previous year to those who are being laid off at Blizzard. (Blizzard employees receive twice yearly bonuses based on how the company performed financially.) “There’s no way to make this transition easy for impacted employees, but we are doing what we can to support our colleagues,” Brack wrote.

The news follows months of rumors about layoffs at the publisher, which heated up early last week as word began to spread that hundreds of people across Activision Blizzard’s various divisions might lose their jobs. Leading up to today, some of the publisher’s employees had been coming to work with no clue as to what might happen. One person at Blizzard told me this morning that as employees arrived, they cried and exchanged hugs in the parking lot.

Bobby Kotick, Activision Blizzard's CEO, said at the announcement of the quarterly figures that the financial results for 2018 are the best in the history of the company, but that 'not the full potential was realized'.



Activision Blizzard fires almost 800 employees




« TSMC starts volume production of 7nm chips with euv machines in March · Activision Blizzard fires almost 800 employees · The Division 2 open beta starts March 1 »

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Zenoth
Senior Member



Posts: 1207
Joined: 2005-11-02

#5638868 Posted on: 02/13/2019 10:22 AM
We can only wish that the "redundant" (and now ex) employees will find a job somewhere after that. It's harsh to read news like that (in any business).

What I'd like to see is some sort of an industry-wide support for whomever lose their jobs within it. Like some sort of an "official" (or universal) database - if the fired person wants to be in it - where the video gaming industry can look at for anyone willing to be communicated to via that system for new offerings. It would list their competencies and history within the industry (basically, their curriculum) and so on. I suppose in most situations most people would do that by themselves (trying to re-integrate the industry somewhere else), but just sort of immediately being exposed as "Hey, I'm available right now guys, anyone?" might help accelerate new job findings and offerings. The other way around could be true as well within the same hypothetical database. The companies would list their current open jobs and would be willing to be contacted by anyone who just lost their job within the industry for 'x' reason (as long as reason is acceptable of course).

Anyways, good luck to them. And I hate to read terms like "redundant" when referring to people.

B-linq
Junior Member



Posts: 12
Joined: 2018-09-26

#5638870 Posted on: 02/13/2019 10:34 AM
A bitter achievement.
Is this end of the The Blizzard as we know and love?

Kaarme
Senior Member



Posts: 2315
Joined: 2013-03-10

#5638871 Posted on: 02/13/2019 10:34 AM
I'd no idea Blizzard has such a massive workforce in the first place.

lucidus
Senior Member



Posts: 11825
Joined: 2011-12-31

#5638872 Posted on: 02/13/2019 10:34 AM
Best results in the history of the company but since those creeps at wall street aren't satisfied with WoW and CoD numbers, let's fire 800 people and reward ourselves with millions of dollars in bonuses. Scummy company ...

Backstabak
Senior Member



Posts: 710
Joined: 2015-11-13

#5638873 Posted on: 02/13/2019 10:39 AM
Well a company has record turnover, but loses half it's stock value. How is it possible, I mean where does the profit come from if there is so little faith in the company from the investors ?


Also, In the same report that they say they will fire their employees they also say

"The number of developers working on Call of Duty, CandyCrush, Overwatch, Warcraft®, Hearthstone and Diablo® in aggregate will increase approximately 20% over the course of 2019."

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