Activision Blizzard Reportedly Planning Massive Layoffs

Feb 09, 2019 9:30 AM PST Layoffs may "number in the hundreds."

by Adam Bankhurst

Activision Blizzard is reportedly planning on announcing job cuts that could "number in the hundreds" following slowing sales for the company responsible for such titles as Call of Duty and Overwatch.

As reported by Bloomberg, the announcement of these layoffs could arrive as early as Tuesday and are "part of a restructuring aimed at centralizing functions and boosting profit."

Activision Blizzard's shares dropped around 2.5% on Friday and is furthering the story that was "acknowledged on a November conference call that some key titles, such as Overwatch and Hearthstone, were seeing flat or declining numbers of users."

Additionally, after Destiny 2: Forsaken didn't perform as well as the company wanted, it split with developer Bungie and the Destiny IP, which could "reduce annual revenue by as much as $400 million."

Kotaku's Jason Schreier has also reported that these layoffs are expected to be "primarily in non-game-development departments, such as publishing, marketing, and sales."

Schreier also comments that these layoffs may mostly occur within Blizzard, shifting some of the roles to Activision proper, "further reducing Blizzard's autonomy."

Even though Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 was one of the best selling games in 2018, last year also brought some controversial news, including the announcement and reaction of the mobile title, Diablo: Immortal and the departure of some top-level executives.

Activision Blizzard is hardly the only company dealing with certain troubles, as EA recently had a tough financial quarter of its own and is hoping Apex Legends and Anthem will help it in the future.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN who wishes nothing but the best for those who may be impacted by these layoffs. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst.

Source Link