Activision closed two King offices, seriously reduced Blizzard's staff and did not stop there
It became known which Activision Blizzard studios fell under the cuts.
About 800 Activision Blizzard employees lost their jobs yesterday. The company had a great year in terms of financial performance, but it still decided to lay off 8% of the staff. Kotaku portal, with reference to Blizzard employees, told which studios suffered the most.
So, the employees were reduced:
- Activision’s head office in Santa Monica, and offices in Europe, Latin America and other places;
- Blizzard representative offices in Europe and the USA;
- King Studios (with the closure of its two offices in San Francisco and Seattle, according to Gamesindustry.biz);
- High Moon Studios;
- Vicarious Visions Studios.
The entire publishing team that worked with Destiny before Bungie left Activision has been disbanded. A number of employees were dismissed, the rest were transferred to the development of Call of Duty.
In Blizzard, as Bloomberg sources claimed, teams not related to game development were cut. These are employees of publishing, marketing and PR departments.
Blizzard Esports’ esports division has also thinned out a lot. Until recently, it was headed by Amy Morhaime, the wife of former Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime. Amy Morheim left Blizzard in December —shortly after her husband left his position. After that, according to employees, layoffs in the esports department became a matter of time.
Activision Blizzard employees called the incident a “bloodbath.” It turned out that the management until the last hid from them who would be fired and when. At the same time, rumors of cuts have been circulating since November, and the atmosphere in the company was, to put it mildly, tense. But no one expected such a large-scale “cleansing of the ranks”.
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