As the Western video game industry layoffs continue to roll on, Microsoft has revealed just how their previously announced workforce ‘redundancy reduction plan’ will effect their major subsidiary studio Activision Blizzard.
Per various notices and filings reviewed by The Los Angeles Times, a total of 393 employees from across the Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV developer’s various offices were informed that, in the coming months, their roles had been deemed redundant and would soon be eliminated.
Said cuts will see the loss of 140 jobs from Activision Blizzard’s Irvine, CA headquarters, 110 jobs from their Santa Monica office, and 143 jobs from their Playa Vista location.
Notably, the exact duties of those cut employees run the gamut from “accountants, software engineers, the director of human resources for World of Warcraft video games, artists, the director of technology game designers, game producers, sound designers and a game director and vice president.”
In a statement issued to the press, Activision Blizzard spokesperson Delay Simmons clarified that these layoffs “are part of the recent news and are not new; the roles that were impacted include mostly corporate and supporting roles, and some impacts to gaming teams.”
The news regarding Microsoft’s decision to trim their workforce was first broken on September 13th, courtesy of an all-company email sent by Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer.
“For the past year, our goal has been to minimize disruption while welcoming new teams and enabling them to do their best work,” explained the exec. “As part of aligning our post-acquisition team structure and managing our business, we have made the decision to eliminate approximately 650 roles across Microsoft Gaming—mostly corporate and supporting functions—to organize our business for long term success.”
“I know that this is difficult news to hear,” he then acknowledged. “We are deeply grateful for the contributions of our colleagues who are learning they are impacted. In the US, we’re supporting them with exit packages that include severance, extended healthcare, and outplacement services to help with their transition; outside the US packages will differ according to location.”
Given that Activision Blizzard is preparing to lose 393 employees, a quick crunching of the numbers suggests that the remaining roughly 207 redundancies set to be eliminated will come from Microsoft’s other video game-related operations, with potential targets including Bethesda, 343 Industries, and the general Xbox team.
As previously reported, this round of layoffs is but the latest to hit Microsoft in 2024 alone.
In January 2024, in a decision partially motivated by shrinking profit projections for the coming year, Microsoft axed a rough total of 1,900 positions across their Activision Blizzard, Xbox, and ZeniMax studios.
Then, in May, the company shuttered the Bethesda subsidiary studios Arkane Studios and Tango Gameworks, the pair best known for their respective developments of Redfall and Hi-Fi Rush.
“These changes are not a reflection of the creativity and skill of the talented individuals at these teams or the risks they took to try new things,” wrote Head of Xbox Game Studios Matt Booty in an all-company memo announcing the closures. “I acknowledge that these changes are also disruptive to the various support teams across ZeniMax and Bethesda that bring our games to market. We are making these tough decisions to create capacity to increase investment in other parts of our portfolio and focus on our priority games.”
