Microsoft to Lay Off 1,900 Employees in Gaming Division, including Xbox and Activision Blizzard
In a recent announcement, Microsoft has confirmed its plans to lay off 1,900 employees from its Xbox and recently acquired Activision Blizzard divisions. The $57 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard was announced in early 2022 and finally approved in October of last year. Today, on January 25, the company has confirmed that approximately 9% of its gaming division will be affected by these layoffs.
While the majority of employees impacted by the workforce reduction work for Activision Blizzard, a certain percentage of Xbox and ZeniMax employees will also be affected. The President of Activision Vision, Mike Ybarra, will be leaving the company, as well as the Chief Design Officer of Blizzard, Allen Adham.
According to an internal message seen by Verge, Microsoft attributes the job cuts to “a commitment to aligning our strategy and execution plan with a sustainable cost structure that supports our growing company.”
“Those directly impacted by these reductions have played an important role in the success of Activision Blizzard, ZeniMax, and Xbox teams and should be proud of everything they have achieved here. We are grateful for the creativity, passion, and dedication they have brought to our games, our players, and our colleagues,” continued Phil Spencer, promising full support from Microsoft for the laid-off employees.
“Looking ahead, we will continue to invest in areas that expand our business and support our strategy of delivering more games to a greater number of players worldwide. Although this is a challenging time for our team, I have full confidence that you are capable of creating and nurturing games, stories, and worlds that unite gamers,” he added.
Simultaneously, Microsoft has confirmed that a survival game announced by Blizzard in 2022 has been cancelled. Some employees will be reassigned to work on other promising early-stage projects at Blizzard. This was supposed to be the first new IP since the release of Overwatch in 2016.
Recently, Riot Games laid off over 500 employees and cancelled the development of all League of Legends spin-offs, while the CEO of Twitch stated a month ago that the streaming platform “is not profitable” after another round of job cuts.
In other news, fans are speculating that a Legend of Zelda-themed amusement park may soon be in the works, as producer Eiji Aonuma was filmed on the set of Universal Studios in Orlando.
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