There was a question about whether or not it was non-game dev staff taking the biggest hit. This article attempts to answer that question.
Activision Blizzard staff cuts largely hurt support teams, IT, QA, and publishing
Despite seeing a "record year" for revenue, Activision Blizzard announced yesterday its plan to restructure much of its company, including a net staff cut of 8% - amounting to 800 employees. As the layoffs began yesterday, many of those affected took to Twitter to announce their departures, and others have spoken out in more detail about exactly who was impacted.
In a Kotaku report sourced from multiple recently laid-off employees, further clarity was offered as to exactly who has been affected by the staff cuts at Activision Blizzard, which occurred across multiple office and departments. According to the report, the layoffs had been an "open secret" at the company for months, and while some staff had a small amount of warning that their positions were about to disappear, others who thought they were safe ended up dismissed unexpectedly as well.
The layoffs occurred across Activision's main office in Santa Monica, particularly in the Destiny publishing team (though some were moved to Call of Duty or other teams), Vicarious Visions, High Moon Studios, and throughout international Activision offices in Europe, Latin America, and elsewhere. King was hit by layoffs as well, which included the shuttering of both its San Francisco and Seattle offices.
The greatest casualties were at Blizzard, which has reportedly experienced a tense relationship with Activision for years due to not releasing enough new properties quickly. Kotaku's sources say that across Blizzard, layoffs occurred largely within support teams, IT, and QA. Esports also lost employees, as did publishing, which includes PR, marketing, community support, and game support. Notably, Blizzard's publishing team had previously been split between North American and global publishing, but the two halves were rejoined with the staff cuts.
Mass lay offs at a QA team is weird way to lay off "support staff". Quality assurance is one of the more difficult and underrated parts of game development. Same with IT, which I'm sure isn't doing minor tasks within Blizzard.
Thanks to everyone for pitching in and making this a great discussion!
Is anyone finding any information about layoffs to Overwatch League people? I wonder if this segment of Blizzard esports remains untouched by the layoffs?
On February 15 2019 02:34 Plansix wrote: Mass lay offs at a QA team is weird way to lay off "support staff". Quality assurance is one of the more difficult and underrated parts of game development. Same with IT, which I'm sure isn't doing minor tasks within Blizzard.
The article mentions some layoffs to Vicarious Visions and High Moon Studios. These studios worked on Destiny2 so they have atleast SOME game dev people.. I would think they are predominantly game development people. Destiny and Bungie are leaving Activision.
On February 15 2019 02:25 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: So quite possibly another round of layoffs could occur in Europe but due to labor laws they won't know until sometime later.
By now, many of the people caught up in this week’s massive Activision Blizzard layoff have been informed that they’ve lost their jobs. But at Blizzard’s office in Versailles, France, more than 400 people are still waiting for news. And, due to complex French labor laws, it might be months before they find out what happens to them.
On Tuesday afternoon around 4pm ET, the publisher behind games like Call of Duty and Warcraft began informing employees all across its offices that they were laid off. In Europe, where it was already evening, staff had to wait until the next day to see what might happen. Then, on Wednesday, Blizzard’s French office told its staff that 134 of its 400 positions would be eliminated, according to two people who were there, speaking anonymously because they did not want to risk losing potential severance if they were laid off.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that the company will lay off 134 people. Some might be given opportunities to take other positions. Rumor among employees is that those positions could be based in Blizzard’s other European offices in Cork, Ireland or The Hague, Netherlands, which would be tough for anyone who can’t or has no desire to move to a brand new country.
“No one knows any details and this is taking a big hit on the morale of the folks over here,” one Versailles employee told me in a text message. “Not knowing if you will be laid off in a few weeks or months sucks and many people here are already updating their LinkedIn because they want to be prepared for when they will be told what will happen exactly.”
Complicated French labor laws make it difficult to lay people off immediately and without notification, which is why Blizzard’s Versailles office is in this position following the massive layoffs that took place across all of Activision Blizzard’s companies this week. The legendary developer of games like Diablo and World of Warcraft was hit hard. Although rumors of incoming layoffs had circulated for months, the company did not inform employees at its main campus in Irvine, California until Tuesday afternoon, alongside Activision’s quarterly financial earnings call.
Blizzard’s Versailles office handles PR, esports, localization, customer support, and marketing for their games in Europe. Those employees still don’t know which positions will be eliminated, who will be affected, or what kind of severance packages they’ll receive, according to the two people who work there. They don’t even know when they’ll find out.
“It’s a two-edged sword,” said an employee. “On one hand it is good to be able to prepare, but the way it was handled and that no specifics were given, no names or dates, makes it really awkward.”
There you have the people that can prepare for months for a new job after a clear announcement. So seems the labour laws work, though not knowing the names makes it less effective. I guess when they give the names the second clock starts, so they can even wait for that if they feel sure about being in the half not being laid off.
On February 15 2019 02:25 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: So quite possibly another round of layoffs could occur in Europe but due to labor laws they won't know until sometime later.
By now, many of the people caught up in this week’s massive Activision Blizzard layoff have been informed that they’ve lost their jobs. But at Blizzard’s office in Versailles, France, more than 400 people are still waiting for news. And, due to complex French labor laws, it might be months before they find out what happens to them.
On Tuesday afternoon around 4pm ET, the publisher behind games like Call of Duty and Warcraft began informing employees all across its offices that they were laid off. In Europe, where it was already evening, staff had to wait until the next day to see what might happen. Then, on Wednesday, Blizzard’s French office told its staff that 134 of its 400 positions would be eliminated, according to two people who were there, speaking anonymously because they did not want to risk losing potential severance if they were laid off.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that the company will lay off 134 people. Some might be given opportunities to take other positions. Rumor among employees is that those positions could be based in Blizzard’s other European offices in Cork, Ireland or The Hague, Netherlands, which would be tough for anyone who can’t or has no desire to move to a brand new country.
“No one knows any details and this is taking a big hit on the morale of the folks over here,” one Versailles employee told me in a text message. “Not knowing if you will be laid off in a few weeks or months sucks and many people here are already updating their LinkedIn because they want to be prepared for when they will be told what will happen exactly.”
Complicated French labor laws make it difficult to lay people off immediately and without notification, which is why Blizzard’s Versailles office is in this position following the massive layoffs that took place across all of Activision Blizzard’s companies this week. The legendary developer of games like Diablo and World of Warcraft was hit hard. Although rumors of incoming layoffs had circulated for months, the company did not inform employees at its main campus in Irvine, California until Tuesday afternoon, alongside Activision’s quarterly financial earnings call.
Blizzard’s Versailles office handles PR, esports, localization, customer support, and marketing for their games in Europe. Those employees still don’t know which positions will be eliminated, who will be affected, or what kind of severance packages they’ll receive, according to the two people who work there. They don’t even know when they’ll find out.
“It’s a two-edged sword,” said an employee. “On one hand it is good to be able to prepare, but the way it was handled and that no specifics were given, no names or dates, makes it really awkward.”
There you have the people that can prepare for months for a new job after a clear announcement. So seems the labour laws work, though not knowing the names makes it less effective. I guess when they give the names the second clock starts, so they can even wait for that if they feel sure about being in the half not being laid off.
Blizzard employees had months to prepare for the set of layoffs that just occurred. HGC was abruptly cut in December shortly after mid-level employees proclaimed HGC would continue. That is a wake up call to any employee at Blizz. HGC being cut followed widespread thinking Blizzard would cut employees because its user base fell from 47 million to 38 million. Less customers require less customer service support. The Prez resigned and it was clear during the ATVI investor call Brack was not expecting to be at that meeting based on his zero information answers to questions.
So you have a user base steadily declining, an abrupt unexpected 27-year Prez quitting, an entire layer of top execs leaving for greener pastures.. ATVI openly disagreeing with Bungie about how to interpret sales results. So, lots and lots of signs cutbacks were on the way many months before they happened.
The user base is down more than 25% and only 8% of employees got cut. Are more employees to be cut? Every employee should have their exit strat in place and their parachute packed because 25>8.
Any Blizzard employee shocked by being laid off chose to ignore many clear signals many months ago that cutbacks were coming
What Jimmy is saying is the people who are truly harmed by this deserve it because they didn’t plan ahead well enough. Everyone should have known they could lose their job at any time and been planning to compete with the other 800 people in the same profession with similar skills all looking for the same jobs.
We get it Jimmy, you are smarter than the people a Blizzard that are dealing with the stress of being laid off. You saw the signs and changed your employment that isn’t as all similar to the folks working directly for Blizzard. We understand and will take this sage advice of finding a new job if we feel there is a risk we might be laid off. Even relocating across the country if necessary. Just uproot our lives at the potential, but not guaranteed future of being unemployed.
On February 16 2019 00:18 Plansix wrote: We get it Jimmy, you are smarter than the people a Blizzard that are dealing with the stress of being laid off.
I'd say a reasonable portion of people at Blizzard have been looking for other work for months. i don't think every blizzard employee runs around looking to trump up their victimhood credentials.
I disagree with the notion that every employee at Blizz is a helpless victim. Given the credentials Blizzard wanted from the software engineering grads at my school .. I'd say Blizzard was looking for the best of the best. Those people have lots of options outside of working for Blizzard.
Jimmy, I never said they were helpless victims. And I’ve not really read a comment in this thread that depicts them as helpless victims. The simple fact is losing your job, even if you knew it was coming, is stressful. Finding a new job is stressful. Dealing with all the bullshit in the US to get unemployment and healthcare is stressful. Even if they person was totally prepared for what was about to happen, it still sucks to staggering degree.
Folks have been posting that the entire situation sucks or that maybe people should have been labor protections. And your primary response seems to be to either minimize how bad this is or say that the Blizzard employees will be fine. And while that is likely true, that doesn’t mean the entire situation sucks any less. We get it, planning ahead is good. Also, water is wet.
On February 16 2019 00:37 Plansix wrote: Finding a new job is stressful. Dealing with all the bullshit in the US to get unemployment and healthcare is stressful. Even if they person was totally prepared for what was about to happen, it still sucks to staggering degree.
Personal growth can be stressful. Doesn't mean its bad. Improving ones job canvassing and interview skills while getting better at landing jobs is an essential life skill to have. Over reliance on one's employer in today's fast moving economy is a bad idea.
Only 70% of medical is covered by government insurance/OHIP.. Healthcare coverage is a concern here.
On February 16 2019 00:37 Plansix wrote: Finding a new job is stressful. Dealing with all the bullshit in the US to get unemployment and healthcare is stressful. Even if they person was totally prepared for what was about to happen, it still sucks to staggering degree.
Personal growth can be stressful. Doesn't mean its bad. Improving ones job canvassing and interview skills while getting better at landing jobs is an essential life skill to have. Over reliance on one's employer in today's fast moving economy is a bad idea.
Only 70% of medical is covered by government insurance/OHIP.. Healthcare coverage is a concern here.
Personal growth and all of people being laid off because of some moron up top with his head up his ass who wants to squeeze every last dime out of a once great company, are two different things. But, you're just going off topic now to avoid the actual conversation. Honestly, you might be the last person on here to still like blizzard so much, or maybe just work for them high enough up to not be let go yet.
There is no possible way to spin what is happening to them as a good thing. Canceling the d3 expansion, canceling d4 announcement, trying to go mobile, canning all those people, stock plummeting and not looking like it will go back up anytime soon if ever. All that, and so far WoW remains their only game that doesn't just have a quickly growing and far superior competitor on the market. I loved blizzard, for close to 10+ years something like 90% of my video game time was spent on blizzard games. It pains me to say this, but I think blizzard is as good as dead. It's just that they won't suddenly disappear, instead they will be slowly sucked dry by kotick, and go out with a whimper.
On February 16 2019 00:37 Plansix wrote: Finding a new job is stressful. Dealing with all the bullshit in the US to get unemployment and healthcare is stressful. Even if they person was totally prepared for what was about to happen, it still sucks to staggering degree.
Personal growth can be stressful. Doesn't mean its bad. Improving ones job canvassing and interview skills while getting better at landing jobs is an essential life skill to have. Over reliance on one's employer in today's fast moving economy is a bad idea.
Only 70% of medical is covered by government insurance/OHIP.. Healthcare coverage is a concern here.
Personal growth and all of people being laid off because of some moron up top with his head up his ass who wants to squeeze every last dime out of a once great company, are two different things. But, you're just going off topic now to avoid the actual conversation. Honestly, you might be the last person on here to still like blizzard so much, or maybe just work for them high enough up to not be let go yet.
There is no possible way to spin what is happening to them as a good thing. Canceling the d3 expansion, canceling d4 announcement, trying to go mobile, canning all those people, stock plummeting and not looking like it will go back up anytime soon if ever. All that, and so far WoW remains their only game that doesn't just have a quickly growing and far superior competitor on the market. I loved blizzard, for close to 10+ years something like 90% of my video game time was spent on blizzard games. It pains me to say this, but I think blizzard is as good as dead. It's just that they won't suddenly disappear, instead they will be slowly sucked dry by kotick, and go out with a whimper.
Honestly I wonder how much of this is really due to activision. That money influx probably kept Blizzard afloat more during some very long development cycles. I also think Blizzard's IPs being in genres that are dead or oversaturated doesn't help, nor does Blizzard being a PC-first company help. RTS games aren't very big so I would be surprised to see any brand new Starcraft or Warcraft RTS. Diablo can easily be ported to everything (including mobile) so that will be around.
I also don't think Blizzard takes the dive on Overwatch league without Activision backing them. That being said, I really wonder if that is sustainable long term even with the ridiculous team fees and what not.
On February 16 2019 00:37 Plansix wrote: Finding a new job is stressful. Dealing with all the bullshit in the US to get unemployment and healthcare is stressful. Even if they person was totally prepared for what was about to happen, it still sucks to staggering degree.
Personal growth can be stressful. Doesn't mean its bad. Improving ones job canvassing and interview skills while getting better at landing jobs is an essential life skill to have. Over reliance on one's employer in today's fast moving economy is a bad idea.
Only 70% of medical is covered by government insurance/OHIP.. Healthcare coverage is a concern here.
Personal growth and all of people being laid off because of some moron up top with his head up his ass who wants to squeeze every last dime out of a once great company, are two different things. But, you're just going off topic now to avoid the actual conversation. Honestly, you might be the last person on here to still like blizzard so much, or maybe just work for them high enough up to not be let go yet.
There is no possible way to spin what is happening to them as a good thing. Canceling the d3 expansion, canceling d4 announcement, trying to go mobile, canning all those people, stock plummeting and not looking like it will go back up anytime soon if ever. All that, and so far WoW remains their only game that doesn't just have a quickly growing and far superior competitor on the market. I loved blizzard, for close to 10+ years something like 90% of my video game time was spent on blizzard games. It pains me to say this, but I think blizzard is as good as dead. It's just that they won't suddenly disappear, instead they will be slowly sucked dry by kotick, and go out with a whimper.
Honestly I wonder how much of this is really due to activision. That money influx probably kept Blizzard afloat more during some very long development cycles. I also think Blizzard's IPs being in genres that are dead or oversaturated doesn't help, nor does Blizzard being a PC-first company help. RTS games aren't very big so I would be surprised to see any brand new Starcraft or Warcraft RTS. Diablo can easily be ported to everything (including mobile) so that will be around.
I also don't think Blizzard takes the dive on Overwatch league without Activision backing them. That being said, I really wonder if that is sustainable long term even with the ridiculous team fees and what not.
Diablo isn't really a practical IP in the first place, there are very few memorable characters and the lead is pretty much always a classic RPG class. There are the demons and angels, but even they are pretty generic outside of some minor visual things like the special angel wings. That diablo 2 and 3 have very different styles doesn't help at all.
Where are the Satoru Iwatas of this day? I guess some companies don't learn their lessons...
Here's what he said barely 6 years ago: "If we reduce the number of employees for better short-term financial results, employee morale will decrease, I sincerely doubt employees who fear that they may be laid off will be able to develop software titles that could impress people around the world. I also know that some employers publicize their restructuring plan to improve their financial performance by letting a number of their employees go, but at Nintendo, employees make valuable contributions in their respective fields, so I believe that laying off a group of employees will not help to strengthen Nintendo's business in the long run."
2 years later Nintendo changed the CEO and layoffs started.
On February 16 2019 00:37 Plansix wrote: Finding a new job is stressful. Dealing with all the bullshit in the US to get unemployment and healthcare is stressful. Even if they person was totally prepared for what was about to happen, it still sucks to staggering degree.
Personal growth can be stressful. Doesn't mean its bad. Improving ones job canvassing and interview skills while getting better at landing jobs is an essential life skill to have. Over reliance on one's employer in today's fast moving economy is a bad idea.
Only 70% of medical is covered by government insurance/OHIP.. Healthcare coverage is a concern here.
Personal growth and all of people being laid off because of some moron up top with his head up his ass who wants to squeeze every last dime out of a once great company, are two different things. But, you're just going off topic now to avoid the actual conversation. Honestly, you might be the last person on here to still like blizzard so much, or maybe just work for them high enough up to not be let go yet.
There is no possible way to spin what is happening to them as a good thing. Canceling the d3 expansion, canceling d4 announcement, trying to go mobile, canning all those people, stock plummeting and not looking like it will go back up anytime soon if ever. All that, and so far WoW remains their only game that doesn't just have a quickly growing and far superior competitor on the market. I loved blizzard, for close to 10+ years something like 90% of my video game time was spent on blizzard games. It pains me to say this, but I think blizzard is as good as dead. It's just that they won't suddenly disappear, instead they will be slowly sucked dry by kotick, and go out with a whimper.
Honestly I wonder how much of this is really due to activision. That money influx probably kept Blizzard afloat more during some very long development cycles. I also think Blizzard's IPs being in genres that are dead or oversaturated doesn't help, nor does Blizzard being a PC-first company help. RTS games aren't very big so I would be surprised to see any brand new Starcraft or Warcraft RTS. Diablo can easily be ported to everything (including mobile) so that will be around.
I also don't think Blizzard takes the dive on Overwatch league without Activision backing them. That being said, I really wonder if that is sustainable long term even with the ridiculous team fees and what not.
Diablo isn't really a practical IP in the first place, there are very few memorable characters and the lead is pretty much always a classic RPG class. There are the demons and angels, but even they are pretty generic outside of some minor visual things like the special angel wings. That diablo 2 and 3 have very different styles doesn't help at all.
There is also the growing generational gap in games. There are people in their 20s who are deep into video games that have never played games like FF7 or D1 and D2. Mining old IPs for their existing auidance was fine for a while, but there seems to be a growing gap between folks like us and the kids who grew up on minecraft. Epic just released a stat recently that around 50% of PC fortnite players do not have steam installed.
Of course some of those players are going to find their way to other games, be it Path of Exile, Diablo, Destiny, PUBG, Siege or something totally random like Cities Skyline. But there is entire audience that growing and might not be as invested at all in the next Warcraft or Starcraft.
I also think Blizzard's IPs being in genres that are dead or oversaturated doesn't help, nor does Blizzard being a PC-first company help. RTS games aren't very big so I would be surprised to see any brand new Starcraft or Warcraft RTS. Diablo can easily be ported to everything (including mobile) so that will be around.
A lot of ppl I know, including me, would have bought the shit out of every game with a Blizz logo on it, be it a Starcraft FPS, a Diablo MMO or a Warcraft Racing Game (Warcraft for Speed or Super Warcraft Kart :D )
PC-first yes, but not exclusive. I don't think that would have been a problem to release the games I mentioned on all plattforms. Especially since working together with Banhsee on Destiny 2, which is available on all plattforms
I wonder what will EA do if Anthem flops (as it seems it'll happen). They did get a bit of leeway with Apex success but I'm not sure how long that will last since BR is becoming a pretty stale genre that's reaching the point of fatigue.
Edit:
Also, there's a really good video about why so many companies are failing right now (despite the title it's not really about SJWs and PC):
Edit:
To clarify (so hopefully no one else gets banned), the guy in the video speaks about the lack of coherence and core principles within companies, which leads to failure. Watch the video for the specifics if you want but I think the guy is making some really good points by analyzing Lucas Film/Disney from a business-owner perspective.
On February 20 2019 00:26 Manit0u wrote: I wonder what will EA do if Anthem flops (as it seems it'll happen). They did get a bit of leeway with Apex success but I'm not sure how long that will last since BR is becoming a pretty stale genre that's reaching the point of fatigue.
Edit:
Also, there's a really good video about why so many companies are failing right now (despite the title it's not really about SJWs and PC):
EPT
