Singapore – Tech giant Microsoft has announced that it will be laying off 1,900 employees at Activision Blizzard and Xbox, with primarily layoffs occurring at Activision Blizzard, and some Xbox and ZeniMax employees getting affected by the cuts, according to reports from The Verge.
Occurring just after Microsoft’s recent acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the company has decided to proceed with the layoffs to follow a sustainable cost structure plan that will support the growth of the business.
Alongside the layoffs, Mike Ybarra, president of Blizzard, and Allen Adham, chief design officer at Blizzard, have both decided to leave the company, with a new president being appointed by Microsoft for the following week.
Blizzard’s previously announced survival game has also been cancelled as part of these changes. Addressing this, Microsoft said that it will be “shifting some of the people working on it to one of several promising new projects Blizzard has in the early stages of development.”
Talking about the layoffs, Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft, said, “As we move forward in 2024, the leadership of Microsoft Gaming and Activision Blizzard is committed to aligning on a strategy and an execution plan with a sustainable cost structure that will support the whole of our growing business. As part of this process, we have made the painful decision to reduce the size of our gaming workforce by approximately 1900 roles out of the 22,000 people on our team.”
“The people who are directly impacted by these reductions have all played an important part in the success of Activision Blizzard, ZeniMax and the Xbox teams, and they should be proud of everything they’ve accomplished here. We are grateful for all of the creativity, passion and dedication they have brought to our games, our players and our colleagues. We will provide our full support to those who are impacted during the transition, including severance benefits informed by local employment laws,” he added.
Notably, these layoffs come just a few months after some big Xbox leadership changes saw Sarah Bond promoted to Xbox president, leading all Xbox platform and hardware work. Matt Booty was also promoted to president of game content and studios, which includes overseeing Bethesda, ZeniMax studios, and Activision Blizzard.
Furthermore, it is also worth noting that these layoffs occur at the same month as with Riot Games, Google, Discord, Twitch, Unity, and eBay, among others.
