After a lengthy, worldwide acquisition battle, Microsoft has owned Activision Blizzard for several months now. Today, Microsoft's Phil Spencer announced a steep cut of about 1,900 jobs, primarily from Activision Blizzard, with some losses impacting Xbox and ZeniMax. Blizzard president Mike Ybarra is also out, having decided to leave his position post-acquisition.
Once again, the company doing the mass layoffs is citing budget and overlap as the reasons they are cutting their workforce. (Microsoft offered nearly $69 billion for Activision Blizzard, and spent some undisclosed amount in legal fees to get the deal over the finish line.) Their 22,000-person workforce is being reduced by about 1,900, or about 8% of the total.
Xbox’ Matt Booty issued a memo to Blizzard employees (as quoted in The Verge), where he confirmed at least one cancellation: Blizzard’s previously announced original survival game. Booty promised some of that project’s team will have new positions on another early-development project. He also confirmed some of the ‘overlap’ between post-acquisition Activision Blizzard and Microsoft.
Mike Ybarra confirmed his own exit on X (Twitter), saying “To the Blizzard community: I also want to let you all know today is my last day at Blizzard. Leading Blizzard through an incredible time and being part of the team, shaping it for the future ahead, was an absolute honor. Having already spent 20+ years at Microsoft and with the acquisition of Activision Blizzard behind us, it’s time for me to (once again) become Blizzard’s biggest fan from the outside”. Blizzard will get a new president as soon as next week.
I want to thank everyone who is impacted today for their meaningful contributions to their teams, to Blizzard, and to players’ lives. It’s an incredibly hard day and my energy and support will be focused on all those amazing individuals impacted – this is in no way a reflection…
— Mike Ybarra ?? (@Qwik) January 25, 2024
These cuts come at a time when the games industry is dealing with what seems like a neverending flood of job losses. In addition to Microsoft’s layoffs, some of the latest cuts include Outriders studio People Can Fly, losing 30 people, and Embracer Group-owned Black Forest Games, developers of Destroy All Humans, with a 50% staff reduction. People Can Fly has been working on a game codenamed Project Gemini, set to be published by Square Enix, and about 20 of the layoffs were from that team. These all follow steep cuts from Riot Games, which kicked off the week ending work for about 11% of its global workforce and streamlining projects.
