Whelp.
Microsoft has confirmed it has laid off 1,900 staff from its video game division, with job losses confirmed across Activision Blizzard, ZeniMax (Bethesda), and Xbox.
“[W]e have made the painful decision to reduce the size of our gaming workforce by approximately 1,900 roles out of the 22,000 people on our team,” Xbox head Phil Spencer wrote in a memo to staff (via IGN).
“The Gaming Leadership Team and I are committed to navigating this process as thoughtfully as possible,” Spencer continued. “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. Those whose roles will be impacted will be notified, and we ask that you please treat your departing colleagues with the respect and compassion that is consistent with our values.”
Spencer added that Xbox will “continue to invest in areas that will grow our business and support our strategy of bringing more games to more players around the world” despite sending 1,900 people to a job hunt.
The news comes at the same time as the confirmation that executives Mike Ybarra and Allen Adham will be leaving Activision Blizzard. It also coincides with the confirmation that the unnamed survival game that was announced by Activision Blizzard back in 2022 has been cancelled.
“Today’s actions affect multiple teams within Blizzard, including development teams, shared service organizations and corporate functions,” wrote Matt Booty, head of Xbox Studios.
“As part of this focus, Blizzard is ending development on its survival game project and 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,” Booty continued.
Our hearts go out to those impacted by the layoffs.
More than an estimated 12,000 layoffs have rocked the gaming industry over the last year and a half; close to 6,000 have come in January 2024 alone. Impacted developers and publishers include Riot Games, Thunderful, Embracer and Gearbox, Twitch (again), Unity, Codemasters, 505 Games’ Digital Bros, Amazon, Bungie, Media Molecule, Ubisoft, Aussie studio League of Geeks, Versus Evil and many more.
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