A Formal Thread about Activision/Blizzard

[Dirty Hipsters]

Where did you find that image by any chance?

LinkedIn

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Microsoft just laid off another 650 people from Activision Blizzard.

That's about 2550 laid off since the beginning of this year (though probably more since there could have been some smaller layoffs that didn't get any media attention, we only hear about major ones).

Yup, this merger sure was great for the company.

 

[Gordon_4]

Microsoft just laid off another 650 people from Activision Blizzard.

That's about 2550 laid off since the beginning of this year (though probably more since there could have been some smaller layoffs that didn't get any media attention, we only hear about major ones).

Yup, this merger sure was great for the company.

Who was laid off?

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Who was laid off?

Microsoft will cut another 650 gaming jobs, mostly at Activision Blizzard

Microsoft is laying off another 650 gaming employees in the second round of cuts after the Activision Blizzard merger.

www.si.com

 

[Gordon_4]

Microsoft will cut another 650 gaming jobs, mostly at Activision Blizzard

Microsoft is laying off another 650 gaming employees in the second round of cuts after the Activision Blizzard merger.

www.si.com

According to that link, its mainly corporate and support. And to be honest, that was entirely expected. Those positions and functions (HR, IT support, policy, governance and other deeply unsexy things) are already being fulfilled by Microsoft's existing staff so keeping these guys, outside of maybe the top twenty across all positions to help the inward transition was likely never on the cards.

Which still sucks balls because 600 odd folk just lost their job and unless all their severance packages are like a million bucks in greenbacks, shit is gonna get tough for a while and that's never a good feeling for someone.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

According to that link, its mainly corporate and support. And to be honest, that was entirely expected. Those positions and functions (HR, IT support, policy, governance and other deeply unsexy things) are already being fulfilled by Microsoft's existing staff so keeping these guys, outside of maybe the top twenty across all positions to help the inward transition was likely never on the cards.

Which still sucks balls because 600 odd folk just lost their job and unless all their severance packages are like a million bucks in greenbacks, shit is gonna get tough for a while and that's never a good feeling for someone.

Getting rid of those support positions now rather than when they had their previous layoff earlier this year shows to me that the company is shrinking and has no plans for new projects anytime in the near future.

The previous layoff when they let go of 1900 people was the time when I would have expected unnecessary support staff to be let go.

Also, I've seen some tweets from some Blizzard devs who were also laid off (a bunch of people who do things like storyboarding, work on cutscenes, etc.). It looks like on the Blizzard side they're just leaving people to maintain the products they currently have, and don't really have anything in the production pipeline that would need other support staff.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Microsoft announced a $60 Billion stock buyback.

So they didn't actually need to lay off any employees, but they wanted to so they could free up more cash to buy back more stock to make their stockholders more money now instead of actually investing the money into new projects and products that would make money later.

Textbook corporate greed, but I'm sure the stockholders are applauding.

 

[BrawlMan]

@CriticalGaming
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[Bedinsis]

Interesting interview of Jason Schreier. He talks both of corporate takeover and the culture at Blizzard: