Kotaku is reporting that Activision Blizzard is cutting positions across its organizations, including Blizzard. Layoffs at Blizzard are limited to non-development teams, both in the US and regional offices.
- Activision transferred publishing rights for Destiny back to Bungie earlier this year.
- Blizzard had 35M MAUs in the quarter, as Overwatch and Hearthstone saw stability and World of Warcraft saw expected declines post the expansion release this summer.
- Activision Blizzard wants to de-prioritize games and initiatives that aren't meeting expectations
- Activision Blizzard will be reducing certain non-development and administrative-related costs.
- Investing more for biggest, internally-owned franchises.
- More upfront releases, in-game content, mobile, and geographic expansion.
- Investments in esports leagues and advertising
- 20% increase in development resources in aggregate for Call of Duty, Candy Crush, Overwatch, Warcraft, Hearthstone and Diablo.
- World of Warcraft already has a regular cadence of releases and content.
- Diablo's headcount will grow substantially, as the teams work on multiple projects.
- Roughly 8% of staff were laid off.
Bobby Kotick, Chief Executive Officer of Activision Blizzard said “While our financial results for 2018 were the best in our history, we didn’t realize our full potential. To help us reach our full potential, we have made a number of important leadership changes. These changes should enable us to achieve the many opportunities our industry affords us, especially with our powerful owned franchises, our strong commercial capabilities, our direct digital connections to hundreds of millions of players, and our extraordinarily talented employees.”
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