Activision Blizzard To Lay Off Nearly 800 People
Activision Blizzard will layoff 8% of its staff of 9,600 employees, the video game company announced Tuesday during its fourth-quarter earnings call.
The employees will come from non-development and administrative-related parts of the business, according to the company.
The news arrived with record fiscal 2018 revenues of $7.5 billion, up 7.1% year-over-year. Though revenue beat its outlook of $7.355 billion, net bookings—its metric for digital and sold-in physically sales—fell 3% short of its forecast at $7.26 billion. With the severing of its deal with Destiny 2 developer Bungie, Blizzard’s sparse 2019 release schedule and stagnant player counts for major franchises like Overwatch and Hearthstone, the company greatly lowered its 2019 outlook to $6 billion.
Activision Blizzard will boost by 20% the number of developers working on its major franchises—Call of Duty, Overwatch, Warcraft, Hearthstone, Diablo and Candy Crush—funding this move by cutting disappointing initiatives and employees layoffs.