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Activision Blizzard Begins Massive Layoffs
- yasp 8y agoIs it just my imagination or has there been a major uptick in layoffs lately?
- wvenable 8y agoThe next recession is on its way.
- mschuster91 8y agoWhile the warning signs are definitely there for a new recession (especially Brexit, the whole Trump vs China fiasco and China's own economical problems), the recent layoff wave that GP alludes to was rather certain "new media" outlets discovering that their business model was not as profitable as thought. The Activision Blizzard case here is just short-sighted corporate greed. "Best financial results in history" but the bonus coffers of the C-level executives are not filled enough it seems.
- fenwick67 8y agoGM had some big layoffs recently as well.
- mschuster91 8y agoI definitely count this one as Trump-caused and not by natural economic causes, though.
- TheGRS 8y agoSteel tariffs will probably have some pretty wide-ranging effects that I don't think we've totally seen yet.
- mschuster91 8y agoSure but they're the first thing I expect a Democrat-led government overturning in 2020. The only thing saving us from an all-out (trade) war is that international leaders are wise enough to see Trump as a temporary disturbance which has to be endured for only one and a half more years until sanity takes place in the US government again.
- TheGRS 8y agoI would put money on that bet as well, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't speak up about the long-term ramifications of these tariffs still.
- anitil 8y agoCan't this be said at any time? The next is always the next.
- minimaxir 8y agoThere's been more stories about layoffs, but it's hard to say if it's correlated to a specific event outside the start of the fiscal quarter.
- falcolas 8y agoIn an time where Activision/Blizzard is making billions (with a "B") of dollars of profits annually, layoffs seem a bit out of place.
- beerlord 8y agoIn every large company there are always excess personnel, or departments or individuals who are not performing. I'm sure there are other large companies that semi-regularly fire a single digit % of their workforce, but because they are not games companies it doesn't hit the news. The redundancies are mostly in 'publishing and esports', by the way.
- AlexandrB 8y agoA strong example of corporate double-speak: > Meanwhile, in a press release to investors this afternoon, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick wrote: “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.” We did great! But we can do better with the help of our "extraordinarily talented employees"! Many of whom we are laying off!
- falcolas 8y agoPure speculation: Given their doubling down in the Asian market by partnering with NetEase, I imagine that a lot of jobs (or that money) is going off shore to fund development, marketing, and sales there.
- Bombthecat 8y agoGet three developers for the price of one :)
- TheGRS 8y agoExpansion of contract employees as well I'm sure. Which is pretty common in the gaming industry as far as I can tell. TBF that makes sense for a lot of gaming projects. Its tough to keep an FTE artist when all the art for a project is completed, but it doesn't really make for a great environment for talent.
- stefan_ 8y agoThey are also of course increasing dividend and doing stock repurchases, as is tradition when you plan to invest into your core business.
- bmer 8y agoWhat does it mean to "increase dividend" and "do stock repurchases" (finance noob here)?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- sctb 8y agoPrevious discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19135559 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19135559.
- Simulacra 8y agoHow often is this occurring? I feel like we've been seeing lots of massive game companies releasing big titles, reaping huge profits, and then they fizzle and start laying people off.
- shroom 8y agoFeels like Activision is keeping Blizzard from making content. Content that players would gladly pay for. Hope they atleast get to keep their phones... shame really I assume they don’t fire the management first...
- methodover 8y agoOnly esports and “publishing” is going to be cut from Blizzard, supposedly. I’m not sure what publishing means precisely. Game development isn’t being cut, I believe.
- SpaceManNabs 8y agoI remember being in middle school when Blizzard mentioned they were being bought by Activision on the Warcraft III strategy website (http://classic.battle.net/war3/ http://classic.battle.net/war3/). There was some mention of Vivendi, and I had no idea what it meant; I was an idiot and knew no economics, but it was clear from the wording of this announcement that WCIII and other RTS games would not be their focus. Then WoW staganation came, and blizzard pretty much gave up on SCII (see 2012) and on Diablo III (various things). It has been interesting seeing Blizzard slowly become a shell of its former self.
- NovaS1X 8y agoIt's unfortunate, as Blizzard used to be one of my most respected companies as some of the core attributes to their games was their high degree of polish unseen in many other developers. Now it's increasingly being eaten by micro-transactions and riding popular franchises.
- TheGRS 8y agoLooking back though, they might have made the right choice. So many respected PC gaming shops either closed or were consumed, chewed up and spit out. To name a few off the top of my head: Westwood Studios, Black Isle Studios, Looking Glass Studios, Rare. Making games is just excruciatingly hard and really tough to make into a consistent business model. Blizzard positioned themselves pretty well all things considered, but one can't help thinking the quality of their games might be at another level if they stayed away from Activision. But on the other hand Activision might have kept them alive. Let's not forget Blizzard put a lot of time into some big IPs that never even saw the light of day (Starcraft: Ghost and Titan).
- stunt 8y agoThey lost the battle to create a successful Battle Royale! Epic is making more money with Fortnite alone! And the new game (Apex Legendary) had a successful start as well which is created by people behind the old Call Of Duty series!