this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2024

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Microsoft lays off 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees (www.theverge.com)

submitted 7 months ago by throws_lemy@lemmy.nz to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 178 points 7 months ago (7 children)

It is worth understanding that this is "different" than... all the other layoffs in tech at this point.

MS acquired ABK. Any acquisition almost always leads to "downsizing". At a high level: ABK would have had their own payroll department. Now they go through MS payroll. Why do you need an entire department whose job is now superfluous? Obviously this gets a LOT more complex with developers and the like (as well as local management) but that is the mindset.

But... holy fucking shit that is a lot of people getting laid off at one of the worst times to be unemployed in "tech" in the past decade.

[–] bassomitron@lemmy.world 55 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

It is indeed a lot of people. A quick search says ABK employed 17,000 people. Laying over over 10% of your workforce is... intense, to say the least. Though, how much of that 1,900 is just from ABK is hard to say, so the percentage could be lower.

You're right though; HR, payroll, legal, and social media/PR departments would definitely be among the first on the chopping block, depending on how much MS wants to integrate ABK into their existing departments.

[–] Zipitydew@sh.itjust.works 33 points 7 months ago

Finance too. They're almost always first from the multiple I've personally been through. The new owners want those hands out of the pot asap.

[–] Tetsuo@jlai.lu 32 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Also considering the apparent toxicity of certain Blizzard employees it's probably a good opportunity to "purge" the Kotic gang and his following.

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 10 points 7 months ago (2 children)

So that's a dozen people. 1900 is more than a hundred times that. (#mathFTW)

These cuts will seriously hurt product.

Also, I sense my less-than-new windows version will be unsupported; and I only had it so the one game ran better.

[–] Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world 9 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Blizzard Products were polished turds.

They need a huge cultural shift and I'm all for it.

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[–] deweydecibel@lemmy.world 15 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Hence why acquisitions need more scrutiny. It literally kills jobs.

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[–] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 10 points 7 months ago

Yeah, it’s brutal out there right now. Reminds me of 2008 or 2000.

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[–] brightandshinyobject@lemmy.world 113 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I never want to hear "job creators" as a reason for tax breaks and special treatment again.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 27 points 7 months ago (1 children)

You're going to hear so much more of it now that we're cranking the unemployment rate back up again.

[–] Ultragramps@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 7 months ago

Plus being an election year, they gotta cycle through everything and see what sticks.

[–] Arcane_Trixster@lemm.ee 91 points 7 months ago (10 children)

68 billion to acquire IP, but can't afford to pay the people who make and maintain it.

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 76 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Can*

Doesn’t

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[–] TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee 38 points 7 months ago

Well, yeah.

The shareholders demanded a sacrifice. You really think any of the top brass would be affected?

They literally do 1000 times the work the devs do to justify the millions in pay and compensation, and the whole place would grind to a halt if they were affected (/s if you believe that)

[–] Zipitydew@sh.itjust.works 27 points 7 months ago (9 children)

Layoffs after this size of merger are pretty typical. The number of people seems high, but it might be due to Activision's own acquisitions over the years.

First round of layoffs after a merger is consolidation of corporate administrative functions. ActiBlizz finance, accounting, HR, etc is no longer needed. Microsoft already has all those needs covered. And it wouldn't surprise me to learn ActiBlizz had a lot of administrative bloat.

Most of the knowledge workers will be kept for now. Will be future cuts there as objectives are finalized and staff needed becomes clear.

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[–] KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 75 points 7 months ago (5 children)

The industry is at its most wealthy and yet it feels like its on fire.

[–] 1984@lemmy.today 34 points 7 months ago (4 children)

Yup thats capitalism. Always need to make more money than previous year, or we have a depression.. Lol.

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[–] makunamatata@discuss.tchncs.de 25 points 7 months ago

It’s all about instilling Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt to gain from it.

Right now what they are gaining are lower overhead and when they re-hire they will be paying less for the same roles.

[–] boonhet@lemm.ee 13 points 7 months ago

Software engineer (luckily not in games) here. Definitely feeling it in terms of looking for a new job. Everyone's only looking for senior engineers and they're SUPER picky because there are so many unemployed engineers applying, even in my country where there are a lot fewer layoffs.

[–] jol@discuss.tchncs.de 13 points 7 months ago (3 children)

You don't get rich paying a ton of people 200k. You get rich not paying them. So what you are saying is actually not a contradiction!

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[–] FeetinMashedPotatoes@lemmy.world 53 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I remember people on the Internet talking about the Microsoft Bethesda deal. I saw people saying that it's "actually a good thing" and how Microsoft can contribute more to Bethesda and they'll churn out better games for Xbox. Then I see shit like this and games like Starfield and understand why 99% of the people on the Internet have no fucking clue what they're talking about.

[–] _Atlas_@lemmy.world 31 points 7 months ago

Starfield was basically done with their release development when Microsoft aquired Bethesda

[–] Holzkohlen@feddit.de 28 points 7 months ago (11 children)

You think Microsoft is at fault for Starfield being mediocre? Okay

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[–] Shirasho@lemmings.world 49 points 7 months ago (5 children)

January hasn't ended yet and we are at 60% of the total layoffs of last year.

[–] Xepher@lemm.ee 13 points 7 months ago (1 children)

In Tech?

[–] Shirasho@lemmings.world 8 points 7 months ago

In game dev.

[–] june@lemmy.world 13 points 7 months ago (4 children)

Curious for a source on that

[–] Defaced@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago

https://publish.obsidian.md/vg-layoffs/Archive/2024 not sure if this is what you're looking for but someone has been tracking overall video game layoffs for the past 3 years. 2023 was approximately 10,600, we're halfway there at 5600 in 2024 and it's only been a month. That's pretty fucked.

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[–] randon31415@lemmy.world 29 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Just as long as one of the 1,900 is the CEO...

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[–] Mango@lemmy.world 27 points 7 months ago

Probably not the guys with sexual assault charges though.

[–] BeigeAgenda@lemmy.ca 27 points 7 months ago (4 children)

1900 employees, that's something like 10 big games that won't be released, or we can look forward to more outages and bugs in the new releases, and slower fixing of those bugs.

Thanks Microsoft for your contribution to enshittification 🏅💩

[–] ech@lemm.ee 19 points 7 months ago

Not what that word means

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[–] Arkaelus@lemmy.world 24 points 7 months ago (1 children)

My initial reaction was to laugh my ass off at the extra drop of crap in the collective cup. Upon a second take however... considering what a horrifying den of depravity ActiBlizz became during the past years, this may turn out to be for the best in the long run...

[–] the_q@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Yeah those coders and artists had it coming!

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[–] BigMacHole@lemm.ee 10 points 7 months ago

It's a good thing we didn't raise their Taxes or Wages! Otherwise they may have fired their workers!

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