2024 will bring more layoffs and closures than 2023



Phil Spencer’s email to staff pertaining to the 1,900 people who got laid off today at Microsoft Gaming / Activision Blizzard.

“It’s been a little over three months since the Activision, Blizzard, and King teams joined Microsoft. As we move forward in 2024, the leadership of Microsoft Gaming and Activision Blizzard is committed to aligning on a strategy and an execution plan with a sustainable cost structure that will support the whole of our growing business. Together, we’ve set priorities, identified areas of overlap, and ensured that we’re all aligned on the best opportunities for growth.

As part of this process, we have made the painful decision to reduce the size of our gaming workforce by approximately 1900 roles out of the 22,000 people on our team. The Gaming Leadership Team and I are committed to navigating this process as thoughtfully as possible. The people who are directly impacted by these reductions have all played an important part in the success of Activision Blizzard, ZeniMax and the Xbox teams, and they should be proud of everything they’ve accomplished here. We are grateful for all of the creativity, passion and dedication they have brought to our games, our players and our colleagues. We will provide our full support to those who are impacted during the transition, including severance benefits informed by local employment laws. Those whose roles will be impacted will be notified, and we ask that you please treat your departing colleagues with the respect and compassion that is consistent with our values.

Looking ahead, we'll continue to invest in areas that will grow our business and support our strategy of bringing more games to more players around the world. Although this is a difficult moment for our team, I'm as confident as ever in your ability to create and nurture the games, stories and worlds that bring players together.”

Good luck to all the team members affected by today’s events.
 
"Call of Duty studios confirmed to be affected by todays layoffs"

Source: Trust me bro.
 
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What a stark contrast.

"Largely following the touch success of the DS, the iPhone came on fast as an alternative to Nintendo's handheld consoles. And that put pressure on Nintendo's runaway success in the early 2010s.

During this period, Iwata cut his salary 50% and encouraged other executives to reduce theirs. He refused to lay off staff because morale would be destroyed, with long-term consequences, he believed"





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www.investors.com
 
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JinCA said:
I posted in another thread but this was easy to see coming, they grew too much and there was no way they were keeping that many people on the payroll. It's not just MS obviously Sony and others have and will be laying people off too but not at this level simply because they didn't go out and spend billions buying publishers and growing the entire company as much as Xbox did for MS.
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JinCA said:
I posted in another thread but this was easy to see coming, they grew too much and there was no way they were keeping that many people on the payroll. It's not just MS obviously Sony and others have and will be laying people off too but not at this level simply because they didn't go out and spend billions buying publishers and growing the entire company as much as Xbox did for MS.
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Remember last year when we were spun a tale about how this merger will result in improved job security and that regulators like the FTC should be defunded for daring to oppose it? Good times.

People saying this is a natural side effect of "consolidation" are basically making the argument against it happening. If that's true (and it is) it simply means less jobs in the industry. So a healthier industry would look like more, smaller, companies. All of them taking care of their own operations and making products that people want to pay for.
 
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DriedMangoes said:
Remember last year when we were spun a tale about how this merger will result in improved job security and that regulators like the FTC should be defunded for daring to oppose it? Good times.

People saying this is a natural side effect of "consolidation" are basically making the argument against it happening. If that's true (and it is) it simply means less jobs in the industry. So a healthier industry would look like more, smaller, companies. All of them taking care of their own operations and making products that people want to pay for.
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Yeah, I mean many of us pointed this out when discussing it before and it's not because we have some special insight it's because this is what always happens in cases like this.

A lot of redundancies are created when large companies are merged together, not only that but cost cutting is also going to be put into effect because of the amount of money it cost to not only buy these companies but to fund the projects and pay the 20k new employees or whatever it was that MS took on with all of the acquisitions they've made. They've grown their companywide headcount by something like 10% or so, that's significant, especially in a division that doesn't bring in a lot of money compared to their larger divisions.
 
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DriedMangoes said:
Remember last year when we were spun a tale about how this merger will result in improved job security and that regulators like the FTC should be defunded for daring to oppose it? Good times.

People saying this is a natural side effect of "consolidation" are basically making the argument against it happening. If that's true (and it is) it simply means less jobs in the industry. So a healthier industry would look like more, smaller, companies. All of them taking care of their own operations and making products that people want to pay for.
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I think that talk was about the QA employees.
 
$20 says Dried will dig up a negative tweet from an employee that answered the phones at Activision after the MS merger…
 
Now @DriedMangoes here are your Bungie responses for Sony also laying off 8% after acquisition:

“Like all companies, probably overhired during COVID and now trimming around the waist.“

“Just going by the journalist reports . I have no skin in the matter either way. Whether it be Sony or Bungie , the entire world is trimming their fat so I don't know what is going on behind the doors but I would imagine it's something corporate related. The numbers are probably the ultimate factor in these decisions, and it sounds like Bungie set their expectations too high considering Destiny 2 still leads in popular engagement this year as per Circana analyst.”

You seem a bit more concerned about XBOX? 😎😜
 
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Kvally said:
Now @DriedMangoes here are your Bungie responses for Sony also laying off 8% after acquisition:

“Like all companies, probably overhired during COVID and now trimming around the waist.“

“Just going by the journalist reports . I have no skin in the matter either way. Whether it be Sony or Bungie , the entire world is trimming their fat so I don't know what is going on behind the doors but I would imagine it's something corporate related. The numbers are probably the ultimate factor in these decisions, and it sounds like Bungie set their expectations too high considering Destiny 2 still leads in popular engagement this year as per Circana analyst.”

You seem a bit more concerned about XBOX? 😎😜
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He’ll take any chance he get to pile on, but he’s just posting the news for conversation… Since when is people on social media the news.
 
Kvally said:
Now @DriedMangoes here are your Bungie responses for Sony also laying off 8% after acquisition:

“Like all companies, probably overhired during COVID and now trimming around the waist.“

“Just going by the journalist reports . I have no skin in the matter either way. Whether it be Sony or Bungie , the entire world is trimming their fat so I don't know what is going on behind the doors but I would imagine it's something corporate related. The numbers are probably the ultimate factor in these decisions, and it sounds like Bungie set their expectations too high considering Destiny 2 still leads in popular engagement this year as per Circana analyst.”

You seem a bit more concerned about XBOX? 😎😜
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Just as concerned you could say but at a magnitude that is 10x in proportion considering 8% of Bungie is probably like a hundred or so people which is still pretty bad. With ATVI and MS, it is multiplied by 15+ times at 1900 so no surprise there's more being heard across the internet and it's blowing up even more. Plus a game that was in development for 6+ years has also been cancelled because of this and going by what feedback and devs are saying, it had some potential.
 
Just as some has predicted , more info being released throughout the day as journalists find out more

 
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Most of the people who were laid off and are sounding off on twitter are social media or marketing people. Makes sense as they are so out of touch with reality; their job is to try to manipulate the public into believing their reality (same with journalists). It honestly is so cringe.
 
Palworld deleted its tweet because of threats to company and the social media account. Shame some people aren't allowing them to speak their minds.

 
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