Microsoft lays off 1900, Mike Ybarra and Allen Adham step down

[enpleinjour]

Activision-Blizzard have let go of 60/72 staff in their esports divisionThere are just 12 employees left

• Entire Blizzard Customer Service team
• Battle.net team
• Entire Odyssey team (~150)
• Significant parts of OW2 team
  • Half Environment art team
• Parts of WoW team (?)
  • Lot of the Warcraft lore team
• eSports Division, ~ -80%
• Sledgehammer ~ -30%
• More at other COD studios
• Toys for Bob, ~ -40%
• Pretty much all of ABK's G&A

 

[salesguy]

not sure if it was mentioned anywhere but it was posted elsewhere that MS have ~22k game employees. So, it's around <10%, which is in line with some other recent layoffs in the headlines.

it sucks for those affected but they, probably did an audit and found some redundancies after the abk merger completed. inasmuch as a giant red tape filled corpo can know anything lol.

the interesting part is dropping the physical media teams supposedly. is it really happening??

esports was a bubble though.

 

[westlake]

not sure if it was mentioned anywhere but it was posted elsewhere that MS have ~22k game employees. So, it's around <10%, which is in line with some other recent layoffs in the headlines.

it sucks for those affected but they, probably did an audit and found some redundancies after the abk merger completed. inasmuch as a giant red tape filled corpo can know anything lol.

the interesting part is dropping the physical media teams supposedly. is it really happening??

esports was a bubble though.

the esports team was about to get gutted once OW League was no longer viable, and probably these layoffs were about to be done by ABK regardless of being acquired, they have nearly doubled their workforce size.

 

[Aquamarine]

the interesting part is dropping the physical media teams supposedly. is it really happening??

 

[westlake]

*** Hidden text: cannot be quoted. ***

The PC Gaming customers had never any issues with digital only, physical died out quickly once Steam catched up with all releases and big publishers implemented Steamworks DRM into their retail releases. Xbox has been the eariliest one to make mass availability of games to download with the Xbox 360, from the XBLA at launch to the Games on Demand in 2009, it has been known for almost a decade that their digital ratio was higher than Sony and Nintendo.

At this point it would be less controversial to have the SX since its launch without a disc drive in comparison to Xbox One online only DRM in 2013, but they need to grandfather their 100+ million discs manufactured somehow, and that also includes the backwards compatible xbox 360 games, it would be a better idea to release a standalone drive add-on to keep the legacy.

And yes, it is a shame that physical media is fading away, but definetely the packaging has been a complete leftover since the start of the last generation when manuals were no longer printed, feels like a very cheap product.

 

[America`s Most Wanted]

Microsoft CFO Amy Hood shares Q3 outlook for gaming:

• gaming growth in low 40s, with 45 points of net impact from ABK
• Xbox content + services low to mid 50s, 50 points of net impact from ABK
• "[Xbox] hardware revenue will decline year-over-year"

overall Microsoft gaming revenue expected to increase by 40-44% next quarter

Edit. Maybe delete this post, didn't see there is a better thread for this.

 

[salesguy]

today meta was up 20% ~200 billion market cap on big results. one catalyst for their great results was possibly their layoffs of 22% of their workforce over the past year. meanwhile ostensibly it was another strong jobs report this month January with 353k jobs added, unemployment held steady at 3.7%

 

[enpleinjour]

today meta was up 20% ~200 billion market cap on big results. one catalyst for their great results was possibly their layoffs of 22% of their workforce over the past year. meanwhile ostensibly it was another strong jobs report this month January with 353k jobs added, unemployment held steady at 3.7%

Thye just announced $50B in stock buybacks, just another symptom of cancerous shareholder capitalism.

Things that actually matter not performing as you want (revenue, profit etc), send the money the business makes from its workers and partners into the pocket of shareholders, instead of into R&D or worker salaries.

 

[Jimmy Joe]

Microsoft-owned gaming giant’s layoffs hit 162 Bay Area workers, offices closing

Microsoft-owned gaming giant Activision Blizzard’s mass layoffs will affect 162 Bay Area workers. Offices will also be closing as a part of the move.

www.sfchronicle.com

And now it looks like Toys for Bob has been killed, too. 86 people let go and the facility shut down, presumably with other employees moved to other divisions. Sledgehammer Games looks like it's going through the same thing

 

[Koni]

Microsoft-owned gaming giant’s layoffs hit 162 Bay Area workers, offices closing

Microsoft-owned gaming giant Activision Blizzard’s mass layoffs will affect 162 Bay Area workers. Offices will also be closing as a part of the move.

www.sfchronicle.com

And now it looks like Toys for Bob has been killed, too. 86 people let go and the facility shut down, presumably with other employees moved to other divisions. Sledgehammer Games looks like it's going through the same thing

Oh dear...

 

[Evilnemesis8]

Things are still confusing to parse through still, but it's not looking good.

 

[Koni]

Things are still confusing to parse through still, but it's not looking good.

Here's what the article said:

"The layoffs in Novato at 4 Hamilton Landing match an address for gaming studio and “Skylanders” creator Toys for Bob, which was acquired by Activision in 2005. The facility will also be closing, according to a state filing."

"The Foster City layoffs at 1001 E. Hillsdale Boulevard match the address for Activision subsidiary Sledgehammer Games, which worked on the popular “Call of Duty” franchise. Insider Gaming reported last month that Sledgehammer is also closing its office, having workers temporarily go remote, and relocating to a smaller space."

Basically Sledgehammer and Toys For Bob are laying off workers. Sledgehammer is downsizing to a smaller studio, while Toys For Bob will be closing it's facility - we don't know if they'll also be downsizing or just shutting down entirely. Sledgehammer had over 450 employees in 2021, while Toys For Bob allegedly had over 180 employees that same year.

Looking at the recent games they've both worked on, I think a combination of the original Warzone shutting down plus Modern Warfare III possibly underperforming sales-wise (and definitely underperforming quality-wise due to them having less than 2 years to make the damn thing) is the principal reason for the layoffs. Which... ugh, is another case of entire studios suffering for decisions made at the top. In this case: the long-term ramificiations for turning what was originally suppsoed to be DLC into a fully-fledged game (and it shows) all so COD can continue it's annual release cycle.

This is jsut speculation on my part, though.

 

[Remember_spinal]

Essentially one of the few promised studios that would be free’d from being a COD support team are being gutted.

I have a feeling Activision is going to become even more of a COD machine from this point on.

 

[ArkhamFantasy]

They did an incredible job on Spyro reignited, seeing them put on COD and then shut down after being acquired by a platform holder is so absurd that it sounds like a badly written parody.

 

[BTB123]

Might aswell just go and shut down the whole company at this point. How do they plan to keep up regular CoD releases when they're gutting the studios working on them like that?

 

[Evilnemesis8]

Might aswell just go and shut down the whole company at this point. How do they plan to keep up regular CoD releases when they're gutting the studios working on them like that?

I have simply no idea what Microsoft is doing there when it comes to the amount of people they've kicked out of the numerous CoD teams.

I can get the idea that you might want to cut costs on certain lower performing studios/IPs but CoD?
It's always been an especially baffling part of the total layoffs.
That goose is laying golden eggs almost every year, why so many cuts to it?

 

[tentacle-tropes]

Correction: I deleted my prior post about Toys for Bob because it was seemingly incorrect. It seems the physical office was shut down and some employees were let go. But the studio itself is still active with a majority staff of remote workers.Apologies!Now…

 

[BTB123]

So they are going to work from home. Is that just for a transition period where they get a new location for whatever reason or is this some attempt at saving money by not paying rent for offices or buying them?

 

[Koni]

I'm not sure if they'll get a crack at Banjo, mainly cause of the downsizing. I think they'll just remain a COD support studio. Though we dunno what kinds of talent was laid off.

 

[America`s Most Wanted]

the FTC has complained to a federal appeals court about
Microsoft's 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox layoffs. The
FTC argues the move undermines Microsoft's claims that
Activision Blizzard would operate independently
https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/7/2...e-company-promised-of-its-merger-the-ftc-says

 

[Bernd Lauert]

As with most of the FTCs endeavors, this will go no where. ABK can comfortably claim that they made this decision independently of Microsoft.

 

[fiendcode]

Kotick pretty much promised/threatened layoffs should the merger fail. I honestly think, as iRobot just showed us, things could have ended up much worse for ABK employees.

FTC's reach here is also humorous after they stabbed unions in the back, reversing their previous position on giving them a seat at the table and calling labor a "fringe" concern after the CWA backed MS/ABK. The defense only needs to play Khan's own words back for the court, she already locked this door and then set it on fire.

 

[unkindlynice]

The reason Kotick contact MS for a dale was exactly because he saw they had peaked and were about to go through harder times. He did his job in optimising shareholder rewards.

Lots of warning signs coming into the year the merger was finalised.

 

[enpleinjour]

• Entire Blizzard Customer Service team
• Battle.net team
• Entire Odyssey team (~150)
• Significant parts of OW2 team
  • Half Environment art team
• Parts of WoW team (?)
  • Lot of the Warcraft lore team
• eSports Division, ~ -80%
• Sledgehammer ~ -30%
• More at other COD studios
• Toys for Bob, ~ -40%
• Pretty much all of ABK's G&A
• Blizzard Recruitment, ~ -40% (31 -> 18)
• Blizzard Art/Animation, ~ -60% (10 -> 4)

The play here is the FTC simply trying to nudge the Appeals Court to rule in their favour by pointing out how MSFT's claims to the court cannot be trusted.

Appeals Court could take anywhere from several months to like 9 months before ruling.

 

[fiendcode]

The fatal issue with FTC's reach here is they're alleging something Microsoft never actually agreed to. Microsoft indicated they planned to operate ABK as a distinct subsidiary rather than fully integrate them into Xbox (just as they operate ZeniMax) and as such the merger could be unwound at a later date if need be. Microsoft Gaming exerting any degree of direction over a subsidiary is irrelevant here, the issue was the organizational structure which has been fully maintained. And this is immaterial anyway, the court already didn't see any merit to potentially preventing the merger even under the lower injunction standard. Microsoft could fully integrate ABK within XBGS and it wouldn't really matter legally.

The court's seen through FTC's antics basically every step of the way, I doubt that suddenly reverses course now. It's just another waste of government resources.