Blizzard reportedly lays off at least 50 staff following shift away from live events
As in-person events continue to be scarce, the company is changing focus.
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Update, March 16 (6:11 pm ET): Schreier added that several other staff across Blizzard were also laid off, receiving severance benefits and a $200 Battle.net gift card.
Thanks to a report from Jason Schreier atBloomberg, we’ve learned that Activision-Blizzard has laid off at least 50 staff across parts of the company that worked on live events and in-person activities.Activision-Blizzard’s earnings for the prior quartersaw the company beat expectations with $2.4 billion in revenue.
In statement to Bloomberg, the company said that “Players are increasingly choosing to connect with our games digitally and the e-sports team, much like traditional sports, entertainment, and broadcasting industries, has had to adapt its business due to the impact the pandemic has had on live events.”
In a follow-up post onTwitter, Schreier added that Activision-Blizzard has also laid off an unknown number of staff from across other parts of the company, including Candy Crush developer King. This news comes just a few months after Activision-Blizzardclosed its Versailles office, with hundreds reportedly affected.
Looking ahead, Activision-Blizzard has several major titles in its pipeline, with a new Call of Duty coming in Holiday 2021 and aDiablo 2 remasterset to release later in the year. Meanwhile, work continues onOverwatch 2andDiablo 4, though neither title will be released in 2021. Blizzard shared updates on these games at BlizzCon 2021 earlier in the year, with a deep dive intohow Diablo 4 PvP works, as well as confirming that the development team is working on having cross-play and cross-progression in the game.
Update, March 16 (6:11 pm ET) — Additional details
Accordingto Schreier, other staff were also laid off across Blizzard, receiving 90 days severance pay, a year of health benefits and a $200 Battle.net gift card.
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Samuel Tolbert is a freelance writer covering gaming news, previews, reviews, interviews and different aspects of the gaming industry, specifically focusing on Xbox and PC gaming on Windows Central. You can find him on Twitter@SamuelTolbert.
