Saturated 2,000 new developers seeks Activision Blizzard – and that in just 2 years. But for which games is that supposed to be?
Activision presented some exciting numbers in its quarterly financial report, especially regarding plans for the future. While in many other industries around the world, hiring considerations are approached hesitantly, Activision Blizzard aims to ramp up significantly. More than 2,000 new developers are to be hired.
What was said? The financial report mainly focused on revenue, which is in most cases better than previous projections. However, the more exciting part revolves around concrete plans for the future, which involve expanding the team.
Specifically, it states in Activision Blizzard’s presentation:
The demand for our content has never been greater, and we are increasing our investments to better satisfy our players and achieve even greater financial successes. We plan to hire more than 2,000 developers over the next 2 years (…).
It is also interesting that the size of some franchise teams is to be “tripled”. However, it is not specified which teams are involved in the tripling.
For which games are the developers? This remains a big secret; there are no concrete clues yet. However, it can already be inferred from the information of recent months where Activision Blizzard is increasing.
At least we know that Activision Blizzard is currently working on several mobile titles for the Warcraft franchise and recently sought developers for a brand new action game. It is quite possible that these games are slowly transitioning from the conceptual and planning phase into actual development, requiring more staff to implement these plans. This would at least explain why there is a massive search for new developers at this time.
However, it should be noted that the 2,000 employees are not only for Blizzard but for Activision Blizzard as a whole. Therefore, brands like Call of Duty or Candy Crush may also be affected.
New hires come after layoffs: The announcement of new hires fits Activision Blizzard’s previous plan. For several years, they have aimed to expand game development while simultaneously reducing staff in other areas. In all “non-development areas,” Activision Blizzard frequently lays off employees. Just a few weeks ago, about 190 employees were laid off, two years earlier it was 800 employees.
It is important to note that the layoffs occurred mainly in areas not directly related to game development. These primarily involved employees from the eSports sector and support.
Presumably, the new hires are also meant to fill some vacant positions, as several well-known developers from Activision Blizzard have left in recent years – such as Jeff Kaplan most recently.
