Even more people have to leave Activision Blizzard. This time, it affects European employees, including those in Germany.
In recent days and weeks, it has become clear again that Activision Blizzard sometimes has no sense of timing. Just a few days ago, it was announced that nearly 190 employees were laid off at Activision Blizzard and the CEO Bobby Kotick pocketed nearly 200 million dollars in bonuses, and now the next bad news comes:
Blizzard is planning further layoffs in 5 countries, including Germany.
What is planned? Blizzard plans to close the publishing locations in the individual European countries. Employees in are affected:
- Germany
- France
- Spain
- United Kingdom (UK)
- Netherlands
The layoffs will only affect the “Publishing” and “Support Operations” areas.
Explicitly not affected are customer support and game development.
How many employees will be affected by the planned layoffs is still unknown.
Why is Blizzard doing this? Blizzard apparently intends to close the smaller publishing studios in European countries and consolidate them. In a conversation with Gamesindustry.biz, Blizzard stated:
We have shared our plans with our teams in Europe on how we want to evolve as an organization and adapt to serve our players best and position ourselves for future growth in the region. We are taking extensive steps to support all our employees and facilitate the transition for those colleagues affected by these changes.
The underlying idea is to consolidate all of Blizzard’s publishing functions in Europe to a single location, namely in England.
Regardless of whether the layoffs are well-founded, long-planned, or strategically reasonable – the timing is once again quite poor, as it coincides with the increasing negative reports that significantly impact the public perception of Activision Blizzard.
At the same time, Blizzard is likely working on many new games – such as an action game that could become a “own Destiny”.
What is your opinion on this? Is this just the normal course of things? Or is it a disgrace that people are being laid off again?
