Report: Activision Blizzard Prepares for Layoffs as It Plans to Shut Down European Offices - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 03 May 2021 / 2,093 Views
Activision Blizzard is preparing for another round of layoffs as it plans to shut down its European publishing offices, according to sources who spoke with GamesIndustry.
The video game company is in a consultation period as it prepares for layoffs in Germany, France, Spain, the UK, and the Netherlands. The plan is to consolidate all European publishing offices to a hub in the UK.
"Players are increasingly choosing to connect with our games digitally," said an Activision Blizzard representative when asked about the layoffs.
"We have shared plans with our teams in Europe for how we would evolve as an organization, adapting to this change to serve our players and best positioning the region for future growth. We will be taking extensive steps to support all employees and ease the transition for those of our colleagues who might be impacted by these proposed changes."
The layoffs will be limited to publishing and won't impact development, live ops, or customer support. King's offices in the UK, Sweden, Germany, and Spain have also not been impacted.
This isn't the first round of layoffs and consolidation for Activision Blizzard. Last year it closed some of its offices in France and Netherlands, as well as making cuts in Asia-Pacific.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Layoffs so that must mean Acti/Blizzard have made record profits in Europe then.
Layoffs suck for those who lose their jobs. But, businesses adjusting to the market is good for the market overall. We want companies operating as lean and profitable as possible, because that encourages further investment in the gaming business.
Well we don't want a company to be too profitable. Because then games wind up costing too much money. After all, the most profitable possible means, charging by the minute to play games.
No, that's not how profit is generated, unless that's what gamers want.
Nobody can sell things that someone else doesn't want to buy. And, the closest we ever had to "pay by the minute" was arcades, which have mostly disappeared. That was tried, and it eventually failed, as the cost to play good quality video games dropped like a brick.
In other words: "we will save money and make more profit since players accept to pay the same for less".
Can't wait for a new Indie studio to pop up, full of mostly ex-Blizzard employees. They can do for Warcraft what Bloodstained did for Castlevania.
Will be hard in this case since it is publishing employees and not game devs.
It's so depressing to see Activision just cannibalising Blizz to pieces like this.
Won't be long until they just close the company as a whole and sell off the IP's.
Lord that's just sad
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