Gaming

Microsoft to lay off 1900 employees from Activision and Xbox

Gamers expect 2024 to be even bigger for the gaming industry, while gaming companies are downsizing at the start of the year. Microsoft’s latest announcement revealed that the tech and gaming giant will be laying off 1900 employees.

The lay-off includes a large chunk of Blizzard and also from the Xbox divisions. These include some of the top officials at Blizzard. Overall, around 9% of the workforce is let go.

Microsoft’s reasoning

As per the company, a similar statement was provided like any other regarding excessive hiring during the pandemic. What’s more surprising is that Microsoft is valued at around 3 trillion and is still not able to support these employees.

Some say this comes as part of the recent Activision Blizzard acquisition cost of $69 billion. It was the largest acquisition. Ex-CEO for Activision Blizzard also took a huge sum of money while exiting the company earlier.

Communications Workers of America in its statement said, “Microsoft’s announcement that it will be laying off 1,900 video game workers makes clear that, even when you work at a successful company in an extremely profitable industry, your livelihood is not protected without a voice on the job.”

Blizzard president Mike Ybarra revealed that he will be stepping down from his position, despite previously stating he has no desire to leave the company. He even went on to quote someone would have to “drag” him out of Blizzard before he left.

Industry-wide lay-offs

Earlier this month, Riot Games also announced that they will be laying off over 500 employees. However, they accused their previous projects of not gaming much success.

Last year also saw over 6000 reported lay-offs. This year has already started with over 2000. People believe that this won’t be the last lay-off new in the gaming industry this year.