The restructuring has mostly affected Blizzard’s marketing and IT departments and has left 209 people without jobs. Those 209 jobs only represent around a quarter of the layoffs expected to affect the company, due to Activision Blizzard’s previously announces restructuring. The news hit when a recent Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) was filed in California.
PC Games Insider took a look at the report and posted an article summarizing the layoffs:
“IT saw the highest amount of reductions, clocking in at 41 across all US locations. Meanwhile, the marketing department in Blizzard’s Irvine, California and Austin, Texas branches saw a 29-person job loss between them. The same number of staff was let go from the Live Experiences teams in California’s Irvine and Burbank, and Austin, Texas.”
The report also noted that the affected employees would be receiving a package that included 60 days’ worth of compensation and benefits. Each employee was also entitled to a severance package, although as of right now, it’s unclear whether that was on top of the 60 days of compensation.
Blizzard gave a statement to PC Games Insider, saying that “while the changes were difficult, they were important for supporting our current game-development priorities, which will serve as the foundation for Blizzard’s future. This will ultimately put us in the best position to create epic, high-quality content and entertainment experiences for our players around the world.”
The layoffs have come after Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick called 2018 a “record year.”
“We’re staffing up production on our incubation efforts faster, and increasing our investment in live services, in our tools, in our Battle.net platform, and in new areas like our fast growing esports and advertising efforts, but all with an intense focus on excellence, so we never disappoint our players,” Kotick explained.
