Microsoft lays off 1,900 employees in its gaming division following Activision Blizzard buyout

NEW YORK – Microsoft is laying off about 1,900 employees in its gaming division, in step with an inside corporate memo, simply over 3 months for the reason that tech massive finished its $69 million purchase of video game maker Activision Blizzard.

The task cuts constitute about an 8% aid of Microsoft’s 22,000-person gaming body of workers, the memo, received Thursday by way of The Associated Press, notes. Those impacted labored on groups for Activision Blizzard in addition to Xbox and ZeniMax — which can be additionally owned by way of Microsoft.

“As we move forward in 2024, the leadership of Microsoft Gaming and Activision Blizzard is committed to aligning on a strategy and an execution plan with a sustainable cost structure that will support the whole of our growing business,” Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer wrote in the memo.

Microsoft didn’t right away reply to requests for remark from The Associated Press.

Also on Thursday, Blizzard President Mike Ybarra introduced that he could be leaving the corporate in a post on X, the platform previously referred to as Twitter, showing to recognize the layoffs.

“It’s an incredibly hard day and my energy and support will be focused on all those amazing individuals impacted – this is in no way a reflection on your amazing work,” Ybarra wrote — later including that his time main Blizzard “was an absolute honor.”

Microsoft closed its $69 billion Activision Blizzard deal in October, just about 22 months after the deal was once first introduced after overcoming opposition from antitrust regulators in the United Kingdom and European Union.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission misplaced a court docket combat to dam the purchase however its antitrust enforcers are nonetheless pursuing a case that seeks to unwind the deal. The FTC has described the merger as a risk to pageant in the online game business, enabling Microsoft to create “walled gardens” round its Xbox Game Pass subscription provider and the rising trade of streaming video games on call for.

The newest layoffs at Microsoft observe a chain of job cuts around the tech sector in fresh weeks — together with the ones at Google, Riot Games, TikTok, eBay and Amazon. Retail, hospitality, media and different sectors had been it by way of task cuts as smartly.

Microsoft eradicated a vital selection of roles only one yr in the past. In January 2023, Microsoft stated it could be cutting 10,000 workers, then virtually 5% of its body of workers, as the corporate joined different tech gamers scaling again on pandemic-era expansions.

The newest Microsoft layoffs “underscores the importance of having a union voice on the job,” stated the Communications Workers of America — which has been running to prepare online game employees, together with some at gaming divisions at Microsoft.

In an bizarre association for the gaming business, Microsoft has pledged to stick impartial if Activision Blizzard employees in the U.S. and Canada search to prepare right into a exertions union. The union deal was once a part of a 2022 settlement with the CWA that helped cope with U.S. political issues in regards to the merger’s results. So some distance, on the other hand, just a small set of Activision Blizzard divisions have shaped unions.

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O’Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island.