Microsoft is to lay off 650 employees from its video game division, after having already let go 1,900 people last January, as a direct result of the costly acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the publisher of hit titles such as Call of Duty And Candy Crush.
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“As part of the restructuring of our teams following the acquisition (…), we have taken the decision to eliminate approximately 650 positions across Microsoft Gaming – primarily administrative functions – in order to organize our activities for long-term success,” Phil Spencer, the head of video games at the computer group, said Thursday in a letter to employees seen by AFP.
He admitted that this news is “difficult to hear,” then added that these changes will help ensure “sustainable future growth” and specified that no games or new products will be cancelled and no studios closed.
Microsoft did not respond to a request from AFP.
“Cruel layoffs like this have become all too common,” said Samuel Cooper, a producer on the game. World of Warcraft Blizzard Studios, and a member of the CWA union.
In a statement from the organization, he said he was “in solidarity with all those who lost their jobs today” and encouraged all video game workers to unionize.
“We might have hoped that a company like Microsoft, which made $88 billion in net income last year, could ‘succeed in the long term’ without destroying the livelihoods of 650 of our colleagues,” he continued.
Microsoft completed its acquisition of Activision Blizzard for $69 billion last October. In May, the American group closed four studios of publisher Bethesda, which it had bought in 2020.
AFP
The CWA, which claims more than 6,000 members in the sparsely unionized technology and video game industries, also condemns job cuts at Sony and its subsidiaries.
“The callousness of former Sony Computer Entertainment Europe chairman Chris Deering, who recently suggested that laid-off workers in the video games industry should ‘go to the beach for a year’, shows how insulated many managers are from the impact of their decisions on their employees,” the union said.
During an interview on the podcast My Perfect ConsoleChris Deering suggested that people suddenly out of work move to a cheap place near a beach or “drive an Uber” until the job market improves.
The PlayStation branch of the Japanese giant announced at the end of February the layoff of 900 people, or 8% of its global workforce.
