Microsoft reportedly lays off 1,900 employees from gaming division [UPDATED]

Microsoft is cutting jobs a few months after closing its acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

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Updated on 1/25/24 at 9:44 a.m. ET: A report from The Verge claims that the majority of today's layoffs at Microsoft impact Activision Blizzard, though there have been some layoffs at ZeniMax and Xbox proper. As a result, Blizzard's previously-announced survival game has been cancelled. Blizzard President Mike Ybarra is also leaving the company.


Original story: A massive round of layoffs may have just hit the gaming industry as IGN is reporting that Microsoft is cutting the jobs of 1,900 employees. This comes just a handful of months after the trillion-dollar company was able to close its acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Xbox’s Phil Spencer reportedly shared the following memo internally.

Microsoft has yet to provide a statement on the layoffs. We’ll be sure to update this article with new information if that changes.

News Editor

Donovan is a journalist from Maryland. His oldest gaming memory is playing Pajama Sam on his mom's desktop during weekends. Pokémon Emerald, Halo 2, and the original Star Wars Battlefront 2 were some of the most influential titles in awakening his love for video games. After interning for Shacknews throughout college, Donovan graduated from Bowie State University in 2020 with a major in broadcast journalism and joined the team full-time. He is a huge film fanatic and will talk with you about movies and games all day. You can follow him on twitter @Donimals_

From The Chatty
  • reply
    January 25, 2024 6:38 AM

    Donovan Erskine posted a new article, Microsoft reportedly lays off 1,900 employees from gaming division

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      January 25, 2024 6:17 AM

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      January 25, 2024 7:23 AM

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      January 25, 2024 7:50 AM

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      January 25, 2024 7:52 AM

      They probably needed a few extra bucks after that $69 billion Activision buy-in.

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      January 25, 2024 8:05 AM

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      January 25, 2024 8:08 AM

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        January 25, 2024 8:13 AM

        Doesn't mean they were laid off

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        January 25, 2024 9:12 AM

        I thought Blizzard had completely missed the boat on the survival genre, but Palworld got me second-guessing that. Never expected to see success like that again.

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          January 25, 2024 7:15 PM

          I'm skeptical about Palworld's longevity tbh

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            January 25, 2024 9:28 PM

            It doesn't really matter that much. It's the writing on the wall. Innovate immediately or enjoy death.

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        January 25, 2024 1:39 PM

        Damn shame, from what I'd heard it was real real good

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      January 25, 2024 8:10 AM

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      January 25, 2024 8:24 AM

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      January 25, 2024 8:54 AM

      Total games industry job losses at 5000 in just 2024 alone.

      Add that at least 9000 were lost in 2023

      https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/over-5000-games-industry-workers-have-already-lost-their-jobs-in-2024/

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        January 25, 2024 1:44 PM

        Yup: https://twitter.com/tha_rami/status/1750532050833322419

        Around TGAs I talking about the 2023 layoffs with someone who up until a few years ago was very high up in that world. He recently retired so he might have felt a bit more open to discuss this even though it was just one to one at dinner, but he said that there was way more pain to come in 2024.

        Now we see what he was talking about lol

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        January 25, 2024 9:29 PM

        Sounds like a management issue. Get them fired.

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      January 25, 2024 9:24 AM

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      January 25, 2024 9:28 AM

      Please tell me Todd Howard's job is safe!!!

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      January 25, 2024 9:32 AM

      would be interested in seeing the breakdown on this. obviously there'd be a lot of redundancy in combining these massive organizations, and hopefully they fired absolutely everyone even tangentially associated with warzone (jk jk, kinda).

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      January 25, 2024 10:14 AM

      Insane :(

      I’ve seen rumours about them starting to release games for Switch and PS, probably years after they debut on PC/Xbox.

      Kind of makes sense once you acquire so many studios, they have 23 right now, with the long development times is gamepass subs and p/xbox sales enough to sustain all of that?

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      January 25, 2024 10:53 AM

      https://x.com/jezcorden/status/1750590022842278391

      That Series X refresh model from the FTC leak “now adorably digital” seems a lock now.

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        January 25, 2024 1:58 PM

        Senua 2 is download only, Xbox revision is digital only, retail team is downsized, the writing is clearly on the wall for physical media at least as far as Microsoft is concerned.

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          January 25, 2024 1:59 PM

          [deleted]

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            January 25, 2024 2:04 PM

            It sounds like the choice was they ship a game in 2024 or ship it in 2027. I like short single player games but we'll see if it was the right choice or not pretty soon.

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            January 25, 2024 3:52 PM

            I think it was always going to be similar to the 1st game

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      January 25, 2024 11:24 AM

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      January 25, 2024 1:29 PM

      Looks like Blizzard Team 4 (Overwatch) was hit hard

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        January 25, 2024 2:11 PM

        Seeing a fair amount of these: https://twitter.com/mollsiewallsie/status/1750606930102395027

        Ugh, and this is a senior environmental artist, not a G&A redundancy. It feels like they had just enough to keep the live service game in good shape. Stripping the team of resources is going to reflect in the state of the game later this year.

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          January 25, 2024 2:55 PM

          "Why are Western games plagued with me-too copypasta design and sameness?"

          "Oh, 'cause we hire up and then fire people after they ship, then they go somewhere else and have to work with a completely new team and org structure and possibly learn new tooling and processes, only to get dumped again in 2-3 years, rinse repeat."

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            January 25, 2024 6:10 PM

            You have to understand that institutional knowledge is overrated and good work comes from short term employment where you're constantly looking over your shoulder and wondering if you're next.

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              January 25, 2024 6:12 PM

              What sucks about Blizzard is that it was supposed to be that place, and it was for a very long time! I have friends who thought they'd be lifers over there, almost all of them with their ten year shields and all with five year swords.

              None of them are there anymore. A shame!

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          January 25, 2024 9:31 PM

          Doesn't surprise me OW2 was launched to counter bad press about rape and sexual assault. Once it got to a playable state they were always going to chop the dev team no matter how much money it makes.

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            January 25, 2024 10:18 PM

            OW2 was announced before the press (centering on the Diablo and WoW teams btw) came out. As stories have said, OW2 was supposed to be the middle step before the eventual MMO dream of Project Titan that Jeff Kaplan and the core team hoped to resurrect. It can be debated if this was a mistake or not, I would argue that them creating a successful multiplayer shooter wasn't necessarily a greenlight to make a PvE and then an MMO, but that's neither here nor there at this point.

            Post-merger cutbacks were inevitable unfortunately, just because that's what happens. OW2 has 50M active players and generated $225 million in revenue last year and that still meant cutting senior staff.

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              January 25, 2024 10:20 PM

              It was definitely announced, but OverWatch 1 was still going strong with literally everyone. 2 was pushed forwards to change the narrative.

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                January 25, 2024 11:50 PM

                OW2 came out later than they anticipated because they never solved the PvE they announced, I'm not sure how that tracks

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        January 25, 2024 3:53 PM

        25% of sledgehammer games

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        January 25, 2024 1:44 PM

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          January 25, 2024 2:01 PM

          Western AAA game development stays losing, through no fault of the developers.

          I really hope id Software stays shielded for the foreseeable future.

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          January 26, 2024 12:26 AM

          Yeah, Nintendo doesn’t have a shovelware platform like Gamepass to keep shoveling shit into.

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      January 25, 2024 1:51 PM

      Was to be expected, sadly.

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      January 25, 2024 6:21 PM

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        January 25, 2024 7:12 PM

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          January 25, 2024 9:20 PM

          Bobby Kotick was the sin-eater for the merger. People were so excited to get that little gremlin out of there and "good guy Phil Spencer" that they forgot about what happens under these circumstances.

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        January 25, 2024 10:19 PM

        From one of the ex-senior designers, what a king

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