Despite “Record Results in 2018,” Activision Blizzard Is Laying Off Hundreds of Employees
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Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick began today’s year-end earnings call by touting the company’s “record results in 2018.” Later in the call it was announced that 8% of Activision Blizzard’s almost 9600 employees would be laid off, which adds up to about 770 people. Because even if you make more money than you ever have before, you’re still a failure if you don’t meet your expectations. And since we apparently can’t expect executives to cut their own pay, the answer is always to lay off the rank and file.
You can read the company’s 2018 earnings report here.
“While our financial results for 2018 were the best in our history, we didn’t realize our full potential,” said Kotick, who earned almost $30 million in 2017. In response the company has lowered its 2019 expectations, and will focus development and increase spending on a small roster of core titles: Call of Duty, Candy Crush, Diablo, Hearthstone, Overwatch and Warcraft. Oh, and it also deprived almost 770 employees of their livelihoods.
The layoffs will be felt across the various companies beneath the Activision Blizzard umbrella, with most of the cuts reportedly coming in departments outside game development. Kotaku reports that at Blizzard, for example, the layoffs are primarily hitting the esports and publishing wings of the company.
