Gaming giant Activision, in a stunning turn of events, let go of 5 percent of its workforce which is spread across its internal studios such as Infinity Ward, Beenox, Treyarch, and even let go of employees in their corporate office. Although unprecedented for Activision, situations like this usually come after when a company has low earnings or is restructuring.
How This took place
In an article by Kotaku, Activision had a strong Fourth Quarter of last year, even managing to surpass their ideal revenue. However, during the 2016 Fourth Quarter Earnings Call, Eric Hirshberg, the CEO of Activision, was quite disappointed with Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. As a result, the developers of the game, Infinity Ward, let go of 20 employees.
Another studio under Activision took a hit, as Gamasutra states that, an anonymous source told them that Beenox, the developer of Skylander, closed their entire in-house Q&A department, however Beenox as a studio is unaffected.
With all the news of layoffs circulating in Activision, it is good to hear that some divisions are not affected such as Blizzard and Major League Gaming. As right now, these two divisions of Activision are doing well in terms of projects and figures, so it would be wrong and counterproductive as well to reduce the number of employees in these areas.
What to expect from Activision
In a released statement, they said that "Activision Publishing is realigning our resources to support our upcoming slate and adapt to the accelerating transition to digital, including opportunities for digital add-on content."
No matter what direction Activision wants to take, players and fans alike should not worry about a thing. Although people might have lost their jobs, the company is still intent on delivering high quality games this year as they are planning on releasing Destiny 2, and is preparing a brand new Call of Duty game.
