In a earnings report for 2018 published by Activision Blizzard, the company has highlighted that the revenues have risen over years. But the company has also decided cut off 8% of its workforce and laying off 800 employees.
CEO of Activision Blizzard Bobby Kotick stated that the company has had the best financial year in 2018, and that they didn’t realize their full potential. Also claiming that a big factor was making important leadership changes. Within these decisions, comes laying off some employees in order to cut the costs.
While our financial results for 2018 were the best in our history, we didn’t realize our full potential. To help us reach our full potential, we have made a number of important leadership changes. These changes should enable us to achieve the many opportunities our industry affords us, especially with our powerful owned franchises, our strong commercial capabilities, our direct digital connections to hundreds of millions of players, and our extraordinarily talented employees.
As of Tuesday, the company has begun notifying the employees that are being fired across its various organizations, which include Activision, Blizzard and King.
Blizzard president J. Allen Brack said in a not to Kotaku,
Over the last few years, many of our non-development teams expanded to support various needs. Currently staffing levels on some teams are out of proportion with our current release slate. This means we need to scale down some areas of our organization. I’m sorry to share that we will be parting ways with some of our colleagues in the U.S. today. In our regional offices, we anticipate similar evaluations, subject to local requirements.
According to Kotaku sources, the layoffs at Blizzard only affect the non-development workers like publishing and reporting. These layoffs are also happening at Activision and King, but because of the large number of employees that the whole company has, it is hard to say what department within the company is affected.
Activision Blizzard is also giving a comprehensive severance package to the employees that were laid off, while continuing their medical insurance, career coaching , and job placement assistance. They are also going to sharing the profits and bonuses for 2018 among the employees that are eligible for it.
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