Last week, Activision Blizzard reported their yearly financials, revealing that Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 and Destiny: The Taken King performed well, but Skylanders SuperChargers and Guitar Hero Live missed expectations due to greater competition and a shift towards mobile for the casual audience. Today, Activision confirmed that layoffs have hit the company.
In a statement to Game Informer, Activision said they are “refocusing to better align with Activision’s long-term priorities,” but didn’t mention which studios were affected:
As announced on our earnings call, our games for core audiences did extremely well, but the casual audience has not yet emerged on next gen consoles. So we are refocusing to better align with Activision’s long-term priorities because, as always, our strategy evolves to keep us ahead of a rapidly-changing industry. We are working with those impacted by the changes to offer outplacement services and support.
While a new Skylanders game is scheduled to release in 2016, there won’t be another new Guitar Hero game in this console cycle.
According to reports, Activision’s Minneapolis location was shut down, and Guitar Hero Live developer FreeStyle Games was “greatly impacted” by the layoffs.
[Source: Game Informer, Kotaku, Jayme (Twitter)]
