Report: Activision Blizzard to Announce ‘Hundreds’ of Layoffs Next Week

Perhaps, based on previous news and reports out of Activision Blizzard in recent months, this may not come as much of a surprise. Bloomberg is reporting that Activision Blizzard, which has already been a hot topic of investigation ever since last year’s BlizzCon event, plans to announce a large wave of layoffs due to a restructuring effort. This announcement appears to be in the works for this coming Tuesday, February 12, 2019.

According to Bloomberg’s report, this restructuring is an effort to boost profit and “centralize” internal functions, as the company is seeing dropping shares, as a result of dropping sales. This includes properties such as Hearthstone, Overwatch, and Destiny 2, which is famously no longer an Activision Blizzard property after what seemed like a long struggle between Activision and developer Bungie.

Analytics suggest that Activision Blizzard’s shared dropped 2.5 percent today, although Bloomberg’s cited stock price of $42.88 seems to have slightly risen ($43.41 at the time of this writing). The split with Bungie is estimated to reduce revenue by up to $400 million, and Activision’s 2019 sales are also expected to drop by roughly 2 percent overall.

The report notes that as of the end of 2017, Activision Blizzard has 9,800 employees. This restructuring is believed to be in the hundreds. It’s worth noting, like Bloomberg does, that other AAA publishers have experienced similar declines, with Electronic Arts seeing a pretty sharp share price drop earlier this week, although the early success of Apex Legends seems to be turning that around for now. Take-Two also reportedly forecasting lower sales than expected.

[Source: Bloomberg]