Next week might prove to be a rough time for some Activision-Blizzard employees, with reports pointing towards mass layoffs coming early in the week. After stock prices fell quite low in the face of dwindling player numbers in games such as Overwatch and Hearthstone, as well as the announcement that Destiny 2 developer Bungie would be leaving their 10-year partnership early, reports have surfaced indicating that the company will likely be letting more than a few employees go next week.
Over the past year, turnover of employees has even hit the top levels of the companies, with Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Publishing, and Mike Morhaime, the longtime head of Blizzard, both leaving their jobs. On New Years Eve, Activision announced that they were firing CFO Spencer Neumann, and Tim Kilpin, recruited to lead Activision’s consumer-products division, retired this month.
Activision-Blizzard aren’t the only major gaming company to feel the pinch in the last few weeks, with shares in EA and Take-Two also dropping earlier this week. It seems that while some companies have been enjoying a booming 2018, others have slowly lagged behind for various reasons. It remains to be seen whether other companies also follow suit and let employees go, or exactly how many employees will be let go in the coming weeks.
