Riot, Activision, Blizzard, & Microsoft Announce Major Gaming Layoffs

The gaming world took a beating this week after Riot and Microsoft announced major layoffs.
Riot said over 500 people would be removed while Microsoft said that 1900 across its gaming studios would be axed, with most of those from the newly acquired Activision-Blizzard.
Riot’s layoffs come as management admit that its “five-year plan” was full of problems and didn’t pay off… despite specifically structuring its studio to only have people who drank the kool-aid.
In all fairness to them though, they aren’t leaving people completely screwed and those affected are getting cushy severance packages.
While in the case of Microsoft, some of the layoffs are because of redundant positions after the merger.
That’s all good and normal, people are outraged that they tried to say that many resources were being relocated.
The truth is that they are really just firing people, like in the case of the now dead Survival game Blizzard was working on for six years.
On top of this, Blizzard’s president and Heroic-parsing legend Mike Ybarra also announced that he was leaving the company, while longtime OG Blizzard member Alan Adham similarly said he was bouncing.

[UnanimousDelivers]

A five year plan that didn't pay off? Who would have seen that coming?

[piyispiy]

Blizzard has been dying for years. They treat their employees like garbage and then make any replacement employees think that blizzard is the standard way of working in the gaming industry...
And honestly Blizzard and riot games merging sounds like a horrible idea.
I mean think about it, their game styles are almost completely different, rockstar likes to make games in advance and then announce a release date where as blizzard gives a due date pre maturly, don't even get me started on the blizzard hiarchy thing that mostly demoralizes it's employees...

[Iplayu]

Don't forget the story board team layoffs for Overwatch 2 too