Blizzard laying off 600 staff globally [Updated]
by Adam Holisky 
Feb 29th 2012 at 12:47PM
Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard, has the following to say:
Mike Morhaime
Constant evaluation of teams and processes is necessary for the long-term health of any business. Over the last several years, we've grown our organization tremendously and made large investments in our infrastructure in order to better serve our global community. However, as Blizzard and the industry have evolved we've also had to make some difficult decisions in order to address the changing needs of our company.
Knowing that, it still does not make letting go of some of our team members any easier. We're grateful to have had the opportunity to work with the people impacted by today's announcement, we're proud of the contributions they made here at Blizzard, and we wish them well as they move forward.
Knowing that, it still does not make letting go of some of our team members any easier. We're grateful to have had the opportunity to work with the people impacted by today's announcement, we're proud of the contributions they made here at Blizzard, and we wish them well as they move forward.
It's certainly bad news for those impacted, and we here at WoW Insider hope that everyone is able to land on their feet.
According to the press release, current publishing schedules for their various games will not be affected.
Update 1:00 p.m. EST: Another statement from Mike Morhaime, after the break.
Mike Morhaime
Everyone,
We announced today that we're in the process of cutting a number of active positions, mostly non-development, throughout the company. I'm sure this announcement has sparked some questions from all of you, so I want take this opportunity to address those as best I can. Over the past several years, the company has grown rapidly and evolved to better serve you and the rest of our global community. Thanks to all of your support, we continue to serve by far the biggest subscription-based MMO community, as well as the most passionate eSports and online gaming communities, in the world.
In order to keep making epic game content while serving players effectively, we have to be smart about how we manage our resources. This means we sometimes have to make difficult decisions about how to best maintain the health of the company. We're in the process of making some of those hard decisions now.
After evaluating our current organizational needs, we determined that while some areas of our business had been operating at the right levels and could benefit from further growth, other areas had become overstaffed. As a result, we need to scale down some of our departments and part with some of our colleagues and friends here at Blizzard. I know that you all understand how difficult this type of situation can be for anyone who might be affected, so I want to assure you that we'll be offering each impacted employee a severance package and other benefits.
I also want to emphasize that we remain committed to shipping multiple games this year, and that our development teams in particular remain largely unaffected by today's announcement. We're continuing to develop, iterate, and polish Blizzard DOTA, Diablo III, StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria, as well as other, unannounced projects. We'll have exciting news to share in the coming weeks regarding Diablo III's release date, and will soon be holding a private media event to showcase the latest work on Mists of Pandaria. It goes without saying that we're working hard to get all of these games in your hands as soon as possible.
You've all come to expect Blizzard to live up to our mission statement with every game, and deliver the most epic entertainment experiences ever. You can continue to expect that and nothing less from us as we move forward.
-Mike Morhaime
We announced today that we're in the process of cutting a number of active positions, mostly non-development, throughout the company. I'm sure this announcement has sparked some questions from all of you, so I want take this opportunity to address those as best I can. Over the past several years, the company has grown rapidly and evolved to better serve you and the rest of our global community. Thanks to all of your support, we continue to serve by far the biggest subscription-based MMO community, as well as the most passionate eSports and online gaming communities, in the world.
In order to keep making epic game content while serving players effectively, we have to be smart about how we manage our resources. This means we sometimes have to make difficult decisions about how to best maintain the health of the company. We're in the process of making some of those hard decisions now.
After evaluating our current organizational needs, we determined that while some areas of our business had been operating at the right levels and could benefit from further growth, other areas had become overstaffed. As a result, we need to scale down some of our departments and part with some of our colleagues and friends here at Blizzard. I know that you all understand how difficult this type of situation can be for anyone who might be affected, so I want to assure you that we'll be offering each impacted employee a severance package and other benefits.
I also want to emphasize that we remain committed to shipping multiple games this year, and that our development teams in particular remain largely unaffected by today's announcement. We're continuing to develop, iterate, and polish Blizzard DOTA, Diablo III, StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria, as well as other, unannounced projects. We'll have exciting news to share in the coming weeks regarding Diablo III's release date, and will soon be holding a private media event to showcase the latest work on Mists of Pandaria. It goes without saying that we're working hard to get all of these games in your hands as soon as possible.
You've all come to expect Blizzard to live up to our mission statement with every game, and deliver the most epic entertainment experiences ever. You can continue to expect that and nothing less from us as we move forward.
-Mike Morhaime
Filed under: News items
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 7)
Totemer Feb 29th 2012 2:10PM
As much as it's small potatoes compared to the guys gettin laid off. It's probably gonna mean longer ticket times and support responses my about 90% given the placement if lay offs. All I can say is good Grief and good luch too all.
Tyler Caraway Feb 29th 2012 2:20PM
I doubt it would be part of their testing QA staff, although that is certainly possible. Most QA testers aren't "employee" employees, but rather are contracted employees that are only held on for the length of the testing process of the game that they are currently working on. Blizzard might run things different and hold people on as full employees, but from my experiences in working with other gaming companies, that's not usually how it's done.
Localization workers are certainly more possible. They've been doing a massive amount of work in getting, I believe, it was Brazil as a Blizzard localization as well as trying to catch the Chinese market up to speed. It's possible that they've since caught up with their needs in these areas and no longer require as large as a staff as they previous did.
People need to remember, Blizzard is a massive global company that has support and localizations all over the place. They easily employ several thousand people, possibly even up to ten thousand or more. While trimming such a large number might seem extreme, it isn't quite like their folding in on themselves. Their support and administrative numbers had probably swelled not only with WoW's growth, but with WoW's expected growth.
With WoW receding slightly and advancements in service technologies/protocols, it's easy to imagine that they would cut support staff by such an amount world wide.
woecip Feb 29th 2012 1:05PM
"mostly non-development,"
But...some development.
kanagosa Feb 29th 2012 1:08PM
That sucks. I hope whoever did get laid off gets a new job soon. The economy is horrid right now.
Mir Feb 29th 2012 1:09PM
No one who has had to live through more than one wave of layoffs (or downsizing, or rightsizing, or redirectioning or whatever new and pretty word you want to use) would joke about this.
600 people (more when you think alot of them are probably married and have kids), are suddenly wondering how they are going to pay the rent and buy food.
I've never been layed off during one of these waves myself, but I've seen too many grown men break into tears in my office to ever make light of something like this.
emberdione Feb 29th 2012 1:28PM
I have been laid off like this twice in the space of 2 years. With a company the size of Blizzard they have to give 60 days notice or 60 days of pay. Either way, they have 2 months to find a new gig before they have to live without a paycheck. There is also unemployment and such as well.
It's never fun, but there is always warning and/or severance.
Alysandir Feb 29th 2012 1:43PM
@emberdione:
Not necessarily. I've been through seven of these, getting the pink slip myself on three occasions. Only companies with their primary business in the United States are require to give notice or severance, and then only in states where you are not an at-will employee. Don't even get started on whether the company is in Chapter 11, at which point you simply become a creditor and get in line with everyone else.
One layoff I went through from a non-US-based company, they came in one business day after our major product launch, announce they were firing everyone and closing the office. If we wanted one month's severance, we had to sign away our right to pursue legal action.
emberdione Feb 29th 2012 1:52PM
At a non-us based company, I can understand.
But the at will is completely wrong. Actually the US base thing doesn't always mean you won't too. I worked for Sega, which is Japanese, and we got 60 days pay, plus our completion bonus, plus vacation time paid out, plus a severance package based on our time with the company. It ended up being about 6 months worth of pay for me. It was in California, which is an at will state too, but we had to sign the forms for the 60 day thing because the company (Sega) had over 100 employees.
My main point is though, people always know. We went into a meeting that was supposed to be our new project announcement meeting, but most of the people assumed, and had assumed for several months, it was going to be a layoff meeting.
Always prepare for the worst, and you will never be surprised.
(In addition, I would like to point out, no one was joking about it, and if a large portion of these were QA testers then they were likely not family type, but rather young single males, and should really have been aware QA always gets gutted at the end of a project.)
Xeta Feb 29th 2012 2:05PM
@emberdione - There isn't a national blanket requirement that companies over a certain size in the U.S. have to give 60 days notice or 60 days pay. It's nice that the companies you've worked for have, but not every company does that. I've been laid off from two very large U.S. companies (well-known brands you'd recognize), and didn't receive 60 days from either one. I did get some severance pay — two weeks in one case, four weeks in the other. One also paid me my unused vacation time, the other didn't.
There might be a state law in California about 60 days — I don't live in CA, so I have no idea — but it isn't a requirement nationally.
Robert Feb 29th 2012 5:23PM
In this economy 60 days isn't very long. It took me a full year to find work after I lost my last job; I've only had on and off temp work since. That's right, it took me over 400 days just to find a temp job. Every position I applied to I was informed there were well over 400 resumes for just one job. It was a nightmare.
Still, some severance is better than none.
Rajah Feb 29th 2012 6:35PM
I believe what emberdione is referring to is called the WARN act (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification), part of U.S. federal law administered by the Dept. of Labor. This generally applies to companies doing business in the U.S. and employing 100 or more. The act requires 60 calendar days advance notice of a mass layoff or site/branch/plant closing. The "mass layoff" is defined in detail in the text of the WARN act, but the basic triggering requirement is the elimination of 50 or more jobs within any 30-day period at a single location. I have no idea if the WARN act applies to this specific reduction in force, as this would depend on how many employees lost their jobs, where they worked, and what portion of the workforce at their respective work sites this number represents. However, I wish to point out that there is no general provision in U.S. or California law that requires 60 days notice or pay for all layoffs, only ones meeting certain criteria.
Azi Feb 29th 2012 1:12PM
Just goes to show you that the economy hurts everyone.
jfofla Feb 29th 2012 1:11PM
There is no way I am going near MMO Champion for at least a week. The spew of hate and gleefull cackling will be unbearable.
Carune Feb 29th 2012 1:54PM
To put it bluntly according to the mmochamp forums the entire dev team was fired. Or something of that nature.
gewalt Feb 29th 2012 1:11PM
This is all sorts of fucked up.
I'm ashamed that the most popular gaming company in the world has so little loyalty to its own employees that it thinks layoffs in the face of monumental profits is anything close to appropriate.
Blizzard, you just disgusted me.
In this day and age, I just don't understand why any business expects employee loyalty when this type of news is so common.
Jon Feb 29th 2012 1:17PM
Loyalty?
I don't know what the average salary is for a Blizz employee, but 600 employees times let's say $25,000 - that's $15 MILLION per year.
A corporation's LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY is to make a profit for their stakeholders. Bleeding out 15M per year when they're overstaffed is breaking that legal contract.
No one is ENTITLED to a job. Don't like it? Start your own business and be your own boss. :)
Mr. Crow Feb 29th 2012 1:23PM
Being the most popular gaming studio in the world doesn't justify being wasteful with resources.
Morhaime also pointed out that everyone is getting severance packages. If Blizzard really didn't care about their employees, they wouldn't offer that. They've really got no reason to tell us that they're going to be DOING severance packages, because that's an internal decision, and we're not shareholders.
That Morhaime felt it necessary to run a bit of damage control and tell us "we're taking care of these guys, and the dev teams are mostly unaffected" means they're very concerned over how the public will react to them losing 600 jobs. That concern speaks well of them as employers.
slim1256 Feb 29th 2012 1:23PM
Whoa whoa whoa there, bucky.
Businesses need to make the right decisions weighing all factors. I don't know Blizzard's total number of employees, but let's say they've laid off 10%. What you're saying is, they shouldn't have laid off those 10% at all, but - what happens if the company fails because they didn't make the tough decision? Now, 100% of the employees are screwed.
I have no idea what lead to this decision, but saying that companies shouldn't be doing this kind of thing is ignoring the reality that sometimes tough decisions need to be made. The point is - I doubt you have a working knowledge of all the contributing factors, so ease off on the castigation.
Further - taking Morhaime at his word, sounds like they're offering benefits and severance packages. If that's the case - they're doing something they don't HAVE to do out of loyalty to their employees. If that doesn't speak to the character of their culture for you, then stop to reflect on how many people get laid off with nothing more than a last paycheck (hint - Blizzard's behavior in this regard is the exception, NOT the rule).
Paul Feb 29th 2012 1:27PM
"In this day and age, I just don't understand why any business expects employee loyalty when this type of news is so common."
Because if a company doesn't manage it's money properly, they go into administration and risk closure, or in blizzard's case, being sold.
I work for a company that had to let 10% of it's staff go and everyone else had to take a 20% pay cut. If the company didn't do that, it would have had no choice but to shut down. Then instead of x people losing their jobs, EVERYONE loses their jobs.
The issue here isn't that Blizzard is making this decision, it's that they got themselves into this situation in the first place. Feels like they went on a hiring spree just because the budget allowed for it, instead of hiring based on their needs.
Sunaseni Feb 29th 2012 1:33PM
Companies don't hire just because they have profits to spend. They hire because there is a need to have the jobs done. Obviously, if they don't have a need for the positions filled, they'll lay off.
(Incidentally, this is why I don't believe "trickle down" economics work, but that's a story for another day.)