Activision Publishing have laid off a large portion of their workforce this week, in a bid to “realign resources” to “ support [their] upcoming slate”.
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According to a Kotaku report, staff were let go from Beenox, Activision’s corporate office, Infinity Ward, and more. It equates to around 5% of their workforce. Blizzard were not affected by the layoffs.
The layoffs happened despite Activision recently releasing a statement about surpassing revenue targets.
Kotaku were provided with the following statement: “Activision Publishing [are] realigning our resources to support our upcoming slate and adapt to the accelerating transition to digital, including opportunities for digital add-on content.”
So the redundancies were made to free up money for new games, essentially. It also looks like they don’t need as many people in certain sectors, as the company will have a heavy focus on DLC in future. No doubt Destiny 2 will factor into this plan.
This all came to light as Activision’s Q4 2016 earning’s call aired, in which Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg said sales for Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare were disappointing.
The earning’s call also revealed that Activision only has Destiny 2 and a new Call of Duty planned for this year. Call of Duty will be heading back to its roots this year, leaving behind all the rocket-boosted space antics of recent games for a more historical flavour.