Activision Blizzard Inc. will soon lay off nearly 400 employees across its mobile gaming divisions in Santa Monica and Irvine. This decision comes in response to last year’s $75.4 billion merger with Microsoft Corp., as the company seeks to eliminate redundancies. The layoffs add to the 1,003 positions cut by Activision over the past year, affecting operations from Novato and Foster City in Northern California to Southern California offices, as reported in state filings with the Employment Development Department (EDD).
As part of these layoffs, Activision Blizzard informed the EDD that 140 jobs at Blizzard Entertainment in Irvine will be eliminated starting October 11. The cuts will impact a variety of positions, including accountants, software engineers, human resources staff, artists, game designers, and producers. High-level roles like the game director and vice president are also affected, according to a letter submitted by Leslie Campbell, Activision Blizzard’s director of human resources.
Activision Blizzard spokeswoman Delay Simmons confirmed the layoffs, emphasizing that these reductions were part of previously announced cuts. However, the company did not provide specific details on the affected teams or their locations. Simmons pointed to media reports about earlier rounds of layoffs, including 1,900 positions cut in January across Microsoft Gaming’s divisions, including Activision Blizzard, Xbox, and ZeniMax Media, and an additional 650 layoffs earlier this month.
The most recent layoffs, outlined in a letter dated September 12, primarily affect corporate and support roles, along with some positions in gaming teams. Among the impacted are software designers, engineers, and product managers working on mobile versions of Call of Duty: Warzone and World of Warcraft. According to Michael Pachter, a gaming research analyst at Wedbush Securities, overlapping teams were working on the mobile versions of these games, leading to redundancies.
Additional layoffs will occur at Activision’s Jefferson Boulevard studio in Playa Vista and its Olympic Boulevard studio in Santa Monica. These cuts will roll out in waves starting October 11, with completion expected by the end of the year. The layoffs are part of the WARN notice process, required for employers laying off more than 50 employees.