Blizzard cuts 600 jobs, most not related to game development
Blizzard, the company that brought you World of Warcraft and the Diablo and StarCraft franchises, announced today that it has laid off 600 employees.
The company went on to say in a press release issued earlier today that roughly 90 percent of the layoffs involve departments not related to game development, and that the layoffs don’t involve the development team actively working on content for World of Warcraft.
Despite the not insignificant number of layoffs, Blizzard insisted in the press release that the developer’s publishing schedules have not been impacted by the layoffs.
“Constant evaluation of teams and processes is necessary for the long-term health of any business,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “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.”
Blizzard is currently hard at work on World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria, StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, Diablo III and the yet-to-be-revealed Project Titan MMO.
