Blizzard's Ybarra Leaves And Survival Game Cancelled As Microsoft Lays Off 1,900 Employees, Mostly at ABK

The massive employee cuts across the gaming industry continue today as Microsoft announced they are laying off about 1,900 employees in their 22,000 employee strong Gaming Division. This amounts to about an 8% reduction in workforce. While some of those cuts will impact Zenimax and Xbox employees, most of the cuts are at the newly acquired Activision Blizzard.

Blizzard President Mike Ybarra will also depart the company, saying on X (Twitter) that it's time to "become Blizzard's biggest fan from the outside." Although Jason Schreier at Bloomberg doesn't think this is as much Ybarra's choice as Ybarra indicates it is in his statement. Today marks his last day and he says he'll be focused on all of the amazing individuals impacted by the cuts. A new president is expected to be named next week.

I want to thank everyone who is impacted today for their meaningful contributions to their teams, to Blizzard, and to players’ lives. It’s an incredibly hard day and my energy and support will be focused on all those amazing individuals impacted – this is in no way a reflection…

— Mike Ybarra 🎄 (@Qwik) January 25, 2024

 

In a copy of an internal memo sent to teams today, available in full on The Verge, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer stated, "We are grateful for all of the creativity, passion and dedication they have brought to our games, our players and our colleagues. We will provide our full support to those who are impacted during the transition, including severance benefits informed by local employment laws."

The survival game that Blizzard had in the works seems to have been cancelled, too. While many are reporting this, we have yet to hear that from the team officially. That said, we have received word that this was communicated to teams internally already.

(UPDATE: Matt Booty's internal memo we had seen on the cancellation of the survival game has also now been shared in full on The Verge at the link above.)

We've reached out to ABK for an official statement and will update this piece when we hear back.

The layoffs come as other leadership is scheduled to depart Blizzard between now and March.

UPDATE #2: As we see social media posts from positions at Blizzard ranging from QA testing to Overwatch producers announcing being impacted by the layoffs, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) released a statement saying that employees at ZeniMax, Raven, and Blizzard Albany that are represented by the union will not be impacted by today's layoffs. After expressing condolences to those impacted, the statement goes on to say that while union representation doesn't always protect from layoffs, representation does allow for greater transparency and additional protections. The CWA also restated its desire to have every video game worker join the union.