All Gaming Industry Layoffs In January 2024, Over 5,900 Fired

All Gaming Industry Layoffs In January 2024, Over 5,900 Fired

Time Stamp: January 26, 2024 1:55 PM

“2024 looks even brighter for @Blizzard_Ent, our teams, and of course you – the incredible community of players.” This was posted via Twitter (X) last December by the Ex-President of Blizzard, Mike Ybarra.

Gaming industry layoffs seem to be the newest trend, as over 5,900 employees were terminated only in January. On January 25, Microsoft went to the internet to announce that 1,900 employees across Xbox, Activision Blizzard, and ZeniMax were terminated within the first month of the new year. It doesn’t end there. Companies give their corporate apologies while countless workers find out through social media and email the same morning they are out of a job.

(My heart goes out to everybody affected by this sudden change. Remember to breathe and always remember a new and better opportunity awaits. This comes from somebody in the same position)

All Video Game Layoffs

Sadly, so many industries have announced layoffs that it’s hard to include everyone in a concrete list. The industries included are the ones that either were trending or ones I witnessed myself. If, by chance, I left out your place of work, I apologize. It was not my intention.

Microsoft (1,900 people) – Reported By IGN

“We have made the painful decision to reduce the size of our gaming workforce by approximately 1,900 roles out of the 22,000 people on our team. The Gaming Leadership Team and I are committed to navigating this process as thoughtfully as possible. The people who are directly impacted by these reductions have all played an important part in the success of Activision, Blizzard, ZeniMax, and the Xbox teams, and they should be proud of everything they’ve accomplished here.”

Call Of Duty Studios

  • Sledgehammer Games – 30% of staff
  • Toys for Bob – 30% of staff
  • High Moon Studios – 10% of staff

Unity Software (1,800 people) – Reported By Reuters

“We are … reducing the number of things we are doing in order to focus on our core business and drive our long-term success and profitability,” 

Riot Game (530 people) – Reported By Bloomberg

“Today, I’m sharing a decision we hoped we would never have to make at Riot. We’re changing some of the bets we’ve made and shifting how we work across the company to create focus and move us toward a more sustainable future. This decision means we’re eliminating about 530 roles globally, which represents around 11% of our workforce, with the biggest impact to teams outside of core development. This also sadly means we’ll be saying goodbye to many talented colleagues and friends across all areas of Riot. “

Twitch (500 People) – Reported By Bloomberg

“I regret having to share that we are taking the painful step to reduce our headcount by just over 500 people across Twitch,” Clancy wrote. “This will be a very hard day.“

Playtika (300-400 people) – Reported By CTech

Playtika will cut around 10% of its staff, resulting in redundancies of up to 400 people.

Discord (170 People) – Reported By The Verge

“We grew quickly and expanded our workforce even faster, increasing by 5x since 2020,” Citron wrote. “As a result, we took on more projects and became less efficient in how we operated.”

Thunderful (At Least 100 People)- Reported by GamesIndustry

“It has been difficult to make these decisions,” Walfisz said. “And it saddens me that we will have to say goodbye to many skilled colleagues and partners. Nevertheless, I am convinced that this is a necessary direction for Thunderful and that these changes will make the company a stronger player in the market.”

Behaviour Interactive (45 people) – Reported By Gamesindustry.biz

“Recently, changing market conditions necessitated adjusting the scope of several Behaviour projects. In these situations, our preference is always to reassign talent to other projects. Unfortunately, this option is not always available to us. These departures represented less than 3% of our total workforce.”

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