Less than a month into 2024, the year has already seen over half of the total game industry layoffs during the year 2023.
According to Obsidian, a website that has been keeping track of annual layoffs within the game industry, a total of 10,500 game developers were laid off during the year 2023. As disappointing as that sounds, we’re less than a month into 2024, and the year has already seen 5,600 game developers laid off, which is over half of the layoffs of 2023.
A major contributor to the figure of 5,600 laid off game developers this year is Microsoft. The company made the decision to part ways with a total of 1,900 Activision Blizzard King employees. Several of those who have been affected by this decision have taken to social media to express their disappointment. Cole McElwain, former QA Learning Specialist at Blizzard Entertainment, stated that he had secured a job at Blizzard after years of applying. He then moved to California to work at the studio alongside a talented team. He mentioned that he was very excited to develop tools and courses to help with Quality Assurance. However, four months into the job, he has now been laid off.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, who is known for his investigative journalism, stated that staff across Activision Blizzard King has been texting him to try and find out if they may have been impacted by the layoffs. During an interview, he mentioned he was told by a Blizzard Entertainment spokesperson that every employee should soon find out whether their jobs are still intact. Some of the senior executives, including president Mike Ybarra and co-founder Allen Adham, are also no longer with the company. Microsoft’s Matt Booty said in a note that Ybarra chose to leave his position, but in November at BlizzCon, Ybarra had told Schreier that he wished to stay for a long term.
Shreier also revealed that Blizzard Entertainment has canceled one of its major projects, a survival game codenamed Odyssey, which had been in development for over 6 years.
