Activision Blizzard said on Tuesday that it was laying off about 50 people in various divisions that dealt predominantly with live events and electronic sports as part of a restructuring. The company cites the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the viability of live productions for its sports leagues and the changes in viewing habits of its main audience over the past year.
“Players are increasingly choosing to connect with our games digitally and the e-sports team, as well as traditional sports, entertainment and broadcast industries, had to adapt their business due to the impact that the pandemic had on live events ”, Said Activision Blizzard spokesman said Bloomberg in a statement.
According Bloomberg, dismissed employees will receive three months severance pay, health benefits for the next 12 months and a $ 200 gift card for Activision Blizzard’s Battle.net platform for PC. The layoffs also include some employees of King, a mobile phone company owned by Activision, candy Crush.
Activision Blizzard operates two massive e-sports leagues for two of its most popular franchises, the Blizzard team shooter Overwatch and Activision Call to action Series. Both leagues had global production geared towards travel planned for 2020 before the pandemic, and both had to switch virtually every part of the operation to online production and remote competition only.
“We learned a lot in the past year in terms of how leagues can be structured for online gaming and we’ll look forward to taking best practices from there,” said Tony Petitti, president of sports and entertainment at Activision Blizzard Sports Business Journal in an interview. “In terms of time, it is a reaction to the reality of how the leagues are playing and what resources we need to allocate to better serve the league, owners, teams and fans.” Petitti says the company is “really optimistic” that its e-sports business can grow with a new focus on online production.
While the company’s e-sports business may have suffered during the pandemic, Activision Blizzard’s core business is doing very well. The company’s latest quarterly earnings report, released last month, indicated record revenues for 2020 that exceeded Wall Street expectations, thanks in large part to the continued success of Call to action and yours War zone royale battle game.
“In a year fraught with adversity, our extraordinary employees were determined to provide connection and joy to our 400 million players worldwide,” said Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick at the time. “They achieved this and also generated record financial results for our shareholders. In difficult circumstances, but with the same conviction and focus, they will continue to do so in 2021 ”.
March 16 update, 5:41 pm ET: Added Battle.net $ 200 gift card information as part of terminated employee benefits.