Blizzard lays off 600

slipsius

http://kotaku.com/5889338/blizzard-axes-600-employees-world-of-warcraft-dev-team-not-affected

Ninety percent of the cut staff were in departments unrelated to game development, the company said. Blizzard does not expect the news to affect upcoming games Diablo III, World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria, or StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm.

Holy... Just goes to show no company is immune to layoffs. Hope everyone lands on their feet.

PixelMasher

my 1st reaction to reading that headline was pure shock, but upons seeing that they said 90% of the layoffs dont effect game development, leaves me wondering if its all QA, or IT or something. still super lame though.

"[anticipating] approximately 90% of the affected employees will come from departments not related to game development."

Mark Dygert

Something must be close to shipping... humm I wonder what that is...

Isaiah Sherman

They have a lot of studios in other countries as well. Maybe those are the ones being let go?

I think they also had a huge army working on WoW, that weren't devs, and that game is fast approaching the downward slope.

Also, I see they mention "Blizzard DOTA." Does that mean their lawsuit with Valve fell through?

Sucks so many lost their job, devs or not.

skylebones

really sucks. And still, if 10% of 600 laid off are development staff, that's still 60 people. A good sized chunk.

meshiah

I got laid off this morning! let me know if anyone needs any freelance for the time being


www.therobbsho.com

Isaiah Sherman

meshiah wrote: »

I got laid off this morning! let me know if anyone needs any freelance for the time being


www.therobbsho.com

Joshflighter

meshiah wrote: »

I got laid off this morning! let me know if anyone needs any freelance for the time being


www.therobbsho.com

I literally was browsing your portfolio the other day thinking you have some amazing work for Blizzard!

Sad day indeed.

best of luck to you man!

Cojax

wow. What a shocker. Sorry to those who lost a job today Hope you all land of your feet quickly.

slipsius

Sorry to hear that Meshiah. From the looks of your portfolio (Holy F, nice work!), you`ll have no problem getting more work, but that still really sucks Best of luck to you. I hope you find something quickly.

okkun

meshiah wrote: »

I got laid off this morning! let me know if anyone needs any freelance for the time being


www.therobbsho.com

Done!

Also, for anyone else. jobs (at) valent dot us

Sorry to hear about the layoffs, hopefully you'll all land on your feet soon.

Thegodzero

Wow! WTF!?

EDIT:
Read that wrong, the first time, still 60+ devs getting let go is never good.

ScudzAlmighty

pretty sad day indeed.

Isaiah Sherman

If there are any environment artists that got let go, or you know one, please send me a PM. We are also looking for a Lead Mission Designer and a Rendering Programmer.

Andreas

That's a crazy number! How many are left? I had no idea Blizzard had that many staff. So sorry to those affected, cause you just know they are the cream of the crop to have worked at Blizzard.

wasker

Andreas wrote: »

That's a crazy number! How many are left? I had no idea Blizzard had that many staff. So sorry to those affected, cause you just know they are the cream of the crop to have worked at Blizzard.

I think I read somewhere that blizzard got 4700 employees , so I guess they're down to 4kish now.

Sorry to hear it Meshiah, hope you'll find something new soon.

Andreas

WHAT. How is that possible lol. How many cities are they in? That's nuts. Imagine the lunch line! :P

ericdigital

Andreas wrote: »

WHAT. How is that possible lol. How many cities are they in? That's nuts. Imagine the lunch line! :P

a huge huge number of that is GMs/CS/admin. Actual dev staff is 500-1k from what people have said.

Goodluck to everyone effected!

aivanov

Andreas wrote: »

WHAT. How is that possible lol. How many cities are they in? That's nuts. Imagine the lunch line! :P

I reckon the majority of that is the international support staff for WoW, from IT to customer service, and so forth. The actual developers probably number closer to several hundred for all their projects combined.

Edit: Beat to the punch!

Fid

Interesting figures, really didn't think Blizzard employed that many people. Hope everyone affected pulls through.

David-J

that is just sad. It' Blizzard! They have tons of money and they have huge projects!

Rory_M

I was laid off too. I wish those guys all the best though. Looking for work.

Di$array

Its scary to see such a large company as Blizzard laying off staff. Best luck to all the guys and gals on the receiving end.

Elyaradine

Damn. Sorry to hear this, guys. Good luck!

Calabi

I dont think its anything unique to games companies at the moment. It may get worse as we are in a economic depression or soon will be.

almighty_gir

PixelMasher wrote: »

my 1st reaction to reading that headline was pure shock, but upons seeing that they said 90% of the layoffs dont effect game development, leaves me wondering if its all QA, or IT or something. still super lame though.

"[anticipating] approximately 90% of the affected employees will come from departments not related to game development."

that's still 60 people from the dev team.

Darth Tomi

Ouch.

dom

meshiah wrote: »

I got laid off this morning! let me know if anyone needs any freelance for the time being


www.therobbsho.com

Sorry to hear that, Robb. You did great work on Wings, it's sad to see you go. I'm certain you'll find another gig in no time but if you need any help at all on that, feel free to drop me an email. Take care.

-Dom

EmAr

I seriously thought this was a joke when I read the title. I hope everyone gets new gigs soon.

JacqueChoi

If any of you guys want to relocate to Montreal, drop me a line.

Jeff Parrott

Didn't realize that a ton of Artists were effected by this. Sorry to hear guys.

I'm sure you'll have your pick of places to go.

PhattyEwok

Yeah this is crazy...I thought if any company was less prone to something like this it was blizzard.

PogoP

So why did you artists get laid off exactly? Your work is good... Were you just on temporary contracts? Let's get this cleared up before we go blaming Blizz.

Damytria

My heart goes out to all of my friends who were affected in Austin :C

Cheynecg

On the bright side...these people have Blizzard work experience under their belt for future jobs.

aajohnny

Whether its janitor or artist it still sucks, hopefully they get a job soon. Considering they worked at Blizzard I think they have a shot pretty much anywhere

Justin Meisse

PogoP: a contract ending is not a layoff.

Kwramm

600 is a LOT of people. That's the size of a couple of other studios combined.
Good luck to anyone affected!

Cheynecg

-

D4V1DC

Wow, Super bad news for a LOT of families.
Best of luck on finding positions.

Jessica Dinh

Ah, sad news Good luck to you all in finding new jobs. The experience has to count for something :]

megalmn2000

Steve Schulze

600 people without cutting significantly in to the development teams? Just how big is Blizzard?

Best of luck to you folks who've found yourselves out of work.

dr jekyll

Calabi wrote: »

I dont think its anything unique to games companies at the moment.

I would expect a serious backlash of concern for 600 families facing unemployment and a concentrated critical query waged against management. If true, I would love to hear what a justification would sound like.

I just do not understand why one man has to bloody bloody ass fuck another man so hard? 600 pawns on a chess board to play trivial ass fuck games with. God please give me a hint? A man should at least have the right to crucify his enemies.

uncle

This is so dishearting for people that didn't even start being pro... Wow, wouldn't think such thing about Blizzard.

Good luck to all short on... luck.

Jungsik

thats a huge number..:(

Andreas

Just read that 200 of those jobs were lost in Ireland (out of a total of 880)...holy fuck! Crazy crazy numbers. I had no idea Blizzard hired so many dudes.

Mark Dygert

Wait hold on the title is right 600 not 60? And I thought 60 was kind of high...

slipsius

Exactly, Mark. The original article says 600, 90% was NOT game dev. But, assuming it was just 600, and not 880 like andreas just said (HOLY F), that means 60 people were game devs, artists and such.

Thats a huge blow. Even if it was a bunch of QA or tech support and stuff, that still sucks, and will still affect peoples gaming. Longer wait times for support and what not.

Andreas

slipsius wrote: »

Exactly, Mark. The original article says 600, 90% was NOT game dev. But, assuming it was just 600, and not 880 like andreas just said (HOLY F), that means 60 people were game devs, artists and such.

Thats a huge blow. Even if it was a bunch of QA or tech support and stuff, that still sucks, and will still affect peoples gaming. Longer wait times for support and what not.

Sorry, I should clarify. There were 880 Blizzard staff working in Cork, Ireland. 200 of the total international cuts of 600 came from there.

BlazeF

Well, if anything, these guys got hooked up with some nice severance packages. 3 - 6 months full pay/benefits/bonuses(within that time) they should be able to bounce back with EASE. I'm almost envious of a vacation like that.