Microsoft said Thursday that it would eliminate 1,900 roles in its video game division, including at Activision Blizzard, which it acquired for $69 billion three months ago.
The job cuts will be made at Activision Blizzard, the maker of hit games like Call of Duty and Guitar Hero, as well as Xbox, according to a staff memo from Phil Spencer, the head of Microsoft Gaming, that was obtained by The New York Times.
The cuts amount to a reduction of nearly 9 percent of Microsoft’s 22,000-person video game division, but less than 1 percent of the company’s roughly 220,000 employees overall.
“Looking ahead, we’ll continue to invest in areas that will grow our business and support our strategy of bringing more games to more players around the world,” Mr. Spencer said in the memo.
This month, thousands of employees across the video game industry have been told they are facing layoffs, as the pandemic boom in playing continues to recede.
Riot Games, which makes League of Legends, said it would lay off about 11 percent of its work force. Twitch, a video streaming platform owned by Amazon that is used heavily by gamers, announced that it would cut 35 percent of its staff. Discord, a social platform beloved by gamers, is cutting 18 percent of its ranks. And Unity Software, which provides software for game developers, said it was cutting a quarter of its staff, or roughly 1,800 jobs. They all had layoffs last year as well.
