Message from Mike Morhaime

Update - According to the press release, it looks like Blizzard cut 600 positions in the company.

Message from Mike Morhaime
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)
Everyone,

We announced today that we’re in the process of cutting a number of active positions, mostly non-development, throughout the company. I'm sure this announcement has sparked some questions from all of you, so I want take this opportunity to address those as best I can. Over the past several years, the company has grown rapidly and evolved to better serve you and the rest of our global community. Thanks to all of your support, we continue to serve by far the biggest subscription-based MMO community, as well as the most passionate eSports and online gaming communities, in the world.

In order to keep making epic game content while serving players effectively, we have to be smart about how we manage our resources. This means we sometimes have to make difficult decisions about how to best maintain the health of the company. We’re in the process of making some of those hard decisions now.

After evaluating our current organizational needs, we determined that while some areas of our business had been operating at the right levels and could benefit from further growth, other areas had become overstaffed. As a result, we need to scale down some of our departments and part with some of our colleagues and friends here at Blizzard. I know that you all understand how difficult this type of situation can be for anyone who might be affected, so I want to assure you that we'll be offering each impacted employee a severance package and other benefits.

I also want to emphasize that we remain committed to shipping multiple games this year, and that our development teams in particular remain largely unaffected by today's announcement. We're continuing to develop, iterate, and polish Blizzard DOTA, Diablo III, StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria, as well as other, unannounced projects. We'll have exciting news to share in the coming weeks regarding Diablo III's release date, and will soon be holding a private media event to showcase the latest work on Mists of Pandaria. It goes without saying that we're working hard to get all of these games in your hands as soon as possible.

You've all come to expect Blizzard to live up to our mission statement with every game, and deliver the most epic entertainment experiences ever. You can continue to expect that and nothing less from us as we move forward.

-Mike Morhaime

Press release on BusinessWire
IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced that it has conducted a review of its business based on current organizational needs. Following a completion of the review, the company is conducting a global reduction in workforce of approximately 600 employees. The company anticipates approximately 90% of the affected employees will come from departments not related to game development. The World of Warcraft® development team will not be impacted.

“Constant evaluation of teams and processes is necessary for the long-term health of any business. Over the last several years, we've grown our organization tremendously and made large investments in our infrastructure in order to better serve our global community. However, as Blizzard and the industry have evolved we've also had to make some difficult decisions in order to address the changing needs of our company,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “Knowing that, it still does not make letting go of some of our team members any easier. We’re grateful to have had the opportunity to work with the people impacted by today’s announcement, we’re proud of the contributions they made here at Blizzard, and we wish them well as they move forward.”

Blizzard's current development and publishing schedules will not be impacted. The company will announce specific release plans for Diablo® III in the near future, and it’s continuing to drive aggressively toward beta testing for World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria™, Blizzard DOTA, and StarCraft® II: Heart of the Swarm™. Blizzard also remains committed to maintaining its high standards of quality for customer service delivery. In addition, Blizzard is still recruiting and looking to hire qualified developers for a number of open positions. Further details are available at http://jobs.blizzard.com.

For press inquiries, please contact Lisa Jensen in Blizzard Entertainment public relations at ljensen@blizzard.com.

The accounting charges associated with Blizzard's reduction in workforce are not anticipated to be material to Activision Blizzard, Inc. and were included in the 2012 financial outlook that was provided on February 9, 2012.
This article was originally published in forum thread: Message from Mike Morhaime started by Boubouille View original post
Published on 2012-02-29 05:35 PM
685 Comments
Comments 682 Comments
  1. Collected's Avatar
    I wonder if this was another factor in the decision to have no Blizzcon this year. I know the primary reason was no announcement.. that's fine.. but perhaps this was another factor.
  1. Nero Duskwind's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by PBitt View Post
    I'm betting 95% of the staff that is being cut is probably GMs...and I'm hoping the ones they keep are actually trained better and know a little more about what is going on, I kind of feel a lot of the GMs are left in the dark but I could be wrong. On that note, it really won't be a big issue if they both perform better and if people cut back on the useless tickets they shouldn't have to deal with to begin with, like so and so ninjaed this.
    Chances are that the most recently hired are the first to go...
  1. mostlyharmless's Avatar
    Seems like Blizzard is slowly losing its autonomy from Activision. They probably have to meet certain "growth" quotas to keep shareholders happy, so if ship dates slip too much that means cutting employees. Never mind that they make insane amounts of profit and/or fantastic games, all the shareholders care about is return on their investment. It makes me sad.
  1. WyvernVin's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Coar View Post
    Did anyone else read that in his voice?
    I did! I even took his typical pauses.
  1. Dashield28's Avatar
    The 600 people fired were the ones who thought Pandas were a great idea.
  1. Thallidomaniac's Avatar
    Those poor people, I hope they don't end up in total financial ruin as a result of this.
  1. Bamahut's Avatar
    This news is gonna suck for the 600 peoples in the firing sight, it's also gonna be extra stress on others as peoples just don't know if they could be next!
  1. gamerunknown's Avatar
    Cancelled my subscription. $99m profit and firing 13% of one's employees is exactly what one ought to expect from a "big boy company". There are two reasons why one would want to support them in doing so, or advocate increased cash shop items. The first is if one has shares in the company. The second is if one is an advocate of Austrian school economics. Since I am neither a Blizzard shareholder nor an Austrian school advocate, I find this sort of behaviour reprehensible.
  1. mmoceeceb76e25's Avatar
    600 positions...jesus thats alot more than I thought, not looking good at Blizzard
  1. Bahska's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Cuzimwhite View Post
    Here is my question...They just made over 2 million dollars on 1 mount.... why did they lay everyone off again?
    everyone? where did you get that from?
  1. Frostbyrn's Avatar
    George Bush doesn't care about Blizzard people.
  1. Kolo's Avatar
    Nobody got fired. They got Future Endeavored.
  1. Ozy's Avatar
    Those jobs are now being filled by Bots to increase efficiency.
  1. Bahska's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Flimsy View Post
    600 positions...jesus thats alot more than I thought, not looking good at Blizzard
    Eh they have employees in the thousands over 4,600 (As of 2009) probably in the 7-10k range nowadays

    The accounting charges associated with Blizzard's reduction in workforce are not anticipated to be material to Activision Blizzard, Inc. and were included in the 2012 financial outlook that was provided on February 9, 2012.
  1. Chickat's Avatar
    People canceling their subs because of this? Wow
  1. mmoc62a721aa86's Avatar
    600 people is a big number. I wish them the best.
  1. Doktor Faustus's Avatar
    Nothing to see here, successful companies shed staff constantly - what's 600 here, 600 there. Keep subbing, keep subbing! MMO's need your subs to release new content and fix bugs!
  1. Frozen Death Knight's Avatar
    This was kind of expected, really. 2 million subscribers gone from "WoW" and the employees dealing with things like customer support and other tasks not related to game development in the lower ranks are being cut since they are not needed, anymore. Always sucks when you need to fire people, but that's life.
  1. Mokkah's Avatar
    Time to hire this guy:
  1. mmoc204baefcb8's Avatar
    Diablo3 Release... +2 Months /gg
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