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Activision Blizzard reportedly laid off "dozens of employees" as it focuses less on live events

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According to a Bloomberg report, Activision Blizzard has laid off "dozens of people" this Tuesday across various departments. The exact number is not known but is said to be less than 2% of the total workforce, which represents less than 190 employees. Among those fired are employees at King.com, the maker of Candy Crush, and 50 employees involved in the company's e-sports programming and other live events.

“Players are increasingly choosing to connect with our games digitally and the e-sports team, much like traditional sports, entertainment and broadcasting industries, has had to adapt its business due to the impact the pandemic has had on live events,” a company spokesperson told Bloomberg.

The report notes that those laid off will receive at least 90 days severance, health benefits for a year, job transition support and $200 gift cards to Battle.net.

Despite these dismissals, Activision Blizzard expects to hire 3,000 people in 2021, according to the report.

:arrow: SOURCE
 
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Dimensional

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The $200 Gift card part is an utter joke. It's basically saying "Get $200 worth of useless crap from us for free", except of course everything will cost an odd number that will never exactly equal that much, which means for them to fully use the gift card, they have to spend a little extra. Activision knew that, and are trying to milk their new ex-employees for profit even further.

It actually would feel less like a slap in the face if there wasn't a Gift Card added to their severance package.
 
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sup3rgh0st

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Companies laying off people who manage events that can no longer occur in the foreseeable future. What does this have to do with a company dying or CEOs? It's common sense. Blizzard is far from being a spotless company, but you all are grasping at straws.
 
Dimensional

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sup3rgh0st said:
Companies laying off people who manage events that can no longer occur in the foreseeable future. What does this have to do with a company dying or CEOs? It's common sense. Blizzard is far from being a spotless company, but you all are grasping at straws.
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True. I'm not angry about the lay offs, as they at least give some benefits. But it still felt like a complete slap in the face when I read the part about the Gift Card. That's not going to be usable to pay bills, so why tack it on? It can only be used with Activision's ųTransaction/eStores, and again nothing in there will equal exactly $200, so either employees don't bother using it all up, or they will do as the execs hope and spend a little extra to use up all $200, which means they get a profit from their former employees. It's a calculated risk they are taking, but it irks me that they decided to take that route in the first place. They know someone will spend extra to use up the gift card.
 
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People must be bad at reading (jk it's gbatemp no one can read)

"The report notes that those laid off will receive at least 90 days severance, health benefits for a year, job transition support and $200 gift cards to Battle.net."

Most people are lucky if their boss spits on them and tells them to fuck off with 4 hours pay. Especially in the US. What they're getting is extraordinarily generous and proves they clearly care about employees even if they, as a business, need to cut out useless jobs that don't help currently.
$200 for battle.net is just a nice bonus. They literally don't have to do any of this unless individually contractually obligated which is pretty unlikely. Pretty much the best you'll usually see is either 2 weeks notice or 2 weeks pay and a note to leave the premises immediately before security chucks you down a flight of stairs.

Anyone dumb enough to say this means either company is "dying" must be bad at math. Blizzard currently employs approximately 4700 employees. Activision currently employs approximately 9200. Do the math kids, "dozens" means trimming the fat. Even hundreds isn't much if it were worded like that. This isn't a mass layoff. Times change, jobs become obsolete.
 
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