Xbox |OT|

[Ryuu96]

shikamaru317 said:

I have mixed feelings about the Xbox Gaming layoffs. On the one hand, ABK was a behemoth that needed to be streamlined, particularly Blizzard, I have long heard tales of a vastly oversized middle-management compared to other game developers, as well as alot of other redundant jobs at Blizzard and Activision, and cutting those redundant jobs from the payroll is necessary not only to reduce Xbox gaming's bottom line, but also to aid game development.

On the other hand, the Blizzard survival new IP is dead, that was the only game that Blizzard was working on that might have been Xbox exclusive, not to mention their only game thay might have released this gen or early next gen, with it now dead Blizzard will be nothing but WoW expansions, Diablo 4 expansions, Overwatch 2 seasons, Hearthstone updates, and maybe a HOTS revival for the next 8-10 years most likely. Our only hope now of a significant new Blizzard release anytime soon would be WoW console ports. On top of that Activision layoffs probably aren't a good thing since Xbox seems to be sticking with yearly CoD as revealed in yesterday's CoD roadmap leak through 2027, fewer total Activision devs mean more will need to be taken away from working on individual games and forcing them into a CoD support role to keep up with that grueling yearly release cycle.

Jason said that Blizzard's Survival IP was many years away from release, I had heard good things about the team but maybe the development on the game itself wasn't going well? I don't think Mike was a particularly good leader of Blizzard Tbh..Being a fan isn't good enough sometimes, Odyssey was "many years away" and now cancelled, OW2 PVE was cancelled, Diablo IV was great on launch but then took a nosedive post-launch, OW2 does well but is a major decline from OW1 popularity, WoW is arguably the only Blizzard IP on the up recently but that is probably largely due to Chris Metzen.

I think these jobs being cut won't largely be development staff, I think it will primarily be marketing, business, community support, etc. Lots of overlap with Microsoft Gaming, these sorts of jobs weren't really hit when Zenimax was acquired but it appears as though MS is merging ABK into their structure far quicker than they did Zenimax. ABK has thousands of "non-development" staff so I think for your example, COD development teams, won't be affected much. I mean, Odyssey has been cancelled but it sounds like most developers from that are being moved to other projects in Blizzard.