WoW team trying to hire those fired.

Why could they not have moved people internally first...Imagine being fired from Blizzard, only to apply to Blizzard for a different role, then getting that role.

They'd bee insane to not offer a disc drive on the side at least. One of the best things they have going for them is back compat, and since barely anyone bought digital on 360 they'd pretty much be killing off 360 BC on the next gen Xbox, as well as keeping alot of people from accessing quite alot of their XB1 and Xbox Series libraries. 

Decisions from above I guess, Microsoft most have been rushing to get this all done and didn't feel they had time for an internal reshuffle of employees. 

Their fiscal report is next week so yeah... It's starting to feel like the penny pincher CFOs are taking over lately.

Short term goals being the focus.

I can understand from a purely heartless business perspective, why a company would lay off after a merger certain overlapping positions, but the COD development team layoffs are completely baffling me. I can't even from a heartless perspective figure out how it makes sense.

The problem with Palworld is its like Minecraft.  It gains a lot of success but does that mean it will change the game industry.  The real problem is always with the consumer.  Think about it this way, how many games trailers get shone and the graphics isn't on par with most AAA games and it gets panned by the public.  Hell, before the game even make it to market, its already got a lot of negative feedback.  Is the case is that there are to many games, no enough innovation or disconnect with creators and customers.  Palworld is very successful but is it a blue print for any other game, probably not.

As for layoffs, there just was no way it was not coming.  I am surprised that devs got cut but then again there is a lot of scale back in the game market now probably because cost of producing a lot of these games just not brining in the money.  Without actually knowing the inner going on with the merger its hard to say that those teams that did get cut were not holding up to a certain standard within ABK.  While we are only hearing about this now, this all was negotiated months before closing the ABK.

Morale will be rock bottom now.

Nintendo gets it.

Entire industry probably feels that fear right now.

Its really not heartless, its what actually has to be done.  While people see "X number of people layoff" what they forget is that all of these people will be given very generous packages.  Just from my experience when I was layoff about 4 years ago from a company I worked for 15 years.  I received over 39K and 6 months free medical benefits.  I got another job within the same month and pocketed the that money without losing a beat.

If devs got cut, there could be a very good reason probably on the line of performance.  Not all devs are made equal so you do have to realize that.

I am not saying everyone will be able to find new jobs that fast but there are a lot of places hiring for all the positions that were let go, its just not going to always be in the tech or game sector.  Most people who got layed off like me used their money to startup new companies and business you name it.  Its not the end of the world and in most cases it probably going to be the best thing for a lot of those people.

This guy went from only having graduated middle school/Junior high and working part-time in a convenience store, to animating the weapons in one of the most popular games in quite some time. 

Nintendo's the exception, not the norm sadly. Most companies are willing to chop away positions with ease to satisfy shareholders. 

I'm aware Microsoft packages are extremely generous but not everyone is working solely for the money, for some it is their dream job. I understand why from a business perspective it is done, but at the same time, it is still heartless, cold and calculated. Other layoffs don't make a lick of sense like the developer layoffs at COD and come across only as a blind cost cutting measure to lay off whoever to save a bit of money.

And this industry is laying off across the board, thousands of employees every year, people literally can't find another job in it due to how many people are unemployed now due to layoffs and due to how many layoffs just keep happening. This industry collectively seems to think that employees aren't human beings, they seem to think they're just machines, they can fire them 10x over and everything will be okay.

They're wrong, we've already had reports that there's a shortage of talent in the industry, what do publishers think is going to happen when they mentally destroy thousands of employees over and over again? They'll follow others burnout from crunch and leave the industry. If you're leaving college right now with a huge debt, why the fuck would you want to join the gaming industry right now? It's too unstable and volatile.

And when publishers need these employees again in the future...Good luck, cause they aren't going to be here.