Blizzard to lay off 600 employees

Blizzard Entertainment has announced that following the completion of a review of its business, it is conducting a global reduction in workforce of approximately 600 employees.

Blizzard says that approximately 90 per cent of those affected 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.

He added: “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 also notes that its current development and publishing scheduled will not be impacted and will announce specific release plans for Diablo III in the near future, whilst continuing to “drive aggressively toward” beta testing for World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria, Blizzard DOTA, and StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm.