Top Highlights

• Despite being less than a month into 2024, thousands of video game industry workers have already lost their jobs. Now Microsoft is joining the depressing trend as it plans to lay off 1,900 employees across Activision Blizzard and Xbox this week—despite just becoming the second company ever to hit a $3 trillion valuation.
• Most of the layoffs, which make up about 8% of Microsoft’s gaming division of 22,000 employees on the whole, will occur within its Activision Blizzard division—which the tech giant finally acquired for $69 billion after a lengthy regulatory battle three months ago.
• In an internal memo, Xbox head Phil Spencer stated that Microsoft will provide the laid-off employees with severance and other benefits depending on “local employment laws.” The company plans to “continue to invest in areas that will grow our business,” but did not specifically state what some of those areas might be.
• Riot Games, another large gaming studio, also laid off 530 employees this week, though it has promised its departing staffers benefits like six months of severance pay to lessen the wound.
• Twitch, Unity, Discord, and Nexon’s Pixelberry Studios are among the growing number of gaming-related firms that have also cut staff this month. According to Kotaku, nearly 6,000 game industry workers have already lost their jobs in less than a month this year.

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