2 days ago, Blizzard wow UK forums reported that Blizzard is cutting Jobs in the Cork area facility.
Source:
https://www.eurogamer.net/report-activision-blizzard-is-expected-to-cut-136-jobs-from-its-cork-office
Company that just bought another company cutting jobs to replace with their own workers.
More News at 11.
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Maybe they can go work at Cloud Imperium to help with Star Citizen so maybe I could see a nearly complete version sometime before I die of old age.
Hopefully MS has enough sense to fire whoever designs affixes.
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My question, what is it that a Microsoft employee can do or should do that a Blizzard employee didn’t do or wasn’t aware of any mistakes… so swapping this for that doesn’t make sense. So instead of getting rid of an experienced work force already in place why not train or retain those whom already there
I’m not sure.
Though, I wonder what benefits Blizzard gained from now being under Microsoft.
All I’m hearing about are “redundant” jobs getting cut, ok, well, what are Blizzard employees getting from all of this besides a few thousand of them losing their jobs?
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Good point… I’m just posting this because it’s the first I heard of this and it didn’t tie into those cuts in North America or did it.
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You guys appear to be under the illusion that the employees matter in these large corporate takeovers.
This is about money they aren’t concerned about workers.
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Cork office, so mostly server maintenance staff yeah?
does this mean they’re switching to MS hosted servers instead of blizz themselves hosting them?
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I appreciate the post. This is the first I’m hearing about it.
This is pretty frustrating stuff.
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Some people seem to misunderstand. A lot of tech companies overhired during the pandemic, thinking either 1) that situation would go on forever and they’d continue growing, or 2) they could just cut them off as soon as the world goes back to normal, and now they are readjusting to the pre-covid level is what’s happening. When you see those mass layoff news, it’s never provided that those companies hired way above their capacities. I believe Riot, Blizzard, Ubisoft, etc etc are no exception.
Since the workload hasn’t decreased, how does “replacing workers with their own workers” help in any way? Were those workers that they replaced them with not doing their own jobs prior to now also doing these fired workers’ jobs?
No, I don’t think so. Cork is where the EU admin/CS functions were after they closed the Versailles office a few years ago.
" Video game developer, Blizzard Entertainment is set to cut more than 130 jobs from its office in Cork following the firm’s recent acquisition by tech giant, Microsoft.
Speaking in the Dáil on Thursday, Tánaiste, Michéal Martin confirmed that the number of expected redundancies was 136, calling the proposed cuts “very serious” for impacted staff and their families.
Located in Blackpool in Cork, Blizzard Entertainment employs around 200 people. The company established itself in Ireland in 2007, with the Cork office acting as a support centre for group entities in the Activision Blizzard group.
The folks being laid off are part of the original group identified at the end of January 2024 - we all saw those news articles. It takes a lot longer to lay people off in the EU though. Much more of a process involved so often the news comes out separately. They have better worker protections there.
This is not a second round of cuts, it is local reporting on how it impacts Cork specifically.
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There’s no swapping. There will be no Microsoft employees replacing these Blizzard employees. Instead, the few remaining employees will be required to do more. They are going to have to pick up the slack.
I’m literally shaking…
I don’t see this happening… We’re talking about burn out and those who are picking up the slack will not be able to keep up. I’ve bene under these type of situation and did not like being force to be creative. Thats like telling van Gogh to paint 40 paintings in 10 days… not going to happen… One was hired for their creativity and if stressed the creative spirit will subside and die off.
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