Microsoft's Game Division Continues Layoffs, Affecting Multiple Mobile Games

TapTechNews September 14th news, the wave of layoffs in Microsoft's game division continues. After laying off 1,900 employees in January this year, Microsoft announced this week that it will further lay off 650 employees in the game division.

According to game journalist Stephen Totilo, this round of layoffs not only affects the internal functional departments of the company but also spreads to two mobile game teams. One of them is Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile, which was released in March this year and had attracted 50 million players to pre-register. Totilo said that the game has not achieved the expected popularity since its release, so the development team has been downsized.

TapTechNews noticed that the other affected mobile game is Warcraft Rumble. This tower defense game based on Blizzard's fantasy game series was globally released in November last year. It is reported that now the game will transition from the release state to the operation state.

Since Microsoft's game division completed the acquisition of Activision Blizzard last October, it has carried out multiple rounds of layoffs. In addition to the above layoffs, in January this year, Microsoft also canceled the unnamed survival game that had been in development for many years. In April this year, Microsoft closed three Bethesda Softworks studios: Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks, and Alpha Dog Studios. In addition, Bethesda's Roundhouse Games studio was merged into the ZeniMax Online Studios team.