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Businesses Entertainment Games

Activision Lays off 150 Employees 19

Posted by Zonk from the who-will-make-the-shiny-things dept.
Distressing news from the games industry job market continues to surface, as Activision lays off about 7% of its workforce, or 150 people. From the Gamasutra report: "The cuts are said to be across the board, with no specific developer or publishing unit announced as being affected more than another, with spokesman Ashley Dyer commenting that the layoffs were part of an effort to 'realign' the company's operations for the next two years."
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Activision Lays off 150 Employees More

Activision Lays off 150 Employees

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  • Maybe Activision had 150 people on it's board. That'll be why they are laying off - too many chiefs!

  • Typical of public companies (Score:5, Interesting)

    by IAAP ( 937607 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @04:52PM (#14719089)
    FTFA: "We're just trying [to] strike a balance between our near-term needs in '07 and our anticipated growth in '08," said Activision's Dyer to TheStreet.com. The company will attempt to redeploy workers where possible, after having notified them last week of the layoffs. Shares of Activision closed the regular session up 12 cents to $13.07.

    FTFL: Kotick maintains that Activision's future is bright, however: "In the long term, we are planning for market growth that historically follows the introduction of new console hardware. To leverage this future growth and prepare for fiscal 2008, which we expect will be the biggest year in Activision's history, we will continue to focus on investment in our product development resources and intellectual property portfolio, growing our international operations and optimizing our worldwide cost structure and resource allocation."

    This is completely asinine. These layoffs are for the short-term to appease Wall Street - in the short term. In the meantime, they're destroying employee moral and hurting their long-term performance. And I bet they have the gall to demand loyalty from their employees.

    • This is completely asinine. These layoffs are for the short-term to appease Wall Street - in the short term. In the meantime, they're destroying employee moral and hurting their long-term performance. And I bet they have the gall to demand loyalty from their employees.

      Geeesh. I understand how you can be upset that layoffs have to happen from time to time, but come on. I've been through 3 layoffs so far, and while your response is the typical knee-jerk response, you're really just being a grouch.

      I'm glad y
      • Geeesh. I understand how you can be upset that layoffs have to happen from time to time, but come on. I've been through 3 layoffs so far, and while your response is the typical knee-jerk response, you're really just being a grouch.

        Have you ever been laid off? You say you've been through them, but you haven't said if your were actually laid off yourself.

        The other thing is that I've worked for companies that demand loyalty from their employees. I don't know if you ever had those types of interviews or compa

    • This is completely asinine. These layoffs are for the short-term to appease Wall Street - in the short term.

      Agreed. Looks like the market isn't buying it though. ATVI was down 39 cents today. I've been an Activision stockholder for many years. I was going to hang onto it and ride out the new console transition but now I'm not so sure.

      The one big company I made the mistake of working for pulls stunts like this routinely. If anything threatens their "consistent 15% EPS growth rate", layoffs ensue (but ne
    • They'll demand loyalty of their employees then screw them over so long as they can continue to do so. There's a line of fresh-out-of-college "Gee, can I be a game programmer?" faces out the door who are willing to work 60 hours for bad pay. Is their work any good? Probably not, compared to an experienced engineer. But that's not the shareholders' problem.

      Until engineers start standing up for themselves in the workforce, this will continue to happen. You feel you're underpaid? You probably are! Fin

  • Looks like... (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Activision ran into a major "Pitfall" and are on the brink of going "Kaboom".

    (Doh. Why wasn't there Slashdot back in the days of the Atari 2600. Then at least this comment would have been current...)

  • Realigning? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by panaceaa ( 205396 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @05:18PM (#14719327) Homepage Journal
    "The cuts are said to be across the board, ... part of an effort to 'realign' the company's operations for the next two years."

    How do across the board cuts help realign anything? If they were really realigning the business, one would think they would cut from areas that aren't their future focus.
    • They're "realigning" the business from one which spends part of its money paying those 150 employees, to one that keeps that money to make their books look a bit better for a little while.
  • I bet they had to hire people just so they had 150 people to fire. ;)

    A mathematician watches the Activision CEO go into a building, then ten minutes later 150 people waving pink slips walk out. So the mathematician thinks to himself, "Ah, if they hire 149 more people, the building will be empty!"

  • no worries (Score:2, Funny)

    by wwmedia ( 950346 )
    not to worry theyll probably use game piracy as an escape goat

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