Main image of article Microsoft Lays Off 1,900 at Activision Blizzard, Xbox

Microsoft has laid off 1,900 employees within its Xbox and Activision Blizzard groups. That’s roughly 8 percent of Microsoft’s broader gaming division.

In an internal memo reprinted by The Verge, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer framed the layoffs as part of corporate restructuring. “It’s been a little over three months since the Activision, Blizzard, and King teams joined Microsoft,” he wrote. “As we move forward in 2024, the leadership of Microsoft Gaming and Activision Blizzard is committed to aligning on a strategy and an execution plan with a sustainable cost structure that will support the whole of our growing business.” 

Over the past 12 months, the video-game industry has suffered waves of layoffs, with some of the biggest names in gaming—including Electronic Arts, Epic, Bungie, and Amazon Games—significantly reducing their respective headcounts. According to the Game Developers Conference’s latest edition of its annual State of the Game Industry report, 7 percent of video game developers reported being laid off in the past 12 months; another 17 percent reported seeing colleagues laid off, and 11 percent reported layoffs within other teams or departments in their respective companies.

Those layoffs also have a psychological impact: according to the same report, 56 percent of respondents were worried to some degree about cutbacks at some point in the next 12 months. “I am extremely concerned about the rise of layoffs in the game industry because it makes it harder to find work as someone new to this industry,” one anonymous game developer told the report’s writers.

As we’ve mentioned before, layoffs can be unavoidable. However, one of the best ways to survive a turbulent market is to keep your tech skills up-to-date. Here are some tech skills that pop up frequently in job postings:

  • Game development (of course)
  • C++
  • Level design
  • Epic Unreal Engine
  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Maya
  • Art Direction
  • Microsoft C#
  • Zbrush
  • 3D Modeling/Design
  • Prototyping
  • Python
  • Animation
  • Software Engineering
  • Gaming Industry Knowledge
  • QA
  • Unity

It’s also worth paying attention to how people within the video game industry are deploying generative A.I., a technology that’s found its way into everything from software engineering to game writing. Mastery of A.I. can help reinforce your job security.