Press release (http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20120229005855/en/Blizzard-Entertainment-Announces-Staff-Reductions):
IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced that it has conducted a review of its business based on current organizational needs. Following a completion of the review, the company is conducting a global reduction in workforce of approximately 600 employees. The company anticipates approximately 90% of the affected employees will come from departments not related to game development. The World of Warcraft® development team will not be impacted. “Constant evaluation of teams and processes is necessary for the long-term health of any business. Over the last several years, we've grown our organization tremendously and made large investments in our infrastructure in order to better serve our global community. However, as Blizzard and the industry have evolved we've also had to make some difficult decisions in order to address the changing needs of our company,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “Knowing that, it still does not make letting go of some of our team members any easier. We’re grateful to have had the opportunity to work with the people impacted by today’s announcement, we’re proud of the contributions they made here at Blizzard, and we wish them well as they move forward.” Blizzard's current development and publishing schedules will not be impacted. The company will announce specific release plans for Diablo® III in the near future, and it’s continuing to drive aggressively toward beta testing for World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria™, Blizzard DOTA, and StarCraft® II: Heart of the Swarm™. Blizzard also remains committed to maintaining its high standards of quality for customer service delivery. In addition, Blizzard is still recruiting and looking to hire qualified developers for a number of open positions. Further details are available at http://jobs.blizzard.com. For press inquiries, please contact Lisa Jensen in Blizzard Entertainment public relations at ljensen@blizzard.com. The accounting charges associated with Blizzard's reduction in workforce are not anticipated to be material to Activision Blizzard, Inc. and were included in the 2012 financial outlook that was provided on February 9, 2012.
Message from Mike Morhaime on Battle.net forums: (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/4079626833#1):
Everyone,
We announced today that we’re in the process of cutting a number of active positions, mostly non-development, throughout the company. I'm sure this announcement has sparked some questions from all of you, so I want take this opportunity to address those as best I can. Over the past several years, the company has grown rapidly and evolved to better serve you and the rest of our global community. Thanks to all of your support, we continue to serve by far the biggest subscription-based MMO community, as well as the most passionate eSports and online gaming communities, in the world.
In order to keep making epic game content while serving players effectively, we have to be smart about how we manage our resources. This means we sometimes have to make difficult decisions about how to best maintain the health of the company. We’re in the process of making some of those hard decisions now.
After evaluating our current organizational needs, we determined that while some areas of our business had been operating at the right levels and could benefit from further growth, other areas had become overstaffed. As a result, we need to scale down some of our departments and part with some of our colleagues and friends here at Blizzard. I know that you all understand how difficult this type of situation can be for anyone who might be affected, so I want to assure you that we'll be offering each impacted employee a severance package and other benefits.
I also want to emphasize that we remain committed to shipping multiple games this year, and that our development teams in particular remain largely unaffected by today's announcement. We're continuing to develop, iterate, and polish Blizzard DOTA, Diablo III, StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria, as well as other, unannounced projects. We'll have exciting news to share in the coming weeks regarding Diablo III's release date, and will soon be holding a private media event to showcase the latest work on Mists of Pandaria. It goes without saying that we're working hard to get all of these games in your hands as soon as possible.
You've all come to expect Blizzard to live up to our mission statement with every game, and deliver the most epic entertainment experiences ever. You can continue to expect that and nothing less from us as we move forward.
-Mike Morhaime
A few comments by someone who was released:
On March 01 2012 03:54 Masada714 wrote:I can speak from personal experience cause I was one of the Game Masters  It is a bummer and I loved working for them. They treated us well and that is just a part of the business. At least now I will have more time to work on my SC2 now and hopefully get out of Plat  Thank you Blizzard for everything that you have done for me
On March 01 2012 04:02 Masada714 wrote:
Show nested quote +On March 01 2012 03:57 Mattchew wrote:
On March 01 2012 03:54 Masada714 wrote:I can speak from personal experience cause I was one of the Game Masters It is a bummer and I loved working for them. They treated us well and that is just a part of the business. At least now I will have more time to work on my SC2 now and hopefully get out of Plat Thank you Blizzard for everything that you have done for me
Can you go into more details about where the positions of the "releasing" occured
Well I was a Game Master, specifically provided Customer support for WoW. I can't really get into details because I just don't know. Unfortunately other Game Masters were let go as well. It was a great experience and something I will never forget. This just means that I can look for new opportunities.
Thanks to TL user Integra for the sources/links.Last edit: 2012-03-01 05:09:11 | 
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