Activision Blizzard layoffs lead to increased development efforts

The "biggest franchises" will get 20% more developers over the course of this year, including Call of Duty and Overwatch.

Earlier this morning we reported that Activision Blizzard is laying off around 800 jobs as part of a restructuring effort to boost profits, and now that the full earnings report for Q4 2018 - ending on December 31 - has arrived, we have found out what that means for the strategy moving forwards.

"In 2019, the company will increase development investment in its biggest franchises, enabling teams to accelerate the pace and quality of content for their communities and supporting a number of new product initiatives," the report reads. "The number of developers working on Call of Duty, CandyCrush, Overwatch, Warcraft, Hearthstone and Diablo in aggregate will increase approximately 20% over the course of 2019."

"The company will fund this greater investment by de-prioritizing initiatives that are not meeting expectations and reducing certain non-development and administrative-related costs across the business. The company is also integrating its global and regional sales and go-to-market, partnerships, and sponsorships capabilities. As part of these restructuring actions, the company expects to incur a GAAP-only pre-tax charge of approximately $150 million [USD], the majority of which is expected to be incurred this year."

Bobby Kotick, Chief Executive Officer of Activision Blizzard, later explained that, "while our financial results for 2018 were the best in our history, we didn't realize our full potential. To help us reach our full potential, we have made a number of important leadership changes. These changes should enable us to achieve the many opportunities our industry affords us, especially with our powerful owned franchises, our strong commercial capabilities, our direct digital connections to hundreds of millions of players, and our extraordinarily talented employees."

Because of the "full potential" not being realised it's likely that these key titles are being focused on more so that they can increase their own potential, especially with the likes of Call of Duty that has already proven itself to be a success in Q4. Fans have criticised the lack of regular content with Black Ops 4 though, which might be one of the areas to improve in the future with the shooter.

Do you think this is a wise strategy from Activision Blizzard?