The team of Hearthstone at Blizzard Entertainment is reported to have 10 employees laid off. 2023 has been a good year for gamers with several major titles having been released this year and many more coming out this Fall and Winter, but that hasn’t kept the gaming industry away from layoffs. So far this year, Microsoft and Meta laid off 10,000 employees while EA laid off 1,000 employees, and CD Projekt RED laid off 30 employees.
Announcing the round of lay-offs in a press release, Blizzard mentioned the impacted employees were all part of the team behind 2014’s free-to-play title, Hearthstone.
Hearthstone Remains A Fan-Favorite Game, Nine Years Since First Release
Hearthstone still remains one of the most popular collectible card games, for being an easy game to pick up and play for free. The game features 10-15 minutes of fast-paced card game, letting gamers complete at least 3 games in an hour, and getting rewarded with in-game currency and rare cards. The game’s availability on almost all platforms also helped get the game downloaded over 20 million times in just 6 months after release.
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Recent statistics by activeplayer.io reveal the game has attracted over 5 million active players, and over 10 million watch hours on popular streaming platform, Twitch over the past 30 days. The game has received plenty of updates over the years, bringing in a dearth of changes like adding duplicate protection in place that keeps players from opening excess copies of cards they already own.
Hearthstone has mostly remained the same since launch, adding tons of free content, and is still a whole lot more enjoyable as a casual game.
Activision Blizzard Confirms the Layoffs, Affecting Hearthstone Team
While Blizzard did not specify the total number of employees affected in the company’s latest round of layoffs, it is reported that 10 employees from the team of Hearthstone have been laid off. Confirming the layoffs, Blizzard released the following statement via press release:
“Organizational changes were made to the Hearthstone team; as a result a small number of roles have become redundant. We want to thank these employees for their many contributions.”
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A former employee with Blizzard Entertainment, Hunter C., from Irvine, California who worked as a Tools Engineer with the company’s Hearthstone team, was one of the affected employees who is said to have worked for over 18 years with the company. Per the post by him on LinkedIn, a restructuring within Blizzard was given as the reason.
Earlier this year, Blizzard had also laid off around 50 people from the company’s esports division, and most recently the company’s Director of Quality Assurance Arec Nevers, had also left Blizzard after being with the company for over 17 years.
With Hearthstone still pulling in players and streamers, the layoffs were quite surprising. Perhaps a clear statement from Blizzard will be released over the coming days to clarify the reason and if things will change with teams developing other titles in the company as well. At the moment, the company remains focused on other popular titles like Overwatch 2, World of Warcraft, and Diablo 4.
What do you make of the awful streak of layoffs across the gaming industry over the past few years? Leave a comment and let us know your thoughts.
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