World of Warcraft developer Blizzard Entertainment today announced they will lay off 600 employees in an organizational shift.
Slow down before you push the WoW panic button. The cuts are not related to the video game departments. Of the 600 layoffs, the company estimates 90% of will come from departments not related to game development and that 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 Blizzard co-founder and CEO Mike Morhaime. "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. Diablo 3, which was recently delayed until Q2, is still on track with the company saying they will announce specific release plans in "the near future".
In addition, they will also continue to "drive aggressively" toward beta testing for new World of Warcraft expansion, Mists of Pandaria as well as Blizzard DOTA and StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm.
