Earlier today Blizzard announced that it had laid off 900 employees from various departments. Blizzard then clarified by saying “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.”

They then made it very clear that 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. I repeat: “The World of Warcraft development team will not be impacted!”

If you are worried that these layoffs will impact some of their upcoming games, fret not. Blizzard clarified that their “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.”

@RiotMontag
Matt AgnelloHeart goes out to the Blizzard peeps who got caught in the layoffs. Best of luck out there, guys. http://t.co/Bv2TDaao 2 hours ago via Twitter for Mac ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

@donal_cahalane
DC CahalaneExpecting really bad day for Cork jobs. All signs point towards massive Blizzard layoffs in customer service which is Cork’s function. 3 hours ago via Twitter for Mac ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto