Activision Blizzard will lay off another 400 people in October, California mobile game department affected

Activision Blizzard is laying off another employee, this time around 400 people in its mobile gaming divisions in Santa Monica and Irvine. Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard last year for $75.4 billion. Activision Blizzard's layoffs are no surprise. According to California Employment Development Department (EDD) documents, they have laid off 1,003 employees in the past year. These employees are from Novato, Foster City and Southern California.

Activision Blizzard has informed the Employment Development Department that 140 positions will be eliminated at Blizzard Entertainment Studios in Irvine starting October 11.

According to a letter submitted by Leslie Campbell, director of human resources at Activision Blizzard, the positions being cut in Irvine span a variety of roles within the company. Job cuts include accountants, software engineers, World of Warcraft human resources director, artists, game producers and more. The positions being cut are not entirely entry-level positions. Game directors and vice presidents are also on the list of layoffs at Activision Blizzard.

Delay Simmons, a spokesperson for Activision Blizzard, said the company could not reveal more details about "which teams are affected and where they are located." She noted that the previous two rounds of large-scale layoffs had been widely reported in the media.

Regarding the recent layoffs, she said: "The 400 positions you see in the system are part of recent news and are not new news; the positions affected are primarily corporate and support positions, with some impact on gaming teams."

It is said that the layoffs will be carried out in batches, with the first round of layoffs occurring at the Irvine and Santa Monica studios on October 11, and the PlayaVista layoffs occurring in November. It said all layoffs at the three locations should be completed by the end of the year.

In January this year, Microsoft’s gaming divisions Activision Blizzard, Xbox and ZeniMax laid off 1,900 employees. In early September, Microsoft's gaming department announced another 650 layoffs.