With no prior notice, Blizzard conducted a series of layoffs in the Hearthstone Team in an apparent restructure.
A surprise round of layoffs arrived on the day the Hearthstone community was expecting news about balance changes. This was a shock for the affected people who didn't receive any prior notice, not even those who had decades in the company.
Hearthstone layoffs
Different sources started talking about layoff reports focused on the Hearthstone team yesterday. Soon after, posts from former employees appeared on Linkedin. One of the Hearthstone workers affected by this layoff mentioned he didn't receive any notice after 18 years at Blizzard.
Ethan Gach, a Kotaku reporter, shared that around 10 Hearthstone workers have been impacted by these layoffs. According to him, Blizzard released a statement about the situation relating it to "restructuring and redundancy".
With the Microsoft acquisition at a good pace after addressing the most important British antitrust regulator concerns, it might be possible to think that these are only the first wave of many to come. Acquisition processes might be flashy and talk about billions of dollars, but this "restructuring" is also a part of it.
What's next?
Hearthstone will be a 10-year-old game next year and it's still a profitable business. However, it now lives a different reality than what most players lived when the game thrived. From a corporate point of view, we could say that Blizzard is just milking the cow.
Hearthstone has been innovating and exploring new ways to attract its player base. Battlegrounds was a great success in that sense. On the other side, Mercenaries was a complete failure from launch.
While it's not related to the layoffs, we have seen many Hearthstone team members depart for other Blizzard projects too. This makes the community wonder if the game is in a free fall.
In moments like these, we should focus on the present. Many people are struggling after losing their jobs. Positions in which they've been working for over a decade. Using this as a weapon to charge against Hearthstone on the same day the layoffs happened is something we all should avoid.
RegisKillbin raised this point on social media, supporting those who lost their jobs. To a lesser extent, those still at the company might be also suffering from this situation.
That's all for now, stay tuned to esports.gg for more Hearthstone news and updates. See you next time in the Tavern.