Despite a recently released statement about how they had surpassed their revenue targets, Activision Publishing have laid off around 5% of their workforce this week, saying that they are aiming to "realign resources" to "support [their] upcoming slate". Reports indicate that the staff in question were employed in Beenox, Activision's corporate office, Infinity Ward and others. Blizzard were unaffected by the layoffs however.
In a statement Activision said "Activision Publishing [are] realigning our resources to support our upcoming slate and adapt to the accelerating transition to digital, including opportunities for digital add-on content."
So money is being freed up for new games, and it seems a focus on DLC and other digital content. This came to light during Activision's Q4 2016 call, in which the CEO of Activision Eric Hirshberg said that the sales of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare had been "disappointing" - but really we knew that already.
The call did reveal one other interesting fact though; Activision only has two games planned for this year seemingly - Destiny 2 and a new Call of Duty that will return to its roots and leave behind the futuristic stuff for something more historical. This does seem to suggest that their mention in the statement about digital add-on content may become the company's focus at least for this year. Beyond that, we'll have to see how things pan out.
