- 0-20%: Unlikely - Lacks credible sources
- 21-40%: Questionable - Some concerns remain
- 41-60%: Plausible - Reasonable evidence
- 61-80%: Probable - Strong evidence
- 81-100%: Highly Likely - Multiple reliable sources
90%
Highly Likely
A storm passed through many internal Xbox studios between studio divestitures and mass layoffs, but Activision Blizzard largely emerged unscathed this time around, likely because it's the main money-maker at present.
We know that Call of Duty prints money even in off years, for example. But even the Blizzard side has been doing well lately, thanks to a resurgence of its core IPs: Overwatch, Warcraft, and Diablo. That's what Bloomberg's Jason Schreier confirmed in his latest video, while teasing that the company has "a ton" of projects underway, including the rumored StarCraft shooter game.
So right now, Blizzard is kind of a microcosm for a lot of people at Xbox right now. But Blizzard is in a really interesting place. They have managed to rebuild momentum for a lot of their franchises that were not doing well, especially Overwatch, which is now in a much better place than it was one, two years ago.
World of Warcraft has also been really doing quite well and still has millions of subscribers and is still making tons of money. Diablo has been doing really well. I don’t know if they quite hit the exact numbers that they wanted to for Diablo IV and its expansions, but it is still a successful game that is making money for them.
And there’s tons of new projects in the works. New stuff in Diablo, new stuff... I mean, I’ve talked before and I wrote in Play Nice about a StarCraft shooter that is in development. A lot of cool stuff happening at Blizzard right now. And now people have to continue working on that stuff without knowing if they’re still going to have jobs in three months, which is really awful and cruel position to be in.
As mentioned earlier, Blizzard hasn't been affected so far, but there's another big wave of layoffs pending later this year. Given that Blizzard is doing well, it doesn't make much sense to hit it hard, especially since BlizzCon is returning in a couple of months, when some of those projects may be announced.
Then again, we've seen Xbox cut studios that had done well, so it would hardly be unprecedented.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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