Video game maker Activision Blizzard lays off 400 workers in Irvine, Los Angeles – San Bernardino Sun

Video game producer Activision Blizzard Inc. will soon lay off nearly 400 people at its mobile gaming divisions in Santa Monica and Irvine, eliminating layoffs among its workers following last year’s $75.4 billion merger with software giant Microsoft Corp.

The layoffs are in addition to 1,003 layoffs already made last year by Activision, ranging from operations in Novato and Foster City in the Bay Area to offices in Southern California, according to state documents filed with the Department of Employment Development.

Activision Blizzard, acquired after last year’s merger with Microsoft Corp., told EDD that 140 jobs are to be eliminated at Blizzard Entertainment in Irvine as of Oct. 11.

See also: How the Microsoft-Activision deal rose from the dead

According to a letter filed by Activision Blizzard’s chief human resources officer, Leslie Campbell, the positions being eliminated cover a wide range of positions in the company’s Irvine operations. These include accountants, software engineers, World of Warcraft video game human resources director, artists, game designer technology director, game producers, sound designers, and game director and vice president.

Campbell was not immediately available to comment on the recently announced layoffs of 393 people.

“Everything you look at in the WARN system will be part of previously announced reductions,” Activision Blizzard spokeswoman Delay Simmons said in an email statement.

Simmons said the company was unable to share additional details “about the affected teams and their locations.” She pointed to media reports about two rounds of large layoffs announced earlier.

In January, 1,900 people were laid off in the Activision Blizzard, Xbox and ZeniMax Media divisions of the Microsoft Gaming division. Earlier this month, Microsoft Gaming announced the layoffs of 650 people.

“The 400 roles you see in the system are part of the latest news and are not new; The roles impacted include mainly corporate and support roles, as well as some impact on gaming teams.”

Activision’s letter to EDD regarding the latest round of layoffs was dated September 12.

See also: World of Warcraft development workers form unions

Since its founding in 1991, Blizzard’s biggest video game hit has been World of Warcraft. The combined company also produces other popular gaming titles such as Call of Duty and Candy Crush.

Blizzard was a division of Vivendi from 1995 to 2007, when the game maker merged with Santa Monica-based Activision.

The latest layoffs include software designers, engineers, human resources and product managers who worked on the mobile versions of Call of Duty: Warzone and WoW, as well as the third Irvine game, which is seeing declining sales, according to Michael Pachter, managing director and gaming research analyst at Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles.

“There were overlapping teams working on the two mobile versions,” Pachter noted. “You don’t need two people designing weapons.”

Warcraft Rumble, a mobile action strategy game designed in Irvine and set in the Warcraft universe, has been drawing strong interest because of layoffs that have had trouble gaining sales momentum, Pachter said.

EDD documents also show that there will be 143 layoffs at Activision’s Jefferson Boulevard studio in the Reserve Business Park in Playa Vista and 110 jobs at the company’s Olympic Boulevard studio in Santa Monica.

Studio layoffs will come in waves. The first layoffs at studios in Irvine and Santa Monica will begin on October 11, with cuts in Playa Vista starting in mid-November.

Layoffs at all three locations are expected to end before the end of the year.

The notification to the California Employment Development Department was made under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act – commonly referred to as WARN notifications. Submitting an application is required if the employer dismisses more than 50 employees.

Last year’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft was the largest acquisition in video game history, drawing scrutiny from regulators around the world and raising concerns that the merger would reduce competition in the gaming industry.