Here in Spain appeared later on a couple of gaming websites and a few non-gaming news places, which didn't say much.
https://www.3djuegos.com/juegos/can...ra-a-filial-barcelona-responsable-candy-crush
https://www.eurogamer.es/king-despedira-al-7-de-su-plantilla-en-espana
https://www.lavanguardia.com/dinero/20241011/10015440/firma-videojuegos-king-anuncia-ere-despedir-7-plantilla-barcelona.html#:~:text=La empresa de videojuegos King,informado el sindicato CGT Catalunya.
https://www.tercerainformacion.es/a...en-barcelona-tras-ser-comprada-por-microsoft/
People isn't paying a lot of attention because was "only" under 50 people out of a studio of around 670 people, and because even if the studio made the layoff in some areas is hiring in other ones. Continues being the largest gaming studio in the city after Scopely (has around 700 people as I remember).
Plus also maybe because Activision Blizzard also has Infinity Ward Barcelona (part of the CoD Warzone team for console and PC) and Digital Legends (they make CoD Warzone Mobile), which got unaffected.
The union talks about delocalization, which apparently isn't the case. Apparently they are removing redundancies, something they didn't do when acquired by Activision Blizzard and later by MS.
It is also known publicly via job offers and changes in LinkedIn of some employees that part of the studio was half rebranded as a Blizzard team. Meaning, After a long time they decide it to don't publicly rebrand that team of the studio (the studio has multiple teams) as Blizzard Barcelona because as you may figure out, having the type of expertise they have, they aren't working in let's say traditional Blizzard games as would be a StarCraft III for PC and console.
So part of the layoff may also be related to move part part of King Barcelona to that now Blizzard team from Barcelona.
Now I realized that we may be the only city with studios of all three:
- Activision (one for console & PC, another for mobile)
- Blizzard
- King
