After laying off a small town of employees from its gaming division last week, Microsoft managed to hold an earnings call, and while it was predictable, its top executives were vague in a way that didn’t feel right. Talked about said layoffs… without really talking about layoffs.
Yes, after acquiring Activision Blizzard, which furloughed 1,900 employees, many of whom received outpouring of support from colleagues and the community, the company behind Xbox held a massive conference call to discuss Q2 fiscal 2024 results How to go. While you’d expect to find a lot of numbers-related terms and expressions in this environment, the exact way these layoffs are mentioned – or not really mentioned – feels noteworthy.
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Naturally, there was a lot of discussion during the call about Xbox’s financial situation now that Activision Blizzard has officially joined Xbox. In case you’re wondering, Xbox’s gaming revenue grew 49%, to just over $7 billion in the quarter ending in December 2023.
Microsoft sees the net impact of the Activision Blizzard deal as a significant contributor to this trend, but when it comes to mentioning other financial impacts from the acquisition, we get some pretty disrespectful language that tries to sort of talk about layoffs without actually Say the word “layoff.” Microsoft CFO Amy Hood used “last week’s announcement” to refer to the 1,900 job losses, while neatly classifying the resulting “severance-related costs” as “transaction-related costs” in ActiBlizz. part. Transaction Impact.
Additionally, Hood did admit that “on a company-wide level, headcount at the end of December was 2% lower than a year ago,” a statistic that looks like its timeline may exclude last week’s layoffs since they were in this new year. Other than that, the only thing I can find is a reference to the need for “rigorous cost management within each team” going forward.
To clarify, I’m not accusing Microsoft of hiding these 1,900 layoffs, nor am I completely avoiding discussing these issues, I’m just not mentioning the word “layoffs” here, or even emulating some of the language Phil Spencer used in “Downsizing,” Seems a bit disrespectful. His memo last week highlighted some regret over making such cuts.
After all, while their official purpose is to reassure shareholders, the comments from this earnings call and the mostly positive numbers that come with them will likely be seen by a lot of regular people who have just been laid off by the company, many of whom will Through their hard work, Xbox has reached its current financial position.
It might only take a memo to say you’ve fixed something, but given the state of layoffs in the gaming industry right now, it’s nice to see soothing language lasting more than a few days afterwards. Especially when these companies are celebrating continuing to make more money than any of us have ever seen, right after throwing a lot of people into a generally pretty terrible job market.