Rumor has it that Microsoft is making ready to enact mass layoffs throughout its gaming division this July, following a number of experiences out of Bloomberg plus latest feedback made by new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma and Chief Content material Officer Matt Booty. The Communications Employees of America Union, which represents hundreds of online game staff at Microsoft and past, is making ready to barter for worker protections, whereas calling for transparency from executives and demanding primary dignity for builders.
Sharma and Booty laid the groundwork for layoffs in early June, with a memo marking the primary 100 days of recent Xbox management.
“We now have discovered ourselves over-extended as we executed on altering methods in a panorama of extra available content material,” the pair wrote. Together with the hard-fought acquisition of Activision Blizzard King, which price Microsoft $69 billion in 2023, Xbox spent greater than $89 billion in investments and studio assist over the previous 5 years, whereas the phase’s annual income declined by practically half a billion {dollars}, the memo said.
“Going ahead, this can’t proceed,” Sharma and Booty wrote, ominously. Bloomberg concurrently reported that Xbox was planning substantial layoffs in July, proper after the top of Microsoft’s fiscal yr. A couple of days later, reports emerged that Xbox was shuttering or promoting off three of its studios, Double Fantastic, Ninja Concept and Compulsion Video games.
Throughout a media name on June 29, CWA provided a transparent message for Xbox management.
“We’re right here to say this plainly: These staff is not going to be handled as disposable,” CWA District 9 Vice President Frank Arace stated. He argued that “the cash is there” to maintain Xbox groups intact, however that executives are funneling it elsewhere with little care concerning the human or inventive influence of layoffs.
UVW-CWA treasurer Sherveen Uduwana agreed, noting that Microsoft just raised its console prices for the third time this yr, and CEO Satya Nadella personally made $96 million in 2025.
“There is no such thing as a scarcity of wealth within the video games business, particularly if we’re speaking about Xbox, Sony, EA,” Uduwana stated, concluding that these multibillion-dollar organizations are selecting to not assist their builders.
CWA represents roughly 3,500 staff throughout the online game business and its membership numbers proceed to develop. In 2023, roughly 300 QA staff at Microsoft subsidiary ZeniMax On-line voted to unionize, forming the most important online game union on the time. Their contract with Microsoft was ratified in June 2025, together with minimal wage necessities, a framework for wage will increase and protections concerning the usage of AI. A number of studios throughout Xbox have followed suit, together with Raven Software program and a number of other groups underneath the Blizzard umbrella, together with Overwatch and Diablo staff.
In the present day, CWA is looking for Xbox executives to sit down on the negotiating desk in good religion, and reply to staff’ calls for for transparency, assist and job safety.
4 Xbox staff and CWA members shared their experiences working underneath a latent risk of sudden layoffs and studio closures. Elder Scrolls On-line encounter designer Morgan Goin misplaced years of accrued advantages when Xbox out of the blue closed Arkane Austin after which waited a month earlier than transferring some builders to ZeniMax. Even when groups hit their metrics and executives gushed over their video games, Xbox canceled tasks and shook up studios with out warning, Goin stated.
Blizzard story editor and franchise developer Alison Veneto stated that with every spherical of layoffs, affected studios lose unimaginable expertise and likewise years of institutional information. She added that it is tough to be inventive with layoffs consistently looming and no outlined guidelines dictating how mass firings ought to play out.
“Work with us,” Veneto stated, talking on to Microsoft. “Undertake significant layoff protections.”
A standard chorus was that Microsoft has proven little curiosity in truly negotiating with its unions, failing to provide correct consideration to conferences and leaving proposals on the desk for months at a time. Unions representing staff at ZeniMax and different Microsoft studios have efficiently gained sure protections for all Xbox builders, however the primary framework round layoffs and studio closures nonetheless requires severe, good-faith consideration, in accordance with CWA.
“We’re performed paying for executives’ failures,” Activision QA tester Andrew Snell stated.
