Blizzard to axe 600 jobs

World of Warcraft house Blizzard Entertainment is to begin a global downsizing operation that will result in 600 job losses.

The company claims that about sixty of these redundancies will come directly from game development, while the majority of redundancies will impact on other areas of the business such as customer support.

Existing development and publishing schedules will not be affected, Blizzard said.

The mass redundancies come as Blizzard exhausts huge resources to retain World of Warcraft’s gigantic yet gradually declining subscriber numbers.

“Constant evaluation of teams and processes is necessary for the long-term health of any business, said Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime.

He said Blizzard and the industry have needed to evolve in current times, as masses of audiences turn to free-to-play MMOs.