King has announced a round of layoffs, with a report suggesting that the studio is attempting to replace laid-off staff with AI tools that were developed by the staff themselves.
Xboxhas undergone four rounds of layoffs in the last eighteen months, with the most recent round being the most devastating of all, prompting numerous project cancellations and a studio closure.
One of the studios affected was King, developer ofCandy Crush. King was acquired by Xbox in the massive $69 billion acquisition of Activision-Blizzard-King, and now the studio is set to absorb 200 cut jobs.
In response to the layoffs, Matt Turnbull, an executive producer at Xbox Game Studios Publishing,suggested that laid-off staff use limited language models(such as Copilot or ChatGPT) to seek career advice.
(Candy) Crushed Spirit
According to a report fromMobilegamer.biz, former staff members are reporting that Microsoft is replacing their roles with artificial intelligence tools that were created by laid-off staff.
“Most of the level design has been wiped, which is crazy since they’ve spent months building tools to craft levels quicker,” a staffer told Mobilegamer.biz. “Now those AI tools are basically replacing the teams. Similarly the copywriting team is completely removing people since we now have AI tools that those individuals have been creating.”
“The fact AI tools are replacing people is absolutely disgusting but it’s all about efficiency and profits even though the company is doing great overall,” they continued. For context, King’s parent company, Microsoft, earned $171 billion in profit last year.
An internal survey by King suggests that morale is at an all-time low, and staff that complain publicly about the company’s human resources department have been targeted in the layoffs.
King’s human resources team has been described as an “extreme case” of prioritising company interests over employee interests.
The London-based Farm Heroes Saga team is set to be heavily affected by the layoffs, as their team is being reduced by half to just 50 people.
