Activision cutting back licensed titles, lays off about 30

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Black Ops 2 dev Treyarch trimmed to meet DLC production needs

Activision will launch fewer games based on external licenses this year, and it has laid off about 30 employees to make up the difference. The publisher of Skylanders and Call of Duty released a statement to Kotaku which said the cuts were part of regular cost-alignment measures.

Not only Activision's smaller studios were affected, as Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 developer Treyarch lost a few employees. Activision said the culling was necessary to bring the studio in line with needs for continued DLC production, and will not affect the game.

Though Activision has strong franchises of its own, the publisher cranks out quite a few licensed games from the Cabela's hunting series to The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It didn't specify which of its licensed properties will be headed out to pasture this year.

Connor Sheridan
Connor Sheridan
Former GamesRadar+ News Writer

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and was formerly a staff writer at GamesRadar+.