Activision King has shut down San Francisco studio (in addition to the earlier Seattle closure). Focusing on European development now

[CGiRanger]

https://www.pocketgamer.biz/job-new...izzard-shuts-down-kings-san-francisco-studio/

This is King's second US closure since Activision revealed its record-breaking financials for 2018. It was previously reported that the mobile company's Seattle studio had closed, costing 78 jobs, a move that has now been confirmed.

With the shutdown of the San Francisco studio, this means King has pulled out of the US altogether as far as game development is concerned.

Click to shrink...

So King pretty much pulls out of the US entirely with this move now. Here's their company line on this move:

"We considered that the right thing for King is to run a studio network in Europe, to give us much greater focus in our game development," said King communications manager Charley Tesch, via Google Translate.

"The teams in the US have fantastic creative and talented people working with them, but we believe that this decision is the right one to fulfill our long-term strategy.

"We make these difficult decisions so that we can grow in a sustainable way. We believe that these changes will enable us to do just that and are convinced of our approach. We made this decision to give us a much stronger focus on developing good gaming concepts throughout our European studio network."

Click to shrink...

Dunno how many people were in this office. But probably a good portion.

 

[juliamcardinals]

What that hell is going on at activision ?

 

[CGiRanger]

I'm trying to decide if this is Activision or King or both? It's hard when companies own so much like this and dunno where the genesis for this change is coming from.

 

[sibarraz]

Where are we going PapActivision?

 

[Brandon]

Have they made money with the King purchase? Seems like they paid too much too late in the game.

 

[Nome]

For context, King soft/test launches many titles each year.
Some perform well and make it to hard launch. Most (as is standard in the mobile industry) fail key KPIs and get canned.

Without much context into what the US studios were working on, it's hard to say why they closed, but presumably they didn't get the right results. Mobile's a tough market.