250 people have been laid off from the Walt Disney Co.’s recently combined consumer products and interactive media unit. This division is headquartered in Glendale, California and merged last summer. The layoffs affect 5% off the unit; many of the jobs had been made redundant by the merging of the two divisions.
Video game staff were affected by the reductions, due to the company moving away from the actual development of games and moving more towards a licensing model. Some of the cuts came from a Bellevue, Washington studio where the discontinued “Marvel: Avengers Alliance” mobile game was created.
This division has been down financially for the past two quarters. In the third quarter, ending July 2, operating income was down 7%; in the previous quarter it was down 8%.
News source: LA Times
Photo credit: Reed Saxon / Associated Press via LA Times



