Activision Blizzard Inc. Lays Off 200

Video game giant Activision Blizzard Inc. will lay off 200 employees and shut down their development studio Luxoflux in Santa Monica, California. On Wednesday Activision reported fourth quarter net losses to be $286 million. This loss was attributed to deferred revenue from its online efforts and weak sales of its Guitar Hero games and other products aimed at casual players.

In addition to employees at Luxoflux losing their jobs, 50 of 170 employees at Activision’s Neversoft studio were laid off. Neversoft is the lead developer for games in the Guitar Hero series, which will produce 10 titles this year instead of the usual 29. Activision also cut about 90 staff positions at its Radical Entertainment studio. Remaining employees at Radical are working on a video game version of the next “Spider-Man” film.

Activision also confirmed today that they will release “Call of Duty 7” in 2010, one of the company’s extremely popular and profitable games.