Sweet Crush maker, King, which Microsoft acquired together with Activision Blizzard again in 2023, was the primary hit when mass layoffs have been introduced throughout the corporate earlier this month. Now some impacted workers say morale is at an all time low, as AI they’ve been coaching for years is probably used to interchange them.
“Most of degree design has been wiped, which is loopy since they’ve spent months constructing instruments to craft ranges faster,” a King staffer reportedly advised Mobilegamer.biz. “Now these AI instruments are mainly changing the groups. Equally the copywriting group is totally eradicating individuals since we now have AI instruments that these people have been creating.”
200 have been laid off throughout King, although many impacted workers are reportedly in limbo till union negotiations wrap up in September. In line with Mobilegamer.bizbettering morale at King was a high precedence following poor inner survey outcomes and ongoing attrition. As an alternative, one worker stated “it’s now within the gutter” ever for the reason that layoffs have been introduced.
King has not been secretive of its use of AI instruments to make video games like Sweet Crushwhich gamers’ spent an estimated $9 million on each weekeven more durable to cease taking part in. “Earlier than we launch a degree, we let the bots play that degree and we get insights–are there any shuffles? How tough was this degree? And there are numerous extra metrics that give designers an perception into the gameplay–we run them 1000’s of occasions so we have now good accuracy,” King’s director of AI Labs Sahar Asadi advised Mobilegamer.biz at GDC in 2024.
“Then the designers determine if that’s an supposed expertise that they needed – sure or no–and so they return and refine the extent,” she continued. “We even have constructed a device on high of this playtesting that does automated tweaking by AI.”
AI’s been a reoccurring backdrop to Microsoft’s resolution to fireside roughly 9,000 workers, together with many throughout Xbox and its associated gaming divisions. Builders have been invited to an AI roundtable at Gamescom 2025 on the identical day the layoffs have been introduced. A senior Xbox publishing producer inspired impacted workers to us AI to redo their resumes and apply to new jobs. And over the weekend, certainly one of Xbox’s precept improvement leads put out a hiring submit that used obvious AI slop for its picture of somebody coding at a pc.
The cuts throughout Microsoft comes because it commits to speculate $80 billion in AI expertise, greater than the entire price of all its current gaming acquisitions, within the present fiscal yr alone. “The very fact AI instruments are changing individuals is completely disgusting but it surely’s all about effectivity and income though the corporate is doing nice general,” one King staffer advised Mobilegamer.biz . “If we’re introducing extra suggestions loops then it’s loopy to take away the builders themselves, we’d like extra arms and fewer management.”
Correction 7/16/2025 8:22 a.m. ET: Mobilegamer.biz didn’t specify if it was a Farm Heroes Saga worker it spoke with.
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