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Activision Blizzard shuts down King’s San Francisco studio as it focuses on European development

Mobile developer pulls out of US altogether

Activision Blizzard shuts down King’s San Francisco studio as it focuses on European development

Activision Blizzard has shut down King’s San Francisco studio as part of a major company-wide restructuring that has seen it reduce its workforce by eight per cent, according to Swedish publication Breakit.

It’s unclear at this time how many jobs have been lost at the 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.

Difficult decision

"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."

In February 2017 King closed its South Korean office due to titles like Candy Crush failing to crack the top 10 charts for a sustained period.


Deputy Editor

Matthew Forde is the deputy editor at PocketGamer.biz and also a member of the Pocket Gamer Podcast. You can find him on Twitter @MattForde64 talking about stats, data and everything pop culture related - particularly superheroes.