Candy Crush / King & Microsoft
Microsoft cynically replaced the fired King developers with AI tools created by the same people.
We are talking about some of the more than 9 thousand employees who were officially laid off by Microsoft a week ago. And the total number of dismissed employees this yearis already about 15 thousand. Among them were about 200 people from the King studio, known for the mobile puzzle game Candy Crush. In recent years, these employees have been developing and training internal AI tools to automate level design, copywriting, and user research. And now, these systems are officially becoming a replacement for live teams, reminiscent of a similar EA’s attempt with voice actors.
According to sources inside King, the London-based Farm Heroes Saga team was the most affected by the layoffs. About 50 people, including managers, were fired there. But Microsoft didn’t stop at London – the company also «walked» in Barcelona, Stockholm, Berlin, and centralized research and quality control departments.
«Most of level design has been wiped, which is crazy since they’ve spent months building tools to craft levels quicker. Now those AI tools are basically replacing the teams. Similarly the copywriting team is completely removing people since we now have AI tools that those individuals have been creating», — says one of the former employees.
Some of King’s executives have reportedly been sent on vacation until September, when the company promises to officially unveil a new organizational structure. According to the sources, people were laid off not only for performance reasons. The company organized a «bounty hunt» — looking for those who openly criticized processes or wrote harshly in internal chats.
Now, King has reached a new level of low morale: even before the wave of layoffs, internal surveys showed that the team was working at its limits. So far, Microsoft and King have not officially commented on the situation. In addition, the tech giant is currently busy with is looking for new employees with the help of AI after partially replacing other AIs.
Source: Mobile Gamer