King workers in Barcelona will gather outside their office tomorrow to protest the 75 layoffs slated at the studio.
The cuts are part of the 200 or more layoffs taking place across King this summer. Some of those staff will be effectively replaced by the AI tools they created and built, we’re told.
The protest is being organised by Spanish game workers union CSVI. A statement on the organisation’s website, translated from Spanish, reads:
“King’s Barcelona workforce will gather outside the company’s headquarters to protest the layoffs announced by management. This is expected to affect up to 12% of the workforce at a time when the company is recording multi-million-dollar profits ‘with more players and hours played than ever,’ according to executive Phil Spencer.”
The union says the proposed layoffs are due to the “projection of unattainable profits and the desire to replace part of the workforce with artificial intelligence tools.” It adds that some staff are also considering relocating from King’s Barcelona office.
The protest will take place at King Barcelona, 150 Carrer Ciutat de Granada, on July 31st at 11am, said the CSVI on X. “We support the workers facing this unfair process, which is being used solely and exclusively to increase the company’s already multi-million-dollar profits,” it said.
The CSVI added that this summer’s ~75 layoffs follow on from 47 redundancies at King Barcelona in September and October 2024. There has been a “steady stream” of cuts since King’s acquisition by Microsoft, it said.
The union also implied that King is not fulfilling the severance pay agreements it had negotiated from that previous round of layoffs in 2024: “These events demonstrate bad faith on the part of the company, which we cannot accept,” it added.
As we reported earlier this month, King sources told us that around 200, perhaps more, staff will be made redundant this summer. Many of the staff cut will effectively be replaced by the AI tools they built and trained, we were told, and the London-based Farm Heroes Saga team is being ‘cut in half’ with about 50 people leaving.
One staffer also claimed employees are being targeted by HR for loudly expressing dissatisfaction internally, and a recent internal survey showed morale at an all-time low. It’s now “in the gutter”, said another source.