Blizzard Entertainment cuts 600 jobs

Blizzard Entertainment, publisher of "World of Warcraft" and other hit videogames, announced Wednesday that it is cutting 600 jobs.

The Irvine, California-based Blizzard, a division of Activision Blizzard, said 90 percent of the affected employees would come from departments "not related to game development."

"The World of Warcraft development team will not be impacted," Blizzard said in a statement.

"Constant evaluation of teams and processes is necessary for the long-term health of any business," Blizzard chief executive Mike Morhaime said.

"Over the last several years, we've grown our organization tremendously and made large investments in our infrastructure in order to better serve our global community," Morhaime said.

"However, as Blizzard and the industry have evolved we've also had to make some difficult decisions in order to address the changing needs of our company," he said.

Blizzard said the job cuts will not affect game development and release.

It said specific release plans for "Diablo III" will be announced in the near future and it is moving towards beta testing of "World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria," "Blizzard DOTA," and "StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm."

(c) 2012 AFP