Disney's Gaming and Internet division has laid off 700 people: accounting for 26%

Sina Science and technology news Beijing time, March 7 morning, as part of the overall strategic adjustment, the Disney video games and the internet sector in Thursday, the job cut about 700 people, accounting for about 26% of the total number of employees around the world. In addition, the company will change Disney.com's advertising strategy. "Because our focus is not on profit margins, but on sustainable profitability and ductility, there are some big changes to be made," says James Pitaro, Disney Interactive President James Pitaro. "While layoffs in the sector are expected, such layoffs are unexpected." The decision was made because Disney merged two big businesses: thriving mobile games and increasingly lonely social games. As a major strategic adjustment, Disney also decided to scale up a variety of autonomous development of the game. The company will now rely more on external authorization. Disney Interactive released more than 10 games last year, including disappointing "Crocodile Little Naughty Love bath 2" and "Bunny heap", but the company decided to reduce annual game production by 50%. In the department's Internet business, Disney will also close the babyzone.com and spoonful.com two smaller sites. The company's main portal, Disney.com, will also abandon banner ads and turn to sponsorship ads. "We are not going to quit any business, we will pursue licensing cooperation and thus retain a lot of creativity." "But this is a double bet on the move to focus more on the most important core business," Pitaro said. "Disney's interactions have suffered more than 1 billion of billions of dollars in recent years and the company has been able to turn a profit in the past two quarters, thanks largely to Disney Infinity, which integrates video games and toy elements and has sold 300多万份 globally since it was launched last August," he said. Disney's interactive mobile business in Japan is also booming, and Disney brand mobile devices and games have recently become a local minority culture. The company's mobile game, "Tsumu Tsumu," since January 29, has downloaded more than 8 million times, has become the first application of Japan's ranking. "While we are reducing our focus on some areas, we are also investing strategically in other areas, and Japanese business is one of them." "Pitaro said. But the company is not doing well in social gaming, and in a sense the Thursday layoffs amounted to admitting that the company's decision to spend $563 million in 2010 to buy Playdom has failed. When Disney acquired Playdom, social games were rage. But with the rapid development of smartphones and other mobile devices, the business's appeal to consumers has dropped dramatically. Since being acquired by Disney, Playdom has never launched a sensational game product. (PEI)