For the last six weeks, we’ve been speaking to multiple King staff affected by the layoffs announced in July.
They claim:
- Some staff are taking legal action over their severance packages
- The cuts were apparently made with no consideration for staff performance
- The layoffs were haphazard – some staff have been rehired within weeks of being laid off
- Toxic managers investigated by workplace ethics teams – some multiple times – saw no repercussions
- The cuts to the ‘bloated’ workforce don’t go far enough, said one manager, who expects more
- Microsoft says all staff must use AI daily, but adoption is low and even King leadership is skeptical
Morale is pretty low at Candy Crush maker King.
On July 2, the regular company-wide ‘Kingdom call’ and follow-up ‘Kingdom Q&A’ meetings were renamed ‘Important Kingdom Update’. Attendance was now mandatory. King boss Todd Green explained that 200 staff would be cut.
In the HR meetings that followed, the staff we spoke said they were offered a severance package and an exit agreement to sign. Some were given three weeks to sign the document and leave with a clean exit, but one staffer we spoke to had serious questions over the terms offered.
“We all took lawyers and they were pretty clear that the proposals weren’t legal,” they told us. “But I decided in the end to sign, simply because I fear getting even less and I don’t believe we can win against a corporation like Microsoft.” Others have continued with legal action, we’re told.
To make those 200 job cuts, one source claimed that it was as if King had “listed every employee, sorted by salary and then fired them top down, only skipping over people they trust.”
“It didn’t matter that it was people who worked there for ten or more years or who contributed to the success and earned promotions,” they continued. “Performance didn’t matter.”
We’re told King’s performance reviews rank staff on a five point scale: ‘off track’, ‘more to do’, ‘good work’, ‘ahead of the game’ and ‘game changer’. But those ratings did not seem to factor into who was eliminated, said another senior manager.
“The logic for who has been chosen to be laid off has been hard to figure honestly…the rationale outlined was our heavy management layer and inefficient product development, but looking at the people let go, it doesn’t align”.
The haphazard way King made the cuts also meant that some workers were rehired within weeks of being laid off, our sources claimed. Others suspect that some colleagues were promoted shortly before the layoffs so that they would qualify as middle management – and therefore be first on the list to be laid off.
The cuts to the Farm Heroes Saga team were described as particularly puzzling. King lays out an ‘Annual Operation Plan’ for each of its titles, and Farm Heroes Saga was one of few King games close to hitting those targets, we’re told. “Candy, Soda and the all other catalogue games were far behind their AOP,” said one source. “That being said, the AOP they forecasted was not realistic so the question has to be asked – were we all set up to fail?”
Employee feedback changes enacted as King became part of Microsoft have also contributed to low and declining morale at the Candy Crush maker, we’re told. “Especially in the last two years people became more and more unhappy because leadership would make decisions nobody could understand,” said one source. “People couldn’t raise criticism anonymously any more.”
“Every question or piece of feedback was always connected to a name, which scared a lot of people, rightfully so. As a manager I was always trying to deliver that feedback to the leadership team anonymously, but I was pressed on names.”
Another source offered some particularly fierce criticism. “HR is indeed a shitshow of incompetent people protecting the status quo of incompetent leaders,” they said. “Often, they have protected toxic leaders that have been reported to several degrees of accountable people, HR and above.”
In the past, leaders investigated more than once by the ‘Right Way2Play’ workplace conduct team had seen no repercussions at all, we’re told. “HR has often protected toxic leaders and put pressure on the ‘difficult’ employees for reporting the issue,” one source said. “Employees that were vocal and known for being vocal have been targeted by HR on several occasions.”
They also claimed that some burnt-out staff have been put on medical leave. “Candy Crush and King in general is a very very toxic environment,” they added. “Individual contributors are talented and nice – the toxicity comes from the leadership team. So, yes, Microsoft and AI is one cause [of the low morale] but the toxicity is endemic of the leadership team at King.”
As we’ve reported before, some of the 200 King staffers let go are to be replaced by the same AI-based narrative, level design and testing tools they had helped build.
“AI was being introduced by Microsoft as mandatory a while ago,” says one source. “The goal for last year, if I recall correctly, was having a 70 or 80% daily usage of AI on general tasks. And the goal for this year was to get up to 100%, so that every artist, designer, developer, even managers have to use it on a daily basis.”
But another source suggested that the mandate isn’t working: “AI adoption is very low apart from ChatGPT,” they said. “King leadership is in general quite AI sceptic.”
There may be further pain to come for King’s staff, too. The same manager described King’s workforce as “bloated”, and claimed “a reduction was very much needed”.
“If I were [Microsoft] I would also ask King to make sure they have a right-sized workforce…there will definitely be more layoffs,” they added.
We have asked Microsoft and King to comment on the claims in this report and will update this article with their comments if they respond.
