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King shuts down former Z2Live mobile game studio in Seattle, cuts 78 jobs

Activision Blizzard said it is laying off hundreds of employees today, and part of the fallout is that King’s mobile game studio in Seattle will be shut, resulting in the loss of 78 jobs, according to an unnamed source.

Activision Blizzard did not comment on specific layoffs, other than noting that it would lay off 8 percent of its workforce, mostly in non-development positions.

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Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.