Toys for Bob, the developer behind the well-received Call of Duty: Warzone. Not only could this delay or cancel any retro platformers or other projects it may have had in development, and it may be a long time until it can reclaim its own creative freedom again, if ever.
For a studio like Toys for Bob, becoming a studio at Activision is sometimes a farewell to the team's ability to curate its own franchises. Classic Spider-Man game developer Call of Duty remain well-oiled machines. Even though there are lead studios on the mainline Call of Duty games, there are hundreds of talented people working on Activision's flagship annualized franchise because of its profitability.
On Twitter, Warzone being a wildly popular game, it's obviously a far cry from colorful retro platformers. Contradicting Kole's and other's statements on layoffs, Activision has provided the following statement to Digital Trends:
“There has not been a reduction in personnel recently at the studio. The development team is operating fully and has a number of full-time job openings at this time. The studio is excited to continue ing Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time, and more recently, provide additional development to Call of Duty: Warzone.”
It's unclear if Toys for Bob is just helping out to ensure Warzone meets its deadlines at a critical point in its lifespan or if this is a long-term assignment for the studio. If it's the former case, perhaps the developer can go back to other projects after things get back on track. However, there's little precedence from any major publisher with many studios under its umbrella for this to be the case. Either way, it's a bold, likely scary decision for some employees that are reported to have left on their own accord, rejecting job security in the face of Toys for Bob potentially losing its identity over time. As for what this could mean for Activision, moving yet another studio to Call of Duty could potentially signal problems with the franchise as much as it does growth.
With rumors that Assassin's Creed series by taking a year off. Warzone seems to have proven that it can sustain players counts and revenues for longer than a year, so the publisher could opt to let its lead studios release a mainline Call of Duty every other year for a change to ease some pressure for those and smaller studios like Toys for Bob. However, it's not hard to imagine that would be an unpopular move with Activision Blizzard shareholders, who have come to expect the publisher's annual windfalls.
Call of Duty: Warzone is available on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
Source: Nicholas Kole, Blake the Non-Binary Robot, Digital Trends
