Akshon Newsletter - February 2024

Welcome back to another edition of the Akshon Monthly, our monthly newsletter that recaps some of the major news from the month across the industry and some of the new content and news from Akshon Media itself. 

The start of the new year has been a mixed bag to say the least. From massive layoffs to new partnerships that seek help teams grow internationally, 2024 is shaping up to be an interesting year if January is an indicator of things to come. With that being said, let’s take a look at some of the big news from the month as we head into February.

Layoffs across the industry

• The new year starts off on some bad news across the industry with more mass layoffs, the first of which came from Discord which laid off 17% of its workforce. In total, the layoffs affected 170 people across various departments and was part of the company’s efforts to “sharpen our focus and improve the way we work together to bring more agility to our organization.” according to an internal memo from CEO Jason Citron.

• The next major round of layoffs took place at Riot Games which eliminated around 530 positions, totalling around 11% of its workforce. As a part of the layoffs, Riot also sunsetted its Riot Forge program and heavily reduced the team working on Legends of Runeterra. 

• The biggest layoff came from Microsoft who laid off 1,900 employees (~8% of its workforce) across the newly acquired Activision Blizzard and Xbox. Along with the layoffs, the company also saw the departure of Blizzard president Mike Ybarra and chief design officer Allen Adham. Finally, the layoffs also saw the untitled Blizzard survival game end its production with its team being moved to other new projects. 

Pro teams partner up

• In more positive news, the new year has also seen more esports organizations partner up for competitive teams, the biggest of which is OverActive Media looking to acquire both KOI and Movistar Riders. The move will see OverActive’s spanish brand, MAD Lions, merge with two of the other biggest spanish esports organisations and enter the 2024 League of Legends season as MAD Lions KOI and the 2024 VALORANT season as Movistar KOI. 

• Elsewhere in VALORANT, Disguised is set to move from North America to Southeast Asia after partnering with BLEED Esports to form a roster to compete in the Malaysia/Singapore region for VCT Challengers. The partnership will look to help BLEED and Disguised gain a foothold with North American and Southeast Asian audiences respectively. 

• North America wasn’t left out of the partnership as a previously rumored partnership between Supernova and NRG was officially confirmed for the North American Challengers League which will see NRG support the amateur team with access to its resources. 

Esports League news

• Heading over to the esports leagues there were quite a few big stories coming out of this month. Starting things off is the return of Overwatch esports as Blizzard officially announced details surrounding its new esports circuit called Overwatch Champions Series. The new tournament circuit will feature open tournaments in North America, EMEA, and Asia with two international Majors a year.

• Helping run things for Blizzard will be ESL FACEIT, who will be pulling double duty with Activision Blizzard as they’re also set to run the Call of Duty League’s Challengers circuit, taking over for the new defunct GameBattles. Overall, along with its other esports events, 2024 is shaping up to be a huge year for ESL FACEIT.

• Finishing things off this month is the League of Legends EMEA Championship which has seen the years of developing the lower tier regional leagues payoff as the opening week saw a peak viewership of 741,450 viewers during the match between the Spanish favorite MAD Lions KOI and French favorite Karmine Corp. The match smashed the previous peak record of 555,521 from last season’s Winter Finals between MAD Lions and G2 Esports.