It turns out that job security is rather important! Who would have thunk that, Microsoft?

Don't overestimate what unions do. MS is still perfectly in their right to close down the studio and fire all it's staff, if they had a mind to.

It's just a matter of doing it properly. Severance Pay, Pensions and such. Which I honestly don't think Microsoft cares too much about.

I mean, if they can avoid paying it, they would. But they do actually have a legitimate business side. And severance pay for the entire Blizzard staff would likely still cost them less than what they had to pay Kotick to get rid of him.