GameSpot layoffs

Or a subscription model for quality writing. In other words: super fucked.

What the hell, Justin Calvert and Ryan MacDonald?! Wow, that's very surprising. I wish these guys good luck. They should totally get together and start their own site. Damn.

I don't know about you, but laying off of Tom seems very, very strange. Not only is that guy a regular on The Lobby each week, he also joins in a lot of video-related content and podcasts. He was like part of the core of the GameSpot team, doing A LOT of reviews. If you strategically lay off people, you don't lay off you core people like Ryan McDonald or Tom McShea. I could argue whether Carolyn was part of the core, but she definetly was a veteran at GameSpot.

Gamespot has been linking GB quicklooks on the main page for a while now.

@trafalgarlaw: Wait, are you talking about Tom McShea or Peter Brown?

We often hear that on the Bombcast multiple people are playing the same game anyway and are willing to discuss it. VGK is onto something that a 5-10 minute series with a tightly controlled topic and agenda on a specific game would be stellar if they got the Siskel and Ebert of personality of video games to do it. Throw those two into a video set and lets get rolling!

I hope this doesn't leach over into Giant Bomb, but a part of me thinks a merger or something might be happening in the near future. I'm just not sure how else the justify hiring 2 people for Giant Bomb a month before they axe 10 people at Gamespot, many of whom are long time fixtures of the site. It's the same office.

Giant Bomb hired two video guys. GameSpot is firing writers. Shifting paradigms, revolutionizing outside the box, etc.

It fucking sucks.

Did you ask yourself why before posting that? If they want to continue existng, they have to make decisons such as this one. They're not doing it for giggles.

Its a real shame though. Hopefully they can all land on their feet nicely.

If you have to put a team of editors, moderators, admins on full alert to insults and toxic discourse for a full week...the management (CBSi) might think that the editors are not worth keeping around anymore if every new article of theirs starts the cycle anew.

I really hope Alex is still with GB. I feel like he would have said if he himself was let go, and Giant Bomb just got funding and new hires, so it wouldn't really make sense to cut Alex, but his Twitter has left me a little scared.

Carolyn Petit being laid off is a real blow to GameSpot. Outside of Danny O'Dwyer, she was basically all I cared about there.

I hope she finds a good place that will take advantage of her skills.

(she should move to Chicago and make articles and videos with Patrick)

Isn't Ryan MacDonald a video guy?

I obviously don't know, but I'm very willing to bet he's just super bummed (as he should be) over the layoffs at GameSpot.

@extomar:

The problem in today's atmosphere is how do we make this Siskel and Ebert and not Egoraptor and JonTron? Hell, I'd even settle for Penn & Teller! (Grating and in your face, but still very well considered.)

Wow, RyMac too? Seems like an odd guy to lay off with the pivot to video they've been doing, he was one of the architects of the previous video-oriented era of GameSpot - back when On the Spot both existed and didn't suck. Maybe there's a harder financial need to cut positions too, and they want to streamline management as a result. Had no idea the finances would be getting that rough.

Wish Carolyn would have been available when GB was looking to fill a roll. She would have been a great counterpoint to many of the GB staff.

@chaser324: Ryan McDonald incubated and wrote the idea for The Lobby, along with other GameSpot shows. Seems like a pretty video focussed person to me.

The salaries of those in question is something that none of us know. Keep in mind those getting let go at Gamespot all seem to be well established people who have been there a while. I imagine working for a company so long has certainly granted them their fair share of hard earned raises. Which makes this even more terrible news.

But the fact that Giant Bomb is such a small team, and that Jeff had to work very hard to get those new hires says a lot. Keep in mind Giant Bomb also does offer premium content for a membership fee to help offset some of the cost of their already small team. Other than Jason who on GB doesn't participate in video content? Despite being a small team everyone on the GB team is doing multiple things. Podcasting, video content, written content, the site still does written reviews. They still all gather up to go to PAX and E3. Articles still go up, Alex and Patrick still cover news. It's a pretty multi faceted website for only having like 9 or 10 people total working for it, including people like Rorie and Alexsis. Then consider what GB brings to the table, and how popular it is despite how few people it takes to make this thing happen. If anything having GB run as it does, adding a couple of people to GB probably just made CBSi look at how many employee's and how much money they are paying over at Gamespot and what they end up getting out of it in the long run. As much as situations like this suck for the people letting go, and I wish this stuff didn't have to happen, there is always tactic and strategy to it. It's one of the hard parts about running a business. Something I personally have had to deal with. Reailizing you could continue to run efficently and in some cases double the amount of profit you make but letting go two people is one of those things that makes you feel good and bad at the same time. Because that profit can help and you can still run fine, but nobody wants to see people go without work.

Hopefully those affected by the layoffs can find new work sooner rather than later.

@video_game_king: Probably end up with pewdiepie.

Yep, and two others mentioned in a tweet from earlier were GS producers including one who worked on The Lobby. This seems like a general cleaning of house and focusing on a handful of employees who do both on and off camera work rather than a "fire the writers" layoff.

@trafalgarlaw: A strategic layoff is any layoff made to allow the company to remain viable. People at all levels of editorial seniority were laid off, meaning that unfortunately, GameSpot is in a most likely financially poor position and needed to let go of most of its staff. There is no conspiracy here. Only tragedy.

Combined with the tweet right before it and Ill say its in response to all of the shitheads tweeting bullshit at Carolyn.

Yeah, this is the most likely case. It's hard not to fear for the worst, though. I'm expecting the GB guys to say... something... any minute now.

Covert and Big Mac. :( End of an era. This now feels like 2007. :((

I guess I'll be watching Satterfield's new venture even more closely.

According to Jason at Kotaku, their facebook comments are more vile than their anonymous ones. Anonymity has nothing to do with how we act on the internet apparently.

Well first somehow I'd think you'd need some sort of credentials to give you credibility.

And second the fact that no one is doing this right now is a good thing as it give you or somebody a earlya dopter market opportunity to stake a claim to it. I'm sure there' people who want to watch that kind of content. It's just the internet video audience is still pretty young right now, as they age they will want deeper stuff beyond Piediepie etc. Just because Egoraptor et al rule today, doesn't mean as youtube etc matures it's going to stay that way. Youtube is already drastically different than it was in 2008 or so, and I think it will keep evolving.

It's just the market is not as lucrative as the Lulz crowd right now.

Holy shit, I can't believe some of these people got let go. Ryan MacDonald especially. Business fucking sucks, sometimes. Here's hoping that everyone is able to land on their feet! A lot of super-talented people here.

According to the alexa rank Gamespot is pretty much the second biggest/highest trafiic gaming website in the world(as far as traditional media websites go).

My guess is if they are still doing written reviews they move that to freelancers ( Jeff have said before that GameSpot was doing that.

@mosespippy: not surprising some people are garbage. My point was that the internet creates distance so it makes the people seem less real so people don't think of the person behind that photo or whatever. Not an excuse obviously and some would say it to those peopes faces as well.

Yeah, but I doubt it has anything to do with "dissenting voices" but I think it probably had more to do with a shift of focus to more video oriented content and probably more on the younger staff perhaps.

@mosespippy: Anonymity has very little to do with it. The fact is, some people actual believe those hateful awful things. The most racist, sexist, small minded views of the world exist. The internet is a tool of connectivity. So a dude who loves some game nobody remembers finds another dude nobody remembers. It gives him confidence and joy about that game. It works just the same for people with views that suck. They find others who share it, and guess what? They gain the confidence and reaffirmation that they aren't alone in those views. So they have zero issues hurting others with them. The only thing we can do as a collective is to keep promoting the people who aren't awful and flat out ignoring those that are. At the end of the day the world is made up of more people who actually don't just insult and degrade people when they lose a job than those that are strictly negative. We just need to keep reminding ourselves and each other of that fact.

I hope Danny is safe

@fluttercry: He's still there.

I wasn't aware he was among the lay-offs. Given how sweeping these lay-offs are, I'm more inclined to say it's just straight up budgetary. GameSpot's staff was rather large, especially if you include freelancers. If GB is doing reasonably well on a far leaner budget and showing audience growth, some suits may have taken that as a sign.

Honestly can't say I go to GS for anything other than Danny O D so I can't say much about those let go. Enjoyed Carolyn during her few GB appearances, so maybe she will guest at some point?

I think there is very little room for Writer/Journalists today at big game websites/any game website/any website. It's just not how things are going. Writing is a cherry on top of Video at this point, like it or not.

Justin Calvert
Carolyn Petit
Tom McShea
Maxwell McGee
Wernher
Benito Gonzalez
Ryan MacDonald

That's...a lot of good folk...how can they lay off half their camera personalities?

He confirmed he is. Though odd timing as he is apparently out of the country for 3 weeks after today.

The thing is that even the general movie going audience doesn't want Siskel and Ebert anymore. Just compare the popularity of someone like Nostalgia Critic to Red Letter Media or What the Flick?. It may sound cold but when looked at through a business standpoint serious game criticism isn't financially viable outside of the inadvertent click bait it sometimes produces.

If you can't find something nice to say in a thread of this nature, don't bother posting. It's as simple as that. I'm not quite sure how much clearer we can make the "don't be a jerk" rule.

If you look at the list of currently confirmed people getting laid off, this is a massive house cleaning. Whether it's budgetary or not, I definitely feel something is up. Who's to say GiantBomb won't suffer the same fate years down the line?

Whatever happened to Chris Waters?

@trafalgarlaw: The internet is a volatile place to do business. Nothing is sacred.

If GB keeps adding staff, then it could happen. However, right now GB's showing the effectiveness with their 2 new hires by putting up lots more video content. In other words, the 2 hires are already showing positive results on the site. Gamespot simply had too many staff, especially reviewers when freelancers do the same thing for less.

Chris Watters is still there.

The timing strikes me as super weird considering the GB hires. What kind of a message does it send to Gamespot when the other side of the floor is hiring people and you just laid off most of your writers and some of the longer term vets of your site? That is why I would really like to get some kind of confirmation from Jeff or elsewhere as to if this is going to affect Giant Bomb.

@bocam:

I'm reading Ebert's Wikipedia article (because I don't know Siskel's first name (or last name; I don't know which name Siskel is!)), and I stumbled across this quote:

In August 2004 Stephen King, in a column, criticized what he saw as a growing trend of leniency towards films from critics including Ebert. His main criticism was that films, citing Spider-Man 2 as an example, were constantly given four star ratings that they did not deserve.

Needless to say, I'm in a nihilistic mood for the rest of the day.