Mass Layoffs inbound across CBSi

Heck yeah, search for "Brad and Will Made a Tech Pod"

It's quality!

Can you imagine if they merged the sites and suddenly Jeff was Editor in Chief at Gamespot again? That would be the most snake eating its own tail, full circle shit I've ever seen in my life.

@cikame: Just on the question of how many people visit the site/how well the site does with subs.
Last time I remember them talking about subs was last year and they were "up year over year."

It has not really been said how much COVID has affected their subscriptions, but I feel like they'd have mentioned if it was affected significantly which suggests to me it's still going well as far as they know.

So, if it's anything like it was on average Giant Bomb regularly has 50k subs. That's by no means an accurate count. This is based on me having watched a lot of Giant Bomb content over 10 years, and at one pointmaybe 2 or 3 years ago, 30k subs was mentioned. It's never been clear how many yearly versus monthly so I don't know but I know all the regulars here have multiple years of subscriptions (like me) and buy more occasionally so there's that and I know Giant Bomb regularly gets subs on the monthly plan even still.

So, Giant Bomb actually does very well as a subscription website. If we assume at this point they made 30k yearly subbed from this year they would have made 1.75 million at the sale price. And that is just one sale. That doesn't include the store/merch, monthly subs, or ad deals on the podcasts/non subscriber parts of the site.

This is all speculative. They do not openly display their figures, and have only briefly mentioned numbers years ago. So, I can only speculate based, again, on last year being a very good year for them and not really getting the feeling that anything has changed because Jeff would have said something- if even in passing- about it. That's what he does.

If anything happened to Giant Bomb with this sale to RV I honestly do not think it would have anything to do with how profitable Giant Bomb is since Giant Bomb tends to be very profitable and self sustaining which is why mostly they have been left alone up to this point.

The real thing to be worried about is how/if that will continue. There is just currently no way to know since no one on staff here actually has any say or foot in the door of those meetings.

"Doomloading".

Got laid off in April of 2019 and I'm still unemployed. Yeah, it does suck (though remaining unemployed has been more my decision)

My brother was at CBS for 30 years and they laid him off in January. I guess he got a sneak preview of what was to come to CBS.

I can't imagine being back unemployed for that kind of period. I did it way too much out of college (4 years out of 5 - mostly covered in a 3 year stint) and it drove me up the wall.

Commiserations to your brother but seeing some posts about CBS being a sh!t show since the viacom merger , he might end up at a better place. Hell RV as a whole might be a better place for those that stay on.

@shindig: Me too, I was out of work starting March 2009 for three years and a month. I chose redundancy at a very good rate but it was unsettling, I wanted a career change so badly though. I did a degree in programming earlier in life and after a stint in that and db work, I then accidentally took a job in server management (I thought there would be programming too), which ended up being quite a people focused job so I learned some new skills all round, including leading a team in the last few years. In 2008 I realised the writing was on the wall and I was definitely going to be outsourced (I was told back in 2001 to be fair) but I decided then that programming was going to be my focus owing to my perception that there would be a smaller number of jobs in managing servers in cloud services.

Strange and sad that so much could've been done this time of the year, with the console launches.

@applegong: Agreed. it sucks. I don't think CBSi are losing out on Advertising revenue though in the meantime. It will be the end of the year or the end of March before they have to release profit figures. The UK Tax system has a closure date in April, I thought the USA had the same, but I saw someone suggest end of December for that so I don't know since I'm from the UK. Tomorrow is the last day for emails to them about this, I hope they all make it.

@mekon: Yeah . . . the tax situation in the US gets complicated. Individuals run on a calendar year basis, so everything earned from January 1 - December 31 is your taxable year. April is the typical the filing deadline, unless you file for an extension or something like COVID-19 happens.

Corporations, however, work on a fiscal year basis. Like the calendar year, it lasts twelve months, but the company gets to choose when that twelve month period starts. For the majority of corporations, it's the same January 1 - December 31 as individuals, but it can technically be whatever they want. For example, universities tend to set it to correspond with the academic year.

@therealturk: Thanks for clarifying that! It's still muddy waters as I see it since we're still waiting for news but that's the best we can do and just hope for the best :) I think the GB staff is the strongest in terms of representation and cohesiveness amongst the sites but I guess we'll see.

@yoctoyotta: Thank you so much. It's a great podcast. Reminds me of old school This is Only a Test.

You're quite welcome, glad you dig it. Cheers, sir!

@yoctoyotta: Seeiing you use the word "Sir" reminded me of last week! I sent a message to Vinny during one of the streams and addressed him as "Mr Vinny Man", he responded that's "Sir Mr Vinny Man to you". That gave me a good laugh.

Anyone know if there's been any developments/updates?

@joeywankenobi: Not that I've heard of, but I think I'll just wait and see. Let's hope for the best.

I figured if something was going to be announced, it would be on the Bombcast. Nothing was announced on the Bombcast though. If we trust that timeline given in the initial news, then we're past the point of people finding out they would be getting laid off. But there's no reason for us to assume that timeline is accurate so who knows.

It seems like business as usual so far this week for GB.

@joeywankenobi: I would assume that if they have any news to share, they likely will do it after making detailed plans. I would not expect anything this week, maybe not for a few weeks.

Yeah. If anything did happen, finding out that you were losing your job and processing that and your next steps would be first before putting anything out there to viewers.

It will take a few weeks IF(which let's all hope not) anything transpired over the weekend.

All we can do is just go on business as usual and continue to support the crews.

They will probably be contractually bound not to speak about it, since it reflects badly on the company. Have to watch this space I guess (or a Bomb/BeastCast). I found it very unsettling when I was outsourced personally, people I knew in other departments wanted to know the details but I had nothing to share when that moment finally happened (after 7 years FFS) . Information was scarce. I didn't have any tightened rules handed down about speaking on that process, so I could say what I wanted (government department job). I tried to remain optimistic when speaking to those people I knew because i thought they'd lose interest quickly, and I valued their companionship. I'm now working for a much smaller company, it required quite a lot of rethinking on my part. That said the 7 year cloud over my head remains a memory, not a fact right now.

The leaving, plus the tone of these tweets and that she isn't going to another solid job are certainly not good signs about this sale.

I would not 100% take it that way. Abby may have been leaving for a while before this. I think the job became very different for her once she was doing content outside of the studio. I could be wrong, but I think it would be clearer if she was laid off.

She's openly asking on twitter to work in mostly the exact same fields she's leaving. That will still be remote work.

And I'm not saying she was laid off (she wasn't, she said directly "choosing not to continue"), I'm saying they might have told her there was a pay cut or seen the changes coming and bailed out because of that.

Or that it’s a very simple clean moment to move on. Feels like you’re reading a lot.

@toughshed said:

All these things are possible, for sure. Or she was planning on leaving and the sale seemed as good a time as any. Being a lady in the video games can be hard and Abby has strong "Fuck this shit, I'm out" energy when it comes to that part.

Reads more like RV wants signed contract from staff that they'll stick around for a year (or longer) and Abby doesn't want to commit to that so early on in her career.

On the Beastcast she says that she had been looking for different job opportunities for a while and this felt different. This was her first job out of college and she's been here for 3.5 years. It's probably as simple as "I enjoy it here but I'm young enough to see what else is available to me".

The internet recently revealed to me that a Sherlock is a person - a job if you will - who detects things while people are grieving, so I came here looking very specifically for a Sherlock to solve very important matters in a forensic...(Flips through thread, leaves thru door so fast)

@toughshed: I definitely would not see her leaving and looking for a new job as anything nefarious. It just could mean she was not willing to sign the new contract for a billion reasons.

For example, they could have asked all people who sign on to agree to stay for a certain period of time (and compensate with a bonus if they do). Or they could require a non-compete that would not work well for her future job prospects if she was actively looking. Or it could be the new health plan was not right. ...

Lots of reasons that have nothing to do with anything negative happening to the site.

Trust me guys, I don't think anything nefarious is going on. But I've seen a lot of media purchases like this and they were almost all bad. GB going back to CBS is one that I can think of that didn't ruin things more or less.

The contract point is a good one I hadn't considered.

I wish Abby luck and hope it was all her own choice really. She would clearly not be the first person from GB to do that. I personally think leaving a job in this market and then looking for jobs in the same field is a bit eye opening right now for me but I like talented people betting on themselves so good luck Abby.

And I'll be happy to be wrong about the sale as well.

Ya'll please cool it on the speculation. A lot of people lost their job and just guessing at why people leave a company isn't helpful.

I know there's worry and anxiety, but guessing random possibilities doesn't help anyone.

What is this "contract" stuff? Is there any actual evidence Red Ventures has asked employees at Abby's level to sign a contract? For the record, employment contracts are unusual in the US unless you're an executive/corporate officer.

@frytup: Just wild speculation.

@frytup: contracting out is becoming more and more lucrative for companies, it's the "gig" economy way. Example Uber drivers are technically contractors, they pay a little more in wages for the labor but pay nothing on benefits, pension, equipment, liability, or other expenses associated with the contractor.

If that Uber driver gets in an accident, Uber cancels their contract with the driver and washes their hands of the situation. You have to go after the driver and/or their insurance policy for any injuries you suffer. In California they just ruled that this is unfair to the drivers and should now be considered employees and given benefits, vacation, and most importantly the right to organize into a union.

@quadeo: I'm aware. I was talking about full time employment contracts, not the Uber/Lyft benefits dodge. Very different things.

Umm . . . what?

Contracts with a defined term like you see with a lot of executive positions might be unusual for front-line employees, but that doesn't mean there isn't a contract. Just about everyone who is employed is going to have a contact of some sort. That goes double for big companies with big legal and HR teams like CBS and RV. Now, it might be an at-will contract that lets them lay you off for any reason, and it might be with a contracting agency if you are a contractor, but you are going to have a contract.

Based on mergers I've been through in my career, the most likely scenario is that the people RV weren't immediately going to lay off were offered a choice between a contract with RV on the same or similar terms as the one they had with CBSi, or taking an exit package offering them some sort of severance pay.

@therealturk: Fair. Technically any employment relationship is a contract of sorts, including acceptance of an offer, but what we're talking about here is a contract that defines length of employment. I've been working a long time and have signed all kinds of paperwork, but never anything that locked me into working for a company for any specified period of time or put legal conditions on my ability to terminate employment at will. And that's true for the vast majority of workers.

@therealturk You're right of course, but most of the time when people in the U.S. refer to an "employment contract" they are referring to a contract with a set term of employment, or a contract that says you can only be fired "for cause." Those contracts are rare because, as you point out, most employees in the U.S. are "at-will," meaning they can be fired at any time for (almost) any reason.