Tencent has fired nearly every staff member at its gaming site Fanbyte in an attempt to shift to making only guides.
The company, which owns Fanbyte as well as big gaming companies like Riot Games, had a net income of over $35 billion in 2021. Yesterday, it laid off almost every staff member at its gaming website Fanbyte with no warning. Some staff members reported learning they were out of a job from other employee’s tweets about it.
The layoffs include the editor-in-chief Danielle Riendeau, head of media John Warren, features editor Elise Favis, and senior editor Imran Khan, among many others. Khan stated he was asleep in another country when he was fired. He was in Japan covering the Tokyo Games Show for the website.
Favis said “Incredibly proud of everything I got to do there, and with everyone I have worked with — these are the most talented folks in games media, and I’m honored I got to be there while I could.”
Warren made a tweet saying “Everyone affected by this so far is an exceptional talent that you should consider for your website, podcast network, media brand, etc. Stunned by the cuts I’ve seen.”
More Layoffs In Games Media
Clearly, the cuts came as a huge shock to everyone at the company. It follows layoffs at Future and games broadcaster G4TV.
Future recently laid off staff at various sites, including the gaming centric TechRadar Gaming, Windows Central, Android Central and iMore.
In response to the layoffs, somebody at Fanbyte altered the site’s social media to protest the situation. The Instagram account’s name was changed to “forgot the keys?” and the bio mentioned Tencent’s high net income. A similar tweet was also posted, but quickly got deleted.
Tencent also reportedly fired a summer intern who was on their last week at the site.
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