Ziff Davis subsidiary, IGN Entertainment, just purchased Gamer Network and all of its properties for an undisclosed amount. Gamer Network owns media publications such as Eurogamer, GamesIndustry.biz, Rock Paper Shotgun, and VG247.
As a result of this acquisition, a number of redundancies were laid off from their positions. So far, some of the confirmed layoffs include Alice Bell from Rock Paper Shotgun, Stephany Nunneley-Jackson from VG247, and both Brendan Sinclair and Jeffrey Rousseau from GamesIndustry.biz. Sinclair and Nunneley-Jackson were both with their outlets for over a decade. Alice Bell was the deputy editor at Rock Paper Shotgun.
Bell, along with another anonymous source, told Aftermath that the redundancies "appear to have targeted many - perhaps all - Gamer Network employees outside the UK."
"Not everyone who was made redundant is based outside the UK, but it's starting to look very much like everyone based outside the UK has been made redundant,” said Bell.
“I'd asked specifically about my job because I'm based in Ireland, outside the UK, and was told the company was intending to sell us lock and stock, so all employees would stay employed on the same basis,” she said. “I was expecting shrinkage after the sale, because that always happens, but not immediately, and honestly not myself because RPS doesn't have an editor at the moment, so without [me] it just won't have editorial leadership. More fool me, eh?”
“I am most worried about people's livelihoods, but I am also very worried that they won't be allowed to be weird and write thoughtful, critical things. I worry that, now that the machine has increased in size, it will necessarily crush my most talented peers from the Network into writing boring, SEO-focused things designed to appeal to the averaged-out reader. But people aren't average, so when you try to appeal to the average you end up appealing to nobody."
