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Entertainment company Fandom has laid off an unspecified number of employees across multiple properties including Giant Bomb, GameSpot and Metacritic. These properties are mainly focused on publishing content around gaming and TV shows.
According to a report by Variety, the company employs around 500 people, and the layoffs have affected roughly 10% of its staff across different sites. Employees were caught off-guard by this surprise announcement made by CEO Perkins Miller during an all-hands meeting, as per Kotaku.
The job cuts come months after Fandom acquired a host of brands — Comic Vine, Cord Cutters News, GameFAQs, GameSpot, Giant Bomb, Metacritic, and TV Guide — from Red Ventures in October. Sources told TechCrunch at that time that the size of the deal was around $55 million.
During the acquisition announcement, Fandom said that this deal will help the company “super-serve” its advertising partners and provide fuel for its data platform and gaming e-commerce verticals. Fandom was founded in 2004 by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales and entrepreneur Angela Beesley
Some folks like GameSpot entertainment editor Mat Elfring, video producer Jess O’Brien aka “Voidburger”, and graphic designer Justin Vachon tweeted about frustrating layoffs.
We have reached out to Fandom for a comment, and we will update the story if we hear back.
Several gaming and entertainment media outlets have faced layoffs in the last few months. Some IGN staffers were impacted last month while Polygon employees were axed as a part of Vox job cuts in July.