Welp, this didn’t take long.
It’s especially interesting that they laid off a lot of people who were the only ones in their particular job, leaving entire jobs uncovered. I suspect this comes right before shutting them entirely or doing it all “with AI” 🤮.
Sad in particular about Alice Bell. She was fantastic, and it always felt like she kept the site going through all the shit of recent years. Plus being the driving force behind their podcast (the Electronic Wireless Show) of course also spells doom for that one though I hope that like Indiescovery they go rogue and run it independent of the site.
Bleak times. Fuck IGN.
I hate how this is phrased as “redundancies”. IGN literally JUST bought these outlets, they haven’t had time to dig into and examine the organizations they acquired; it’s just straight into the Corpo playbook of “lay people off and let the dust settle where it may”.
These are people, not “redundancies”. They contributed in the old organization, and they could contribute in the new, but they never even got the chance.
Oh they’re redundancies to IGN alright, they literally bought their competitors and got to kill competition with zero resistance
There used to be laws against this shit.
people also used to vote in their own interests
Especially because from what was said, the employees were told the sites will be bought “as is”, so everyone gets to keep their jobs.
It’s in situations such as these where C-suites being required to also apply to them what they apply to others would be nice:
- CFO or CEO at IGN has to quit. Won’t hurt them much, but eh.
- CEO at Reedpop has to sell themselves (into slavery I suppose, plus it fits what they do to their workers).
There never was a chance.
Generally when companies like this are bought it isn’t to acquire the talent. That’s legitimately what needs to be taken into account when it comes to things like antitrust. You want to buy out this company, are you buying it because you want their talent to join with yours to make something better? Cool. We’ll let you do that provided you do it today fair and competitive manner.
Any other reason for wanting to buy this company is going to need to be pretty heavily scrutinized.
Redundancy means that they get paid for being made to leave the company. That terminology is used because it’s different from being fired.
It’s basically just British terminology for layoffs with a severance package.
It amounts to the same thing, though. Whether you got a few months pay to carry you through or not you still lost your income, and there’s no guarantee you’ll ever find a job that matches it in pay, benefits, etc.
Read the guys comment again though. They say their issue is with calling them “redundancies” in a language sense. But it’s not sugar coating it or anything, that’s the legitimate term for what happened.
As soon as ign bought humble bundle it turned to shit
Oooh that’s why it’s been ass for a while now 🤦♂️
While I still “subscribe” to Humble, I don’t recall the last time I actually unpaused a month. Maybe this is the push I needed. Their offerings have been mostly subpar after they bought Humble. Not knocking the indie devs, I think my gaming tastes have changes over the years. Also, I don’t need coupons for DLC, please and thank you.
I had been a Humble Monthly subscriber since they first started it. 6 months ago my husband and I both canceled our subscriptions. Used to be some really good bundles, but now it’s just shovelware and DLC coupons.
Has there been any good bundles in the last 10 years? According to my email history the last time I bought something from them was at the end of 2014, and even before then I’d been complaining about it’s quality.
My thoughts exactly. I’m not going to boycott them, but good will is lost.
If you’re not going to boycott them, your lack of good will is literally meaningless.
Dully noted
Buying out competition and throwing out the workers confident that investors won’t back a small dog against a big one
In an investor run economy, competition means you might lose a bet. For an investor its better to reduce competition than lose bets. This is originally why anti trust legislation was created: The market needs to be forced to compete or it will amalgamate into a giant blob of noncompeting assets.
High taxes exist to reduce accumulation of assets and slow down the snowballing effect of huge investors. This is what the trump tax cuts look like.
This is originally why anti trust legislation was created
If you look at the history of anti-trust legislation, some of its first uses and biggest targets were labor organizers. Under the Sherman Antitrust Act, one of the first and most notable cases was the US lawsuit against the Workingmen’s Amalgamated Council (also known as the “Triple Alliance” of teamsters, scalesmen, and packers) over what was then the largest labor action in US history.
It wasn’t until the 1914 Clayton Antitrust Act that unions were granted safe harbor from anti-trust provisions. And it took until 1941 for the courts to finally fully decriminalize labor actions - a process that was ultimately reversed starting in the 1960s under Nixon, and extended under Ford, Carter, and then Reagan.
High taxes exist to reduce accumulation of assets and slow down the snowballing effect of huge investors.
That’s the Keynesian approach, certainly. But the Chicago School that came to dominate US economics during the Volcker Era suggested instead that we can adjust the Federal Funds rate to keep malinvestment from derailing an economy. And that this strategy means asset accumulation is now safe and profitable for large corporate interests.
Large investment banks are actually good, because they give us a steady and constant flow of price information on a private market. And since price discovery is the real goal of regulation, the advent of these mega-banks means we can let the institutions regulate themselves without any conceivable downsi- sound of the 2008 market crash
Really hoping that we see more stuff like Second Wind, though that took some real name recognition (and I suspect some pre-planning) to pull off.
RPS already has an article “celebrating Alices in games” as a sneaky attack on this.
At RPS we like Alices. When somebody comes along with the name “Alice” you don’t just say “oh hi” like some insolent rube. You nod with solemn respect and you say, “Alice”. An Alice is someone you should not take lightly, nor take for granted, nor leave unmonitored. For they will destroy worlds and build better ones while you are not looking. This is dangerous and exciting. Alices are a force to be reckoned with. To treat an Alice poorly is to invite shame, dishonour, and contempt. Here are some of the best Alices in video games!
But that’s it, readers. That’s literally ALL the Alices we can possibly think of. What about you? Can you think of any Alices who deserve to be celebrated?
Guys job will probably fall off a window after this, but God he probably felt awesome when publishing
- Governments should only allow big mergers in exceptional circumstances
- Big conglomerates should be broken up
They are bad for the workers, and bad for the consumers. Half of the time, also bad for the shareholders (according to an old McK study). Lives are being ruined for billionaires to gamble for more billions.
Going rogue is how the TWiT network started I think - when Leo and co used to have a show called The Screensavers but it ended.
I remember the TechTV days before G4 took over. AotS was fun but never really replaced Screen Savers. Then G4 did whatever the fuck it did (mostly airing ghost hunters from what I remember) and went off air so we lost that too. Then there was the terrible attempt at revival a few years ago that failed spectacularly.
TWiT is still going though. Maybe something cool will come out of this.
This is a part of the beginning of it. Centralization results in layoffs and worse products. This is why we have antitrust laws, now they go unenforced because of corruption. AI is going to replace a lot of jobs and we’re going to get shittier products while the winning corporations continue to make more money. Winner take all system is bad for everyone.
Oh no, I love Alice :( She just moved, relatively recently…
I guess I can finally stop reading RPS now.
wtf. You can’t fire Alice, she is RPS
The old Ziff Davis Nasty
I’m amazed they are allowed to own both publishing for video games (Humble) and publishing for journalism.
I’m amazed they are allowed to own
By this point I’m surprised that they’re not allowed to own people, seeing as their business model treats people as if they are property.
Let the IGN monopoly begin. Gaming journalism has been a joke for years now. But now it’s getting worst.
You now have a chance to follow some of their independent blogs, support them that way, fuck all this big companies, they are laying of everyone for ai
Did anyone ever think that any workplace anywhere is about the value produced and wages rather than tribalistic fuckshit?
I’d say this is the perfect time to start a really regular and dedicated games review site. They have to start somewhere and if you’re trusted and good then you’ll get a following.
Yeah… Let’s call it… G4tv
It’s tough. A long-standing rule of video games media–even well before web publishing–is that reviews don’t pay the bills. Hype gets clicks, as do guides now that independent guide writing has waned.
The recent layoffs at the company have been swift and impactful. Notably, several unique positions were affected, leaving entire job functions uncovered. This move suggests a potential restructuring or shift towards automation using artificial intelligence, which is concerning.
In particular, the departure of Alice Bell is deeply regrettable. Her exceptional contributions were instrumental in maintaining the company’s operations during challenging times. Additionally, her leadership in the Electronic Wireless Show podcast was pivotal. It is hoped that, similar to Indiescovery, the podcast team will continue independently to preserve its value.
These developments paint a concerning picture of the company’s future.
