Entertainment company Fandom has laid off an unspecified number of employees at multiple venues, including Giant Bomb, GameSpot, and Metacritic. These properties are primarily focused on publishing content about games and TV shows.
Variety reports that the company employs about 500 people, and layoffs have affected about 10% of its staff at various sites. According to Kotaku, employees were caught off guard by this surprise announcement made by his CEO Perkins Miller during an all-hands meeting.
The layoffs come months after Fandom acquired a number of brands (Comic Vine, Cord Cutters News, GameFAQs, GameSpot, Giant Bomb, Metacritic, TV Guide) from Red Ventures in October. At the time, sources told TechCrunch that the deal was worth about $55 million.
In announcing the acquisition, Fandom said the deal would help the company provide “super services” to its advertising partners and fuel the data platform and gaming e-commerce sectors. Fandom was founded in 2004 by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales and entrepreneur Angela Beasley.
Some, including GameSpot’s entertainment editor Matt Elfring, video producer Jess O’Brien aka “Boydberger,” and graphic designer Justin Vachon, tweeted about the frustrating layoffs.
We’ve reached out to Fandom for comment and will update the story if we hear back.
Several gaming and entertainment media outlets have faced layoffs in the past few months. Some IGN staff were affected last month, while a Polygon employee was laid off as part of his July Vox layoffs.
