Employees of the online gaming publication, Fanbyte, were the latest casualties of layoffs today. Tencent laid off nearly all of the editorial staff of Fanbyte's staff including the site's editor-in-chief and head of media.
According to Kotaku, the layoff came as a total surprise to the employees. Some employees claimed that "they had just worked with some of the laid-off staff an hour before the sudden firings."
Tencent Fires the Fanbyte Employees One-by-one
The firing of employees at Fanbyte are the latest layoffs in the game media following what took place in Future and G4TV.
John Warren, Fanbyte's head of media, announced that the company let go of him. Afterwards, Danielle Riendeau, the site's EIC, also made an announcement that she had been laid off, too.
Following Warren and Riendeau's announcement, multiple staff of Fanbyte have confirmed that the company has let them go, too. Meanwhile, other employees are waiting to find out if they will be laid off too.
Tweets of Merritt K, one of the final remaining staff at Fanbyte, said that among those who lost their jobs are the site's editor-in-chief, head of media, features editor, social editor, news editor, graphic designer, podcast producer and several writers.
According to Kotaku, they spoke to some Fanbyte staff regarding the layoffs. The employees told them that "nobody really knows how widespread the layoffs are."
Multiple employees told Kotaku that the Fanbyte management is sending the news to the staffers one-by-one.
Around half a dozen staffs had publicly confirmed that they were laid off as of 2:05 p.m. ET. According to Fanbyte employees, this number will likely increase.
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Fanbyte's Layoffs is an Agonizing Experience for Employees
Fanbyte is an online gaming publication that was launched in 2018. The site, however, existed prior to the launch in a different form known as Zam.
Fanbyte is a subsidiary of Tencent Holdings Limited, also known as Tencent.
Tencent is huge Chinese conglomerate that keeps on expanding its reach by buying up various studios, publishers, and more.
Tencent is also the world's biggest gaming company. It is considered as "the most valuable company in China," according to TechCrunch.
The gaming conglomerate "holds a stake" in dozens of international game studios and gaming companies including Riot Games, Epic Games, Roblox, Discord, and Pocket Gems.
Other properties of Tencent includes WeChat, the Chinese social media superapp, and Tencent Music.
Last quarter Tencent posted its first revenue decline. Following the revenue decline, the company laid off about 5% of its workforce. The layoffs impacted 5,000 people.
Tencent seemed to handle Fanbyte's layoff poorly as employees were laid off slowly. Over the course of several hours, the employees were sent the news that they no longer have a job one-by-one.
TechCrunch described it as an agonizing moment for employees to read tweets from their co-workers that they are looking for a new job.
Fanbyte has been creating interesting and unique content since its launch in 2018. Among its interesting content is the amazing coverage of professional wrestling. They also covered popular MMOs and other live-service games.
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