Tencent Sacks Majority of Staff at Gaming News Site Fanbyte Without Warning
Multimedia and gaming corporate giant Tencent suddenly sacked the majority of its gaming news site Fanbyte’s staff without a warning.
News about the layoffs came to light when former employees started tweeting about it. Even Fanbyte’s head of media John Warren and editor-in-chief Danielle Riendeau were included in the mass firing.
Wild to say but I was laid off from Fanbyte today. Will probably try to take a breath and figure out what I want to do but in the meantime I want to make sure everyone affected by media layoffs this week finds their footing.
— John E Warren ♿️🤠 (@FloppyAdult) September 15, 2022
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Hi friends. I just want to say it's been a true honor and pleasure to be the editor in chief of Fanbyte. I think we did some special things there! I am… currently looking for work.
— Danielle Riendeau (@Danielleri) September 15, 2022
Besides them, the sudden layoffs included almost everyone, even the interns.
I've been laid off from Fanbyte. Incredibly proud of everything I got to do there, and with everyone I have worked with — these are the most talented folks in games media, and I'm honored I got to be there while I could.
— Elise Favis (@elisefavis) September 15, 2022
A lot of people have seen this tweet and not the quote tweet: I was laid off just minutes later! Slack access was gone mid-call, so I couldn’t respond to him, and now I can’t access my work email to follow up on a project I was working on. Great times!
— Charles Harte (@chuckduck365) September 15, 2022
hey they just laid off my bosses at Fanbyte so i dont think i have a job‼️ this is nuts. im looking for writing/online/games narrative work, any shares are appreciated❣️
— ☆fūnk-é (@funkefly) September 15, 2022
Meanwhile, a person who handled Fanbyte’s social media accounts, who was justifiably angry, did this following their layoff:
wow i love looking at the fanbyte dot com account on the popular social media app instagram pic.twitter.com/RqK7PRFrzq
— the gyarados of hot women (@RenOrRaven) September 15, 2022
It was deleted almost immediately, but hats off to whoever did this. The last primal cry of indignation from Fanbyte.
They lived, bitch. They lived. pic.twitter.com/hjEU9gwd02
— Dominic Tarason (@DominicTarason) September 15, 2022
As of now, neither Fanbyte nor Tencent had released any statements regarding this situation. However, many people were pointing out Tencent’s recent decline in revenue to be the culprit, but that remains to be unconfirmed. Moreover, Fanbyte’s social media accounts are still functioning (and even posting) despite the massive layoffs internally.
The layoffs at Fanbyte also came after this week’s series of layoffs that saw British media company Future plc and American pay television and digital network G4TV having their own respective massive layoffs.
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