It’s yet another grim day in games media, and Fandom – the wiki network that owns GameSpot, Giant Bomb, Metacritic, and GameFAQs, among others – is once again to blame. Today’s layoffs were especially severe: According to several current Fandom employees who spoke to Aftermath on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, Fandom has laid off 11 percent of its staff. On the games media side of things, that includes many GameSpot video team members and GameSpot UK.
The day began with GameSpot staffers taking to social media to announce that they’d lost their jobs.
"GameSpot was the goal. Reached it sooner than I thought I would," wrote GameSpot video producer DeVante Chisolm. "Now that it's over... idk."
"While I may have issues with the folks who have owned GameSpot throughout my time there, I always loved working with the GameSpot team," wrote senior editor Chris Hayner. "Best team I've been on. We made so much out of so little and made it work."
According to current Fandom staff, employees were invited to an all-hands meeting earlier today in which CEO Perkins Miller broke the news, chalking the layoffs up to a broader restructuring of the company in the face of market changes, as well as a failure to hit revenue goals. In addition to GameSpot UK and video team members, Fandom employees in sales and management were also affected, say current employees from Fandom’s gaming group, who are still taking stock of damage to the company beyond their own departments. On social media, staff from Screen Junkies, the Fandom-owned home of pop culture video series like "Honest Trailers," also reported that they’ve been let go.
Despite all this, gaming remains a core part of Fandom's business, though one current employee added that "Gaming is still a focus in that they don't have any other focuses."
A Fandom representative declined to provide further details on record.
GameSpot staff were blindsided and now find themselves once again picking up the pieces, after weathering another round of layoffs just a few months after Fandom purchased the site in 2023, as well as a smaller batch earlier this year.
"It’s rough," one current employee told Aftermath. "A big part of that is because we didn’t really see it coming. ... It was a bit of a rugpull."
