TheGamer lays off editorial staff with entire features team decimated

TheGamer laid off its entire features team alongside several other editorial staff members. The layoffs were expected, according to staff who spoke with VGC, but the scale of the job cuts surprised those still employed at TheGamer. According to VGC, in a separate report, 1,200 games journalists have departed the media in the past two years, marking a global reduction of 25% in games journalists. 

Various Media outlets, not just TheGamer, recently laid off a substantial number of gaming journalists, including IGN, Fandom, and Dexerto. The cause of the decline is largely attributed to the wave of redundancies going across gaming publications, which is a result of shifting industry trends as a result of various factors: AI, search engine optimization (SEO) changes, and gaming content demand. 

Just a couple of years ago, the allure of esports and its audience reach was alluring for investors, thereby increasing the legitimacy of the video games industry as a source of investment. But now, investors are not looking as eagerly at gaming as an opportunity as they used to, prompting media outlets to rely primarily on ads and clicks to raise money. Because of changes in Google’s SEO, which are influenced heavily by AI and generative summaries, viewership is far more difficult to compete for in the present day than it was four, maybe five years ago, causing instabilities in gaming publications. 

Most of the big publications compete for coverage on the biggest video game titles, such as Battlefield 6 and Hollow Knight: Silksong, resulting in a back-and-forth in Google search rankings for the games. Press-Engine co-founder Gareth Williams stated that fan-led media “might be the simplest route to consolidate revenue for publishers and secure the future for staff, but it’s only the start.”