Mass Layoffs inbound across CBSi

@brian_: Could be a couple of things, or a combination of them:

1. CBS wants to make its end-of-year numbers look good. I don't know how big the layoffs are, but if they cross a certain threshold, they'll trigger WARN or a state-equivalent. Those require 60+ days notice to affected employees. By doing it now, they make sure the positions come off the books by Dec. 31.

2. CBS made certain assertions to RV during the negotiation process and fudged the numbers a bit to entice RV into the deal. Something like "You'll be getting X employees currently on Y salary" when CBS knew that there was currently more of X and Y than they had promised. So now they need to balance the books or RV could back out.

3. RV wants certain positions gone and is getting CBS to be the "bad guy."

@brian_: Often happens like that but the selling company usually consults with the buyer. For example, not usually "you must lose 10% of the workforce as part of the deal, you choose who to fire" and more likely "we already have a social team and engineers so you need to eat the severance costs in those departments on your end".

Extreme bummer all around. A lot of video folks being let go.

Jess McDonnell and Edmond Tran are big losses. Fuuuuck.

9 and 12 years. Only to be cut by acquisition. What a fucking ghoulish event... I can't even imagine how that would feel normally, let alone under the current world. I can only hope that experience will come with a relatively quick transition to a better post.

My heart goes out to Jess, Ashley, Edmond, Tony, and everyone else effected by the layoffs. Hoping for the best possible outcomes for the crew and GB as the year closes.

I've loved this team and been following them from their gamespot days. I'll never forget an episode of the HotSpot when the group were talking about that years Madden game and "Flying that flag!" I've come to thoroughly love all the new folks, and miss those who have moved on. I was moved to tears when we lost Ryan, an internet personality I had never met but felt like I knew. Hearing this news is disheartening for me and likely unbearable for the team.

No matter where you all end up, you'll have a loyal group of supporters right behind you.

this sucks shit, man

Been through quite a few M&A's, on both sides, and unfortunately conventional wisdom in business is that any company you acquire can safely afford to lose at least 10% of it's workforce. ESPECIALLY if it's a venture capital company doing the buying. And that is before considering redundancies, etc.

Should also expect to see senior management at CNet and GS replaced by the venture capital company's preferred "A Team" of managers that they move to each new acquisition. Though anyone pushed out by that sort of move will generally float away on a golden parachute, so don't cry for them too hard.

This sucks :(

Jesus Christ I just thought this was limited to GS Aus with the tweets I saw this morning but this is fucked up

And this is why i wasn't optimistic about the buy.

I'm not sure if anyone knows this or not, but (and god forbid) in the event that the staff at Giant Bomb get laid off, what happens to the past content on the site? Is it wholly owned by CBSi/RV?

Usually they save the Hotspot for these kind of chats, so im curious if they will even mention it and if they are safe from the layoffs at all or can't

But 5 days to go to see if GB remains unaffected or not.

This fucking sucks. Best wishes to all.

I look forward to Arrow Pointing Down 2.0: Patreon Edition.

These are weird choices for cuts on the GameSpot side - unless they are planning on closing the international GS offices wholesale and only keep the US side folks around.

Giant Bomb has been a really consistent and stable comfort in my life for the last decade plus, so I'm feeling a lot of trepidation with this situation. I feel for all the GS folks let go already, especially after such long tenures. The corporate world is just fucking heartless and ruthless. I want to remain optimistic but it's hard not to feel extremely nervous about GB and Bakalar.

@humanity: I would imagine that is exactly what it means. Overseas staff can be very expensive, especially if RV doesn't already have a presence in those countries already.

They aren't going to "make cuts" at GB. They will leave it alone or just dump the entire thing.

GB aside, CBSi laying off the GS Australia staff is awful. Those guys went through thick and thin with GS, and it's insane that people who were with a company for 9 and 12 years would be let go in this manner. Fuck CBSi.

@magnetphonics: Yeah, that sounds accurate. Too small for any trimming to make sense unless you're just cutting it loose. Even if they tried to trim, considering what a personality focused site it is, any cuts to staff will kill a lot of subscription revenue and kinda force the issue.

To reiterate: this fucking sucks.

This type of stuff always sucks, I hope that all the talented folks affected by these cuts land on their feet but man this stuff super sucks. You'll always see people defending cuts like these too because of all the up and coming games journalists and video people looking for work. However cutting tenured quality talented workers just because the new crop will settle for less than living wage in some instances is and always will be scummy. Scummy as shit. It's what asshole business people do.

Before anyone hits me with the "but cuts have to happen so what are you going to do" I'll just say I've seen countless examples of large companies making cuts in way healthier and less scummy ways than this. Even recently my friends business underwent massive cuts; and while some divisions did see straight layoffs they avoided a ton of layoffs by offering their senior staff already above a certain age early retirement incentives. It's no secret though that the games industry at large cycles through talented workers in various fields from journalism to game development. Sticking it out in that industry for a long time, even as long as some of the GB staff even have is rare. That said I have no actual inside knowledge of this situation so I'll leave it there. From the outside looking in though this seems like a raw deal for everyone involved. Positions being made redundant is often another word for throwing the one person does on another persons plate. But given they were recently acquired one would have to wait and see what actual Gamespot looks like and is planning to do going forward here.

What kind of redundancy could they be addressing if they cut 9 and 12 year veterans of the company? Just shameful. The way we tolerate mass layoffs because it's an "acquisition" is a disgrace and further proof that labor is under the boot in this society. In fact, it's probably going to be one of the most important ways that capital disrupts any stability for modern workers. That and billionaires suing shit left and right to their whims.

Remember how many billions were spent in the original Viacom CBS merger, and the money spent here and yet well loved and respected people in the company get the door. What a sick joke.

People put years of their lives to build and rebuild these sites into something and then oops sorry, you were just an asset for our brand portfolio.

https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/the-adults-in-the-room-1837487584https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/the-adults-in-the-room-1837487584

Honestly, given this shit economy which our dictator led us into with blinking, I'm just curious if I'll get future years of subscription refunded when things go belly up.

Earlier this year I was worried about losing my job due to a merger. There was word on the street about how layoffs were happening. Two teams merged together, then the manager laid off everybody who wasn’t part of their original team pre-merger. Some talk felt like it was more across the board.

I work for a really big company and it’s hard to gauge how many people were laid off. The messaging was sugar coated, but the subtext was “We’re going to lay a bunch of people off to get it out of the way”. They didn’t want to do it over time or take 6 months to do it. It all seemed to happen over a month. Meanwhile I had to sit and wait. I’m thankful to still have a job, but that takes a toil on you.

I was laid off once before due to a project getting canned and I was out of work for 2 months. I’m sure many of us have similar stories or close calls, especially with the pandemic. I don’t know....I posted earlier saying this fucking sucks and hope everybody is ok, but I’ve been checking this forum and Twitter on and off tonight checking to see if anybody got laid off. Really hope Giant Bomb, GameSpot, and CNET aren’t impacted too badly.

I just threw up a little in my mouth

I really really hope GiantBomb makes it. This content has been a source of comfort in my life during stressful times since I became a member 5 years ago. I’m going through a divorce right now which would obviously suck no matter what but listening to all the old Game of the Year deliberations has been a great relief. This site means so much to so many people. I hope Red Ventures can see the value in that.

It does make me wonder what kind of deal Jeff made when they were selling the site in regards to ownership in the brand. It would be kind of nuts to see Jeff or anyone suddenly get laid off from a site they created because they no longer have any real control over it. I would imagine if they laid off anyone important like Vinny or Brad then possible all of them would leave and reform elsewhere..? Although at this point in their life it's not getting any easier to build things from the ground up and invest a ton of capital into a project so that it can start paying off in a year or two.

Worst case scenario is what happened to Screened content (pretty much disappeared except for user archives of video) though I'm guessing it is less likely now that all of the free stuff is on Youtube. Good thing I got my internet upgraded recently because I've started grabbing subscriber shows with that CLI tool but I might run out of HDD space pretty soon even if I'm getting the low quality ones.

I'm not going to start wondering about people's careers in detail but I'm guessing RV already has tech devs and I don't know if they need more? I've lost two jobs due to different reasons and it wasn't the end of the world but I can only imagine it would be tough to be in that situation in the US in 2020. Hope everyone lands on their feet.

@bacongames: “What kind of redundancy could they be addressing if they cut 9 and 12 year veterans of the company? ”

People often make the mistake of thinking that seniority should count for something in these types of scenarios. In reality, the people who have been around the longest often have the highest salaries and are the most favorable to be let go. This is, also, why many long running tv shows are cancelled despite being relatively healthy. It’s cheaper to train new, cheaper talent than it is to keep paying old people with demands.

@humanity: I have no idea what I’m talking about, but I think Giant Bomb is safe. Jeff has made sure to diversify the site’s revenue in such a way that they could continue to make money a huge number of ways. They may not be going back to any office, ever, but they could keep doing what they are doing and cost the company very little.

@fluidk: I certainly hope everyone's optimism about how lucrative and financially stable GB is at moment will prove true - I have no idea and don't know what the situation is.

As to your previous comment about seniority that I can attest to. Especially in this industry seniority is "nice" but not necessary. Jess while great was not anyone that couldn't be replaced with a newcomer that would be paid far less than her. Thats not diminishing her abilities but it's a harsh reality. People like Danny O'Dwyer, Mary Kish, Chris Watters and Peter Brown were what felt like cornerstones of GameSpot and the site didn't skip a beat after each of them left (of their own volition thankfully). There are very few irreplaceable people, and even then companies are often willing to bite the loss for a chance to lower the payroll.

I always assumed the biggest cost in running GB would be the cost of serving the decades of videos, the live streams, etc. But they’ve been clearly able to drive that down significantly in recent years. With the switch to defaulting all non-premium videos over to YouTube, or doing all the free live streams over Twitch. Would be curious to get a ballpark figure on how much they’ve been able to save.

The salaries, hell, all of us could name every single one of their handful of people. Uh, 9 in total, plus Business Dave? At this moment, I actually worry most about Dave, or Will and the rest of engineering. GB’s already one short since Dan left. The entire GB East is all of 3 people.

A real shame for all involved. Jess was one of the few at Gamespot whose content I always enjoyed and hope she finds a new home. That said I think Gamespot as felt a little aimless in recent years. Really hope GB isn't affected but you just never know.

Wasn't Jeff reasonably positive about the changes happening in a tweet a few weeks back or did I dream that up?

This makes sense in a gross sort of way. To my mind RV isn't necessarily interested in buying businesses. They're buying CNET's (and Gamespot's, and Metacritic's, etc.) PageRank. I expect that they will spend the next few years strip-mining the site's accrued credibility by ensuring that every user that visits CNET is being stuffed down a sales funnel.

Honestly, the thing that would bum me out more than Giant Bomb shuttering is watching it become twisted into some weird affiliate marketing site where constant pressure is applied to the staff to meet sales numbers and boost SEO.

All things end. And I never expected to like Giant Bomb for as long as I have. So even if this acquisition does end up being the beginning of the end for GB I will still consider my membership for the last few years as money well spent.

My expectation is they will still merge Gamespot and Giantbomb into a unified site. Boost Gamespot’s revenue with GB’s subscription premium program. They will keep everyone on staff, but move them to the newly merged company.

I think they will reasonably assume a vast majority of GB subscribers will follow the GB team to Gamespot if all of them are still involved.

The only reason I could see them keep both sites separate is if GB is so expensive to merge on the backend that it does not make it worthwhile.

If they merge GB and GS, it might give GB a little spark that's been missing for ages

He basically said that he didn't have any real information about what was going on, but that he was cautiously optimistic, which is what I think you pretty much have to say when you're being bought out and don't really know much about what's happening.

This sucks so much. Fuck venture capitalists and their childish, short-sighted view of business. They're out-of-touch vampires who lucked their way into a stupid amount of money and think that that somehow makes them smarter than people who actually work for a living to build their brands' value. Mark my words, they will turn all of the sites they bought into SEO-leeching, zombified shells the same way they did to every other site they've bought in the last 10 years. The only reason GB might be safe is because it's so small.

A lot of people in this thread are saying that because GB is profitable, they probably won't be touched. With all due respect, I don't think they really understand how corporations like Red Vultures operate. Making a profit isn't the goal; it's about making more profit. And then more profit. And then more profit still. In American corporate culture, there's no such thing as achieving sustainability, being content that you're doing good work and turning a steady profit. If you aren't making considerably more money than you were last quarter, you have failed, and things Need To Be Changed.™ There is no long-term plan because the executives in charge of making the major decisions are compensated based on the company's quarterly earnings. The higher-ups are constantly in a sprint to make this quarter's numbers look as good as possible, because that's how they get bigger bonuses. This is why they're willing to make patently terrible decisions (like firing dozens of members of crucial senior staff); they don't care that this will cripple the website in the long term, but they do care that they get to shave these employees' salaries and benefits off of their expense sheet this quarter. This is what people mean when they describe these organizations as "strip-mining" sites. Their plan is to extract as much short-term value from them as they possibly can and then dump them (or jump ship, if we're talking about individual executives) once they start to fail as a result of your destroying their ability to operate.

I don't even know what the right answer is anymore for how to start a company. If you accept capital from outside investors, you're always running the risk of being sold off to some moron who fundamentally doesn't understand your business model. If you go independent, it becomes waaaay harder to fund your startup costs and you're on the hook for paying for all of your employees' benefits. Especially with a site like GB, a shit ton of capital would be needed upfront, and I'm not sure that banks or credit unions would be willing to loan it to a new business, even one run by a crew of consummate professionals.

I'd pay them more than the subscription cost if they have to go to Patreon. The Giant Bomb crew has been my entertainment since they started doing video on Gamespot. Their content has become increasingly more important as I get older because I can't play everything. I cannot stand most other video game things on YouTube, nor gamer culture for the most part. These dudes are normal and relatable. That is invaluable these days.

@jeff I just thought of something (which has probably been discussed in the past). If you replicated the Patreon model with monthly tiers, I'm pretty positive the community would pay more than $50 a year. You see the numbers, so you'd know better than me if makes sense.

@djhicks1:

Just to keep things in perspective:

1. Starting over is incredibly expensive and difficult. They have to buy every single piece of gear again. They will have to find a firm or bank to back the development of a new site - which will take months to finish. They will have to do a ton of marketing and selling.

2. While you and I would follow them, they have to expect a significant drop off in subscribers who will not follow them.

3. They are in far different, more risk adverse places in their personal lives. They would lose health insurance and the security of a stable paycheck.

Just saying - don’t expect another Arrow Pointing Down as a guarantee. This sucks. I wish it didn’t happen. I hope for the best and I change at all. Just try not to get your hopes too high for when the news comes out next week whatever it is.

Edit: to be clear by only partial subs moving to a whole new thing: my speculation is that the site redirecting to a merged entity, maintaining their subscription terms, and needing no new investment will retain significantly more than trying to get folks to a whole new thing and asking for another $50 from folks who may have just paid.

I'm surprised how quickly people are jumping to conclusions that GB is getting scrapped and telling Jeff to start a Patreon.

The next week's gonna be uncertain. I wouldn't expect GB to "close down" or anything but there could be an unfortunate layoff. Whatever happens, they'll need to react to it on an individual basis. Just hang tight, guys, no need to panic over a theoretical future that we can't predict.

I would encourage people to not jump to conclusions about the future of GB.

I'm sure Jeff will let it be known if/when there's any significant news on that front.

It seems irresponsible to speculate too much about this, but from a purely cold and calculated economic standpoint. I'd just note that GB has a very distinct business model from the other properties mentioned (Gamespot, CNET). GB is a personality-driven website that makes its money in subscriptions. Like a Twitch channel, the entire value of GB (its profit generating 'assets') is found in the personalities that we have come to know and love. It's not in the site's equipment or infrastructure or anything else. It would therefore not be smart for their new corporate overloads to treat their talent as a commodity that can be easily cut/replaced.

If Ninja simply sold his Youtube account and all his equipment but stop appearing on his channel, his channel's viewership would plummet and the value of the channel would decrease. It's the same thing here.

I would be done with GB.

Not to freak but that sounds like maybe the worst possible thing to happen.

It sounded like from that Jeff was frustrated with CBS so open to change, but to me didn't read like anything past that at all

Guys you’re all wrong. Here’s how it’ll go down:

Red Ventures tries to shut down GB but twitch sees the wiki integration as too valuable to lose and sues Red Ventures into the dirt and buys them out within a month. Welcome to Twitch presents, Giant Bomb, a Jeff Besos production.

@nevergameover:

I 100% agree with you that is the least likely thing that will happen. Nor do I think they will kill GB entirely. If they are truly profitable on the P&L, that would be a very stupid decision.

I think the most realistic paths are two ways:

1. Merge GS and GB, using the GB subscription revenue model to boost GS advertising based model. Add GS staff to the premium videos (like used to happen when GB first moved to CNET). Keep all GB staff willing to go with the move.

2. Leave GB as is. Likely with requests to cut costs in a way Jeff decides.

I think they will try and make GB (more) profitable. The subs pay the costs but RV is a marketing firm so if anyone can monetize it they can. Jeff might might have to consider lowering his standards on ads and sponsored content a bit and I can see the bandwidth costs being for the chop. Maybe youtube for everything but premium content. With 7 staff members and currently no offices/studios - there isn't much to cut there without shuttering the whole thing.

@alternate: aren't we paying not to have ads?

This sucks... really.

In this trying times, the company of the GB crew has been huge for a lot of people (myself included). I would have been a lot worst during the first months of the lockdown without Alex (Truck Simulator) and Jan (Bloodborne) overcoming the silence... I know it sounds weird for some, but many of them I consider friends, even when I haven't been closer than a thousands miles from them, and it would be awful that they are let go.

But even if GB get through unscattered, even if every one of them keeps their job and nothing changes for them, it is still heartbreaking to hear about the layoffs that are going across the hall in the GS site. To be treated as furniture after years dedicated to the site is plain ugly...