IGN immediately lays off every non-UK person at their newly bought sites, including some key members like deputy editor Alice Bell ( aftermath.site )

Welp, this didn't take long.

It's especially interesting that they laid off a lot of people who were the only ones in their particular job, leaving entire jobs uncovered. I suspect this comes right before shutting them entirely or doing it all "with AI" 🤮.

Sad in particular about Alice Bell. She was fantastic, and it always felt like she kept the site going through all the shit of recent years. Plus being the driving force behind their podcast (the Electronic Wireless Show) of course also spells doom for that one though I hope that like Indiescovery they go rogue and run it independent of the site.

Bleak times. Fuck IGN.

shaytan ,
@shaytan@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

You now have a chance to follow some of their independent blogs, support them that way, fuck all this big companies, they are laying of everyone for ai

Empricorn ,

These giant corporations don't even have to be quiet about it anymore, there's just no consequences. They couldn't care less about you, me, their customers, or their employees.

aquafunk , (edited )
@aquafunk@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

They care about being able to hire labor, which we provide, and they care about revenue and profit, which we also provide. Not defending any behavior, but the consequences in a healthy economy would largely come from customers, potential and current employees. Failing that, large issues would be overcome by regulations, or at least enforcing existing ones (codified rules against monopolies, for examples, are just words if not enforced).

Without consumers willing (and able) to make sacrifices (like paying higher prices) to reward good corporate behavior, and to avoid companies with purely short-term profit motivated behavior, this is what we can and should expect. Nevermind companies are rewarded by shareholder and investor support based more on profits than.how those profits were made, especially when many of those shareholders feel forced to turn to the stock market to fund their retirement, as pensions are so increasingly a rare option.

Would voting for fresh representatives possibly increase instability in out daily lives? Is that instability a possibly necessary cost of maintaining effective regulation of the investor class that has captured our legislative system to their own benefit?

There are systemic problems at play here- not to downplay the choices this individual company made, but the focus could be on the larger forces at work. If your first reaction is that boycotts and choices by consumers and employees, no matter how organized and widespread, do not work, then I ask you, dear reader, to consider what might work to make the necessary systemic changes, and what, if anything, you can do to help make them happen.

The investor class has made it clear what their playbook is, as they have time and time again thru history: explotation, and as much of it as they can get away with. The question then becomes what us, the ever-increasingly exploited, are going to do about it.

no war but class war.

ed:I hope that didnt come off as disagreement- just trying to voice frustration with a side of "everyone who agrees with you please take a moment to think about the big picture, and what you can do about it" because I'm also tired of this slide into an increasingly boring dystopia

ampersandrew ,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

Without consumers willing (and able) to make sacrifices (like paying higher prices) to reward good corporate behavior, and to avoid companies with purely short-term profit motivated behavior, this is what we can and should expect.

I think consumers have spoken, at least in part. What money can be made doing this job is more easily made on YouTube.

Carighan OP ,
@Carighan@lemmy.world avatar

Which sucks due to the innate near-inability of a Youtube video to carry an argument without a visual component well.

It's why podcasts can be decent for some topics, but youtube is just someone talking a podcast into the camera for 45 minutes, and all of it would be ~5 minutes reading a single paragraph at most if it were in written form but you really really realy got to chase those ad-impressions.

Non-textual forms for textual content have really been their own destructive blight on internet content. :'(

ampersandrew ,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

I get my gaming news from YouTube podcasts, mostly; at least those two do employ people actually doing some of that same type of work. It doesn't really matter how good Schreier is at his job when I'm not going pay for a Bloomberg subscription and someone else can more cheaply copy the same content and tell me what it said. The video format gives me more of a dialogue with the person who did the work. Plus ads are much more easily defeated on a web page than on YouTube, though they are still partially defeated.

wrekone ,

Thank you for eloquently saying what I often struggle to convey. I'm saving this comment for later reference.

CitizenKong ,

Someone should remind them that they didn't do it the last hundred years or so because the alternative was angry mobs trying to kill them.

billiam0202 ,

Someone should remind the angry mobs that they should be angry mobs.

N_Crow ,
@N_Crow@leminal.space avatar

You guys are still reading IGN?

woelkchen ,
@woelkchen@lemmy.world avatar

You guys are still reading IGN?

No, that's why they buy other sites.

mPony ,

to add their technological and cultural distinctiveness to their own

I_Miss_Daniel ,

Going rogue is how the TWiT network started I think - when Leo and co used to have a show called The Screensavers but it ended.

sirico ,
@sirico@feddit.uk avatar

We also got Digg out of it, while it ended up poo reddit and lemmy wouldn't be quite the same without it.

Diplomjodler3 ,

,,,,,,,,,

Here are a few commas, in case you'll ever need any.

thefartographer ,

Thanks! I'll use, them liberally and, with reckless abandon! Look, earrings!

,😁,

TexasDrunk ,

I remember the TechTV days before G4 took over. AotS was fun but never really replaced Screen Savers. Then G4 did whatever the fuck it did (mostly airing ghost hunters from what I remember) and went off air so we lost that too. Then there was the terrible attempt at revival a few years ago that failed spectacularly.

TWiT is still going though. Maybe something cool will come out of this.

kinsnik ,

RPS already has an article “celebrating Alices in games” as a sneaky attack on this.

Railcar8095 ,

At RPS we like Alices. When somebody comes along with the name "Alice" you don't just say "oh hi" like some insolent rube. You nod with solemn respect and you say, "Alice". An Alice is someone you should not take lightly, nor take for granted, nor leave unmonitored. For they will destroy worlds and build better ones while you are not looking. This is dangerous and exciting. Alices are a force to be reckoned with. To treat an Alice poorly is to invite shame, dishonour, and contempt. Here are some of the best Alices in video games!

But that's it, readers. That's literally ALL the Alices we can possibly think of.
What about you? Can you think of any Alices who deserve to be celebrated?

Guys job will probably fall off a window after this, but God he probably felt awesome when publishing

Damage ,

Can't wait to start following the new sites (blogs at first, probably) these people create.

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