this post was submitted on 22 May 2024
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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" ๐Ÿคฎ.

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.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 228 points 10 months ago (5 children)

I hate how this is phrased as "redundancies". IGN literally JUST bought these outlets, they haven't had time to dig into and examine the organizations they acquired; it's just straight into the Corpo playbook of "lay people off and let the dust settle where it may".

These are people, not "redundancies". They contributed in the old organization, and they could contribute in the new, but they never even got the chance.

[โ€“] [email protected] 57 points 10 months ago

Especially because from what was said, the employees were told the sites will be bought "as is", so everyone gets to keep their jobs.

It's in situations such as these where C-suites being required to also apply to them what they apply to others would be nice:

  • CFO or CEO at IGN has to quit. Won't hurt them much, but eh.
  • CEO at Reedpop has to sell themselves (into slavery I suppose, plus it fits what they do to their workers).
[โ€“] [email protected] 30 points 10 months ago (1 children)

You generally don't buy a business and then figure all of that out. You figure it all out and then buy the business. IGN already would have 100% known the managerial setup at these companies.

[โ€“] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (2 children)

What should happen is not always what does happen. There are tons of examples of brain dead companies and rich people buying companies they dont understand and then ruining them because of that.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago

There never was a chance.

Generally when companies like this are bought it isn't to acquire the talent. That's legitimately what needs to be taken into account when it comes to things like antitrust. You want to buy out this company, are you buying it because you want their talent to join with yours to make something better? Cool. We'll let you do that provided you do it today fair and competitive manner.

Any other reason for wanting to buy this company is going to need to be pretty heavily scrutinized.

[โ€“] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

Redundancy means that they get paid for being made to leave the company. That terminology is used because it's different from being fired.

[โ€“] [email protected] 32 points 10 months ago

It's basically just British terminology for layoffs with a severance package.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 105 points 10 months ago (6 children)

As soon as ign bought humble bundle it turned to shit

[โ€“] [email protected] 78 points 10 months ago

Oooh that's why it's been ass for a while now ๐Ÿคฆโ€โ™‚๏ธ

[โ€“] [email protected] 35 points 10 months ago (1 children)

While I still "subscribe" to Humble, I don't recall the last time I actually unpaused a month. Maybe this is the push I needed. Their offerings have been mostly subpar after they bought Humble. Not knocking the indie devs, I think my gaming tastes have changes over the years. Also, I don't need coupons for DLC, please and thank you.

[โ€“] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago

I had been a Humble Monthly subscriber since they first started it. 6 months ago my husband and I both canceled our subscriptions. Used to be some really good bundles, but now it's just shovelware and DLC coupons.

[โ€“] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Has there been any good bundles in the last 10 years? According to my email history the last time I bought something from them was at the end of 2014, and even before then I'd been complaining about it's quality.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 75 points 10 months ago (2 children)

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.

[โ€“] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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.

[โ€“] [email protected] 22 points 10 months ago

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

[โ€“] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (5 children)

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

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[โ€“] [email protected] 59 points 10 months ago (2 children)

We need more worker owned associations and more workers' rights. This is ridiculous.

[โ€“] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago (5 children)

We also need people to realize that it's not sustainable to expect free content while running an ad-blocker.

[โ€“] [email protected] 32 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The problem is that ad-driven businesses are price dumping by tricking people into using their services by telling them it's free, and thus killing the market for everyone else. I am not turning my adblocker off. I do not expect "free" content in perpetuity. I expect the "free" content business model to die off.

[โ€“] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I expect the โ€œfreeโ€ content business model to die off.

I don't. I expect the vast majority of people will continue to demand free content while simultaneously complaining about the quality of said content.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I disagree. Ads are not the answer. Treating them as such is simply giving up.

[โ€“] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

Agreed, ads are not the answer. Paying for content is the answer.

But people want their content to be free, while also being angry that their free content contains ads.

[โ€“] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago (6 children)

Bro $4,000 OLED TVs are riddled with rows of home screen ads. What are you talking about that paid content has no ads? ALL CONTENT HAS FUCKING ADS. This has gotten absurd. Fuck ads.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

i'll turn off my adblocker when i can be confident that your site won't show me ads for child porn or actual fucking scams.

[โ€“] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago

And not make the site impossible to use.

Most sites nowadays its impossible to actually read a goddamn article without 5 pop in videos and ad breaks.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 43 points 10 months ago (1 children)

RPS already has an article โ€œcelebrating Alices in gamesโ€ as a sneaky attack on this.

[โ€“] [email protected] 43 points 10 months ago

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

[โ€“] [email protected] 42 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

Buying out competition and throwing out the workers confident that investors won't back a small dog against a big one

In an investor run economy, competition means you might lose a bet. For an investor its better to reduce competition than lose bets. This is originally why anti trust legislation was created: The market needs to be forced to compete or it will amalgamate into a giant blob of noncompeting assets.

High taxes exist to reduce accumulation of assets and slow down the snowballing effect of huge investors. This is what the trump tax cuts look like.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 29 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)
  1. Governments should only allow big mergers in exceptional circumstances
  2. Big conglomerates should be broken up

They are bad for the workers, and bad for the consumers. Half of the time, also bad for the shareholders (according to an old McK study). Lives are being ruined for billionaires to gamble for more billions.

[โ€“] [email protected] 24 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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.

[โ€“] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago

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.

[โ€“] [email protected] 24 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

Buys publication
Immediately fires what makes it tick

???
I don't get it. Am I dumb? Are they buying other publications just for the branding?

[โ€“] [email protected] 20 points 10 months ago

Acquiring a company just for the brand or even just to make it disappear is pretty common in all of the corporate world.

[โ€“] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago

Quality worsens. Losing a lot of reliable sources for Wikipedia and other free content sites to use.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 22 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Oh no, I love Alice :( She just moved, relatively recently...

I guess I can finally stop reading RPS now.

[โ€“] [email protected] 21 points 10 months ago

This is a part of the beginning of it. Centralization results in layoffs and worse products. This is why we have antitrust laws, now they go unenforced because of corruption. AI is going to replace a lot of jobs and we're going to get shittier products while the winning corporations continue to make more money. Winner take all system is bad for everyone.

[โ€“] [email protected] 17 points 10 months ago (1 children)

You guys are still reading IGN?

[โ€“] [email protected] 41 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

You guys are still reading IGN?

No, that's why they buy other sites.

[โ€“] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago

to add their technological and cultural distinctiveness to their own

[โ€“] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago

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

[โ€“] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago

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

[โ€“] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago (2 children)

The old Ziff Davis Nasty

I'm amazed they are allowed to own both publishing for video games (Humble) and publishing for journalism.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

wtf. You can't fire Alice, she is RPS

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[โ€“] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

Let the IGN monopoly begin. Gaming journalism has been a joke for years now. But now it's getting worst.

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