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1455830cookie-checkRolling Stone Shuts Down San Francisco Glixel Office, Lays Off Team
Industry News
2017/07

Rolling Stone Shuts Down San Francisco Glixel Office, Lays Off Team

Video game journalism just couldn’t cut it for the Glixel office operating out of San Francisco, California. The spin-off gaming outlet from the Rolling Stone Magazine was recently shuttered and the team was laid off.

GamesIndustry.biz did a brief report based on Facebook posts made by the former team who thanked Rolling Stone for the opportunity. General manager John Davison explained in a Facebook post

“Thursday this week we closed the San Francisco Glixel.com office. I’m incredibly proud of what we achieved over the past year and a half. We set out to build something with a clear vision that covered games differently: by making it about people rather than just product.

 

“[…] What we started isn’t going away, but the future of it will now continue from the Rolling Stone office in New York without us.”

Glixel hasn’t been around but barely some months. Rolling Stone announced back in May of 2016 last year that they would be opening up the new Glixel gaming outlet later that year in October. Fast forward to June 29th, 2017, and the San Francisco branch is no more.

Gus Wenner, the son of Rolling Stone co-founder Jann Wenner, had mentioned last year that the site was going to be about “people” and not just the products. Apparently the people visiting the site didn’t quite agree.

Gaming journalism through traditional outlets has seen a decidedly apparent decline in readership and attachment rates since #GamerGate took place back in 2014. Various outlets have closed up shop while others have struggled to stay open.

Many gamers these days rely on YouTube to provide them with news and information. With the rise of “fake news” and politically motivated content, some users have felt it’s better to get the information from alternative media, social media, or discussion boards.

For now the Glixel team will stick with the New York outfit and the batch of freelancers working to provide content for the site. It’s funny how so many sites are still intent on following in the footsteps of the pattern and philosophy of news that led to so many gamers abandoning those sites back in 2014.

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