Variety has plans on axing its gaming section, consisting of Brian Crecente, and its freelancers, such as Michael Futter, once E3 wraps up. The news was kept under wraps until the editor over Variety’s gaming section, Brian Crecente, outed the news via Twitter.
Bleeding Cool caught wind of the tweet that was posted up on May 10th, 2019 on Crecente’s official account.
I see word is getting out about @Variety_Gaming. Good news bad news.
We’re going to have some great E3 coverage this year.
I will no longer have a job the day the show ends.
Aint no party like an E3 party!
— Crecente (@crecenteb) May 10, 2019
I can’t say what the future holds for gaming at Variety, but I will say that if you’re looking for excellent writers and reporters, all of the freelancers I worked with are exceptional.
— Crecente (@crecenteb) May 10, 2019
As pointed out by Bleeding Cool, Crecente joined Variety’s gaming channel last year in 2018 after Rolling Stone’s Glixel closed up shop.
Rolling Stone launched Glixel in October of 2016, and then began winding down its operations by laying off all the staff in the San Francisco offices in 2017. By late June of 2018 Rolling Stone had shut down Glixel.
Crecente tried his hand at Variety’s gaming section, but despite getting premiere spots on the front page of Google News and the Google search index, as well as breaking various stories that were linked to by all the major gaming outlets, it still wasn’t enough to keep the section alive.
This has become an increasing trend in recent times, with Vice also folding in the Waypoint gaming portal recently, among other verticals. G/O Media also laid off staff after recently purchasing the Gizmodo branch of websites from Univision, which included Kotaku. There seems to be a trend lately where a lot of gaming websites are shutting down or trimming down, and it looks like all of that anti-consumer sentiment these outlets propagated back in 2014 is now coming back to bite them hard in the wallet.
(Thanks for the news tip Blaugast)
(Main image courtesy of Alejandro Argandona)
