Tencent lays off nearly all of staff at its gaming site Fanbyte

Not being a jerk about the layoffs is the first rule. Make sure the social media manager you laid off doesn't have access to your accounts. The editorial staff at Fanbyte, an online gaming publication, was laid off today.

The world's biggest gaming company and the most valuable company in China holds a stake in dozens of international game studios and gaming companies. The Chinese social media giant is also the owner of the music app.

The first revenue decline in the company's history caused it to lay off 5% of its workforce. It looks like the company is still making cuts.

I sympathize with burgeoning startups that are navigating a challenging market and make the difficult decision to cut jobs, but I don't think it's fair to compare them to a company that earned over $90 billion in revenue last year. After it nearly reached $1 trillion last year, its valuation took a downturn. Is it possible to lay off some writers to solve these problems?

I see a lot of empathy going out to everyone who was fired today but let's please also spare some thought for the people who had to fire everyone one by one over the course of countless hours, drawing out the delicious psychological torture

— merritt k (@merrittk) September 15, 2022

The site's editor-in-chief, head of media, features editor, social editor, news editor, graphic designer, and several writers were among those laid off.

The company did not reply to the request for comment.

The way the layoffs were handled was so bad that it almost made the CEO of the company look good. Fanbyte employees were laid off one by one. Sitting alone in your apartment, waiting to find out if you still have a job, is nothing compared to watching your coworkers look for work.

I do firmly believe that the future of games media lies in independent outlets – Into The Spine, Uppercut, RPG Site, and so on. How can anyone be expected to truly care about the work they put out if their job could disappear tomorrow because of gross corpo negligence

— Cian Maher (@cianmaher0) September 15, 2022

The social media manager was laid off while she had access to the Fanbyte social media accounts. After watching writers lose their jobs for reasons beyond their control, I am living for it.

Tencent made $35 billion in net income last year and laid off almost every member of the Fanbyte team. The display name of the account is "Forgot the keys."

Revenge is sweet. It would be even sweeter. It would only be a fraction of a percent of their net income if the biggest media companies stopped making cuts to publications.

If you must conduct layoffs, don’t be a jerk