Game Informer Loses Staff in Recent GameStop Layoffs

Big news in the games journalism world, which I know ya’ll are here to read about.

Over the weekend, the folks over at GameStop – who are currently trying to restructure themselves to survive in this post-digital age – announced that they would be letting go of even more employees, 120 to be exact, across their varied offices. That would have been bad news within itself, of course, but it was also revealed that some of the people that would be laid off would come from the staff of the one and only Game Informer, one of the premier gaming journalism outlets around. Cutting their 38-person team to 31.

As part of the previously announced GameStop Reboot initiative to transform our business for the future and improve our financial performance, we can confirm a workforce reduction was implemented impacting more than 120 corporate staff positions, representing approximately 14% of our total associate base at our company headquarters as well as at some other offices.

While these changes are difficult, they were necessary to reduce costs and better align the organization with our efforts to optimize the business to meet our future objectives and success factors. We recognize that this is a difficult day for our company and particularly for those associates impacted. We appreciate their dedication and service to GameStop and are committed to supporting them during this time of transition.

Game Informer first debuted in 1991, which already makes it impressive for managing to stick around so long. But thanks to some heavy promotion in the stores themselves, it managed to become the fourth most popular magazine ever, in terms of copies circulated. So it’s pretty dang prestigious.

In that sense, I wouldn’t worry too much about the people who were fired about getting new jobs – they’ll probably be fine – but I would be worried about Game Informer itself.

If Nintendo Power wasn’t safe, nobody is.