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

techcrunch.com:

The first rule of conducting layoffs is to not be a jerk about it. The second rule is to make sure the social media manager you just laid off doesn’t still have access to your accounts. Today, Tencent violated both of those rules as it laid off nearly all of the editorial staff at Fanbyte, an online gaming publication.

Tencent is the world’s biggest gaming company and the most valuable company in China, holding a stake in dozens of international game studios and gaming companies: Riot Games, Epic Games, Roblox, Discord, Pocket Gems, you name it. Tencent also owns WeChat, the Chinese social media superapp, as well as Tencent Music.

After posting its first revenue decline ever last quarter, Tencent laid off about 5% of its workforce, impacting 5,000 people. But a month later, it looks like Tencent is still making cuts.

I have some degree of sympathy for burgeoning startups that are navigating a challenging market and make the painstaking decision to cut jobs — but Tencent is a mega-company that earned over$88 billion in revenue last year. Sure, its valuation has taken downturn after it almost reached an unfathomable $1 trillion last year. But is laying off some writers really the answer to these problems?

— merritt k (@merrittk) September 15, 2022

According to tweets by Merritt K, one of the final remaining staff at Fanbyte, the layoffs included the site’s editor-in-chief, head of media, features editor, social editor, news editor, graphic designer,