CBS Restructuring Leads to GameSpot Casualties
And you thought those argyle socks from grandma were a bad Christmas present. Last week, CBS Interactive gave employees something even worse: an axe, wrapped in a not-so-pretty pink slip.
Layoffs at the media giant affected nearly every division of CBS Interactive, including the company’s video game news outlet, GameSpot. Word of the cuts started rolling in last week, with a number of employees unexpectedly finding themselves out holiday shopping one minute and job hunting the next. While layoffs have been confirmed throughout CBS Interactive and the former CNET Networks divisions, CBS is refusing to release specifics on the number of firings.
One thing that CBS is confirming, though, is the reason for the reduction in workforce. CBS Interactive is going through a major restructuring process, affecting nearly every division. The plan calls for many different areas to be combined into specific departments. The company will be combining its Sports, Games, and Music properties into a single division headed up by former CBS Sportsline.com Senior Vice President and General Manager, Steve Snyder. The Technology and News departments will form another group, run by former CNET executive VP, Joseph Gillespie. And finally, the CHOW and UrbanBaby properties will be rolled up into the main CBS Entertainment group, which currently runs the TV.com and CBS.com sites.
While the streamlining of operations at CBS Interactive will likely help with the company’s bottom line, the news of the layoffs right before the holidays is just one more PR nightmare for the already beleaguered GameSpot, which is still recovering from the now infamous “Gerstmann-gate” fiasco. Back in November of 2007, former GameSpot editorial director Jeff Gerstmann was terminated unexpectedly, with rumors that the firing was due in large part to pressure from PR reps at Eidos Interactive. The studio had been heavily advertising its game Kane & Lynch on the GameSpot site, only to have the game itself score a meager 6/10 in Gerstmann’s published review. While both CNET and Eidos denied that there was ever any pressure to terminate Gerstmann, no reason was ever given for the sudden firing. The event led to an exodus of editorial staff from GameSpot, which only seemed to stop after the acquisition of the outlet by CBS Interactive in June of this year.
Regarding the current firings at GameSpot, no indications were given to employees that their jobs were in any sort of jeopardy in the aftermath of the CBS/CNET merger. It wasn’t until early in the morning last Thursday that an internal memo from CBS describing the reorganization was circulated, coinciding with the timing of the first reported layoffs. You almost can’t help but wonder if the memo ended with the line, “P.S. – Happy Holidays … and you’re fired!!”
