Tencent sacks gaming news site Fanbyte’s staff, employees post ordeal on Twitter

“Fanbyte employees were laid off slowly, one by one, over the course of several hours,” reported TechCrunch.

Tencent employees who were booted out posted their ordeal on Twitter and said that the layoffs included the site’s editor-in-chief, head of media, features editor, social editor, news editor, graphic designer, podcast producer and several writers.

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.

The Instagram page of Fanbyte had a changed bio after the en masse sacking. It read, “Tencent made $35 billion in net income last year and laid off almost every member of child company Fanbyte! Please support the staff elsewhere”

Merritt K, a Fanbyte employee and ‘one of the few surviving members’ took to Twitter and wrote, “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.”

Tencent Holdings Ltd. logged its first-ever revenue decline after its workforce shrank almost 5%, underscoring the extent to which China’s worsening economy is hurting its biggest corporations.

The country’s most valuable company recorded its first quarterly drop in staffing since 2014, as layoffs rippling through the global tech sector finally hit the WeChat operator. Revenue fell a deeper-than-projected 3% to 134 billion yuan ($19.8 billion) while net income also missed estimates, plunging 56% to 18.6 billion yuan in the June quarter.

Tencent did not make an official comment on laying off employees at Fanbyte.

Last month, Tencent fired 5,500 employees, after posting a revenue of $19.8 billion in the June quarter, down 3 per cent which was the first decline since going public.

Tencent downsized its workforce for the first time since 2014.

The company attributed the weak performance to “fewer big game releases, lower user spending, and the implementation of minor protection measures”.

Tencent games include League of Legends, PUBG: Battlegrounds, PUBG: Mobile, Arena of valor, Honor of kings. 

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