Tencent fires entire editorial staff of its Fanbyte publication

Hong Kong, Sep 16 (IANS) Chinese conglomerate Tencent has laid off all of the editorial staff at Fanbyte, an online gaming publication owned by it.

Some of the staff members at Fanbyte posted their ordeal on Twitter, saying the website’s editor-in-chief, head of media, features editor, social editor, news editor, graphic designer, podcast producer and authors were sacked.

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

The Fanbyte Instagram bio with a display name ‘forgot the keys?’ 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”.

A Fanbyte employee Merritt K tweeted on Friday: “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 did not make an official comment on the development.

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”.