In a recent post I pondered about the rumours that AOL were likely to close Joystiq and furthermore that this would probably mean the end of Massively. This has now been confirmed by Massively : Massively-that-was :
This week, we learned our AOL overlords have decided that they no longer wish to be in the enthusiast blog business and are shutting all of them down. This mass-sunset includes decade-old gaming journalism icon Joystiq, and therefore, it includes us. February 3rd, 2015, will be the final day of operation for Massively-that-was.
However in a game of prunes, TechCrunch report : AOL To Lay Off About 150 People, Mostly In Sales; Folding Joystiq, TUAW Into Engadget :
Some more details are emerging around AOL’s reorganization plans. Sources tell us that the company will lay off around 150 people, with the majority in sales. As part of it, AOL is also consolidating some websites. Gaming site Joystiq and Apple news site TUAW are both being folded into Engadget
Whereas Gamasutra report :
Joystiq recently celebrated the ten-year anniversary of its launch, in 2004, as a spinoff of AOL’s tech-focused blog Engadget. Going forward, Engadget is expected to take up some of Joystiq and Massively’s responsibilities for game industry reporting.
Unfortunately none of these folding exercises look likely to save any jobs for Massively staff.
Massively are going down with a bit of a bark, as they say in their post about the closure :
I would like to be able to tell you truthfully that this is an equitable and just decision that makes some sort of logical sense, but the reality is that our overlords’ decisions have always been unfathomable. I know more of what I know about corporate from reading tech and finance news than through my own job. We all suspected this was coming eventually a year ago when a VP whose name I don’t even know and who never read our site chose to reward our staggering, hard-won 40% year-over-year page view growth by… hacking our budget in half. There’s nothing to do in the face of that kind of logic but throw your hands in the air. It’s not about merit or lack thereof, and it’s not about journalism or gaming being dead or anything grand like that, so there’s no point in taking it personally.
I don’t know if this is a portent of worse to come when it comes to website publications. The way we consume media is changing and with the rise of virtual reality on the horizon, it will change even more.
Of course Massively itself grew out of a changing way of consuming media. Things change. As I said in my previous article, Massively gave Second Life plenty of coverage over the years, it’s a shame to see them go but if you’re quick you can still read some of that coverage : Massively Second Life Category.