Layoffs Hit Multiple Publications in GAMURS Group Portfolio

Credit: GAMURS Group

An undetermined number of employees at media company GAMURS Group were laid off on Monday, according to multiple social media posts on Twitter and LinkedIn.  One post from now-former Dot Esports journalist George Geddes claimed that HR told employees that the reason for this latest round was due to GAMUR’s ties to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.

The Esports Advocate could not independently verify this, as of this writing, but several sources speaking on background tell us that the layoffs seemed to target a fair number of editors and writers with higher salaries.

It also appears that cuts were made across a majority of GAMURS’ publications, and according to anecdotal evidence, many freelancers were told that their arrangements were over, indicating that there may have also been some adjustments in freelance and other budgets as well. 

TEA has reached out to GAMURS CEO Riad Chikhani, multiple executives at the company, and its PR department for further comment, but no one has responded as of this writing.

The cuts seem odd considering that GAMURS publicly touted the growth of its recent acquisition Destructoid just five days ago on social media. GAMURS claims that Destructoid saw 1.1M monthly active users and 2.3M monthly pageviews when it was acquired in October of 2022, but grew to 2.4M monthly users and 4.7M monthly pageviews in February.

GAMURS owns a number of major publications including Dot Esports, Upcomer, The Escapist, Destructoid, Pro Game Guides, The Mary Sue, Prima Games, Twinfinite, Gampur, Attack of the Fan Boy, Gamer Journalist, Touch Tap Play, PC Invasion, Operation Sports, Siliconera, and Game Skinny.