Esports and gaming editorial website Blix.gg will cease operations on Tuesday, according to a social media post from Blix.gg Project Manager Slava Britvin. A representative from Blix parent company EX CORP confirmed the news with The Esports Advocate on Monday morning as well.
Blix is owned by Limassol, Cyprus-based gaming and esports company EX CORP, which also owns a number of other esports- and gaming-related properties including Counter-Strike: Global Offensive/Counter-Strike 2 skin trading site CS.MONEY, CS2 play-to-earn service company xplay.gg, Counter-Strike training and analytics platform Scope.gg, and business gamification service company LVL.IO.
In addition to supporting an army of freelance writers, Blix employed a core staff that included Project Manager and League of Legends lead Slava “innersh1ne” Britvin, Managing Editor Jeffrey “Mnmzzz” Moore, and Editors Benjamin “esk1mo” Esgate, Adham “Adi” Al Kharouf, and Zain Merchant. It also served as a place where up-and-coming freelance writers could ply their craft and learn how to improve it, and write about some of the biggest games in esports and gaming including Rainbow Six, League of Legends, Counter-Strike, Free Fire, Rocket League, and more. The publication’s mission statement was to not necessarily be first but to be the best, and by all accounts it succeeded in that endeavor.
Here is what Britvin posted on Monday morning:
With a heavy heart i have to say that @blix_gg project will basically shut down the editorial operations starting tomorrow.
There are many factors led to such an end, but also esports winter hitting us, so it is how it is.
Will write more later, not sure what to write more rn.
— innersh1ne (@innersh1necsgo) January 15, 2024
EX CORP. Chief Communications Officer Timofey Sobolevsky told TEA on Monday afternoon that the reasoning behind the shutdown was due to the economic challenges the industry is currently facing (the so-called “esports winter”) and that “it would be impossible to make Blix a sustainable business in the foreseeable future and expect any ROI, despite the great job that was done by the team and the results that they have shown.”
Blix joins a growing list of esports and gaming-related publications that have either closed or experienced significant layoffs over the last year including The Escapist, the Washington Post-owned Launcher, Upcomer, Inven Global, ShiftRLE, Dot Esports and other GAMUR-owned publications, and many other outlets. The layoffs and closures of esports-related publications mirrors personnel cuts across the esports and gaming industry, which have continued from 2023 into 2024 with a fresh round of layoffs at Twitch, Discord, Unity, and Google, among others, in January.