Kotaku Owners G/O Media Reportedly Back Down From Fully Shifting Site From News To Guides After Editor-in-Chief Resigns, Staff Push Back
Spencer Baculi
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In barely recovering from what seemed – and honestly still seems – like the first step of a funeral procession for the infamous bad-faith video game ‘news website’, Kotaku owners G/O Media have reportedly backed down from their desire to pivot the site’s content away from news stories and towards generic video games after facing a rash of backlash from its staff.
This tumultuous situation within Kotaku’s offices was first made public on March 21st when the site’s now-former Editor-in-Chief, Jen Glennon, announced her resignation from the outlet via Twitter.
“Some personal news!” she exclaimed. “I’ve resigned from Kotaku and [G/O Media Owner] Jim Spanfeller is an herb“.
Though at the time the exact reasons for her resignation were unclear, according to a copy of her resignation letter, as sent to Spanfeller and his fellow G/O Media exec Lea Goldman and later obtained by video game news outlet Aftermath, Glennon chose to cut ties with Kotaku in protest of a reported desire by its owner to shift the site’s content away from news and more towards generic ‘video game guides’ – ostensibly those which are meant to simply SEO bait, like ‘How to change classes in Dragon’s Dogma 2‘ or ‘How to find Cloud’s best weapons in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth‘.
“After careful consideration, I have concluded that the current management structure and decision-making processes at G/O Media are not aligned with my values and goals for Kotaku,” wrote Glennon.
“I firmly believe that the decision to ‘invert’ Kotaku’s editorial strategy to deprioritize news in favor of guides is fundamentally misguided given the current infrastructure of the site,” she added. “[This decision is] directly contradicted by months of traffic data, and shows an astonishing disregard for the livelihoods of the remaining writers and editors who work here.”
Per a source close to the situation who spoke to Aftermath’s Nathan Grayson, “Kotaku’s staff will be expected to create 50 guides a week at the site.”
This shift towards guides was later verified by Kotaku writer Levi Winslow, who in the aftermath of G/O Media’s decision took to his own Twitter account to share the “small cup of tea” that “management doesn’t even care about the quality of the guides. They want us to ‘aggregate’ them from other sites like a literal content mill.”
“That they’re destroying livelihoods gags me,” he added. “Last thing I’ll say is this: Someone at the top told us to just ‘get guides done’ because the AV club ‘watches full seasons of a show and still produces their stories’. That alone is proof that they don’t understand what we do.”
However, it seems this extreme pivot was short lived, as per Kotaku editor Alyssa Mercante, following Glennon’s resignation and the resulting outrage from site staff over the new editorial focus, “Kotaku staff had a somewhat productive meeting with management,” and thus readers can “expect news to continue coming from us, at least for now!”
“Your support and your voices certainly helped,” she added, “So thank you.”
As of writing, it is unknown just how much of the site will remain dedicated to the news and how much of it will shift its attentions to guides.
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