Kotaku Australia To End Publication As Parent Company Seeks To Cut Costs
In what, given the recent back-and-forth regarding the main site’s shift to strictly video game guides, feels like a preview of things to come, Kotaku Australia has officially and completely shuttered its doors.
As announced on July 8th, the outlet’s shuttering comes as a result of a larger-cost cutting effort being made to their publisher, Pedestrian Group, by its overall parent company Nine Entertainment.
Per a report from Australian economic news outlet Capital Brief, this effort will ultimately see publisher lose roughly 40 employees and cancel its licensing agreements with the Vice, Refinery29, and Gizmodo brands (the latter of whom owns Kotaku) in favor of focusing on their own in-house brands.
Speaking to staff in a company-wide Slack message, now-former Pedestiran Groupo CEO Matt Rowley – his own job a casualty of the cost-cutting effort – explained that they decided to to end their relationship with the trio of brands because publishing their content was “no longer a sustainable business model”.
“The market forces that have created today’s changes make the work that Pedestrian.TV does – engaging young Aussies with news and content they can trust – more important thanever,” Rowley added. “While these decisions have been hard to make, we believe this new approach — with a strategy and plan focused on the growth of our own business at Pedestrian.TV — will create a long term, sustainable business which continues to lead youth publishing in Australia.”
In the aftermath of this announcement, a number of Kotaku-affiliated staff members offered their thoughts on the Australian branch’s closure.
“Folks, I have some sad news to share,” wrote former Kotaku AU managing editor David Smith. “Today, the story of Kotaku Australia comes to a sad and abrupt end. It has been one of the great joys of my life to wake up every day and run a site I love with all my heart.”
“I have loved this job,” he added. “We were the second-highest read site in the group after PTV, and we still had so much we wanted to do. The plans I had were just getting started. Alas.”
Providing some clerical insight into what the change means for the overall brand’s future, former Kotaku Senior Writer Luke Plunkett noted, “Extra, super f–ked up thing about Kotaku AU closing is that it threatens the archives for the main site too. most pre-2009ish Kotaku blogs were lost years ago and only preserved on Kotaku AU. Not for long i guess!”
“Same goes for a lot of images,” he continued. “G/O in their infernal ineptitude blocked almost every image ever posted on the main site from before 2019, but lots lived on in Kotaku AU’s servers. Or, did!”
Alongside sending her condolences, Kotaku Senior Editor Alyssa Mercante also took aim at those critics who would and were celebrating the site’s closure.
“Sending solidarity and love to the amazing writers at Kotaku AU and all the other sites affected,” she began. “You are all stars and deserved better. Capitalism is cruel. Your work remains, always.”
“The internet and the rats infesting it are even crueler but a reminder: cheering for good people losing their jobs while men get rich off their labor is morally bankrupt,” she then asserted.
Following a few hours of detractors celebrating the announcement, Mercante would eventually accuse them of having “no idea what journalism is.”
“Your websites look like they’re from 2001,” said the Kotaku staffer. “They’re riddled with typos. You use yourselves as a source for ‘stories.’” You have an internet connection and a webcam and think you have something worthy to say (you don’t). We could set my nana up with a Razer Kiyo in her care home and she’d make more coherent shit.”
Closing out her thoughts, Mercante ultimately concluded, “It’s a shame that private equity and Google have gutted legacy media sites and the stupidest, cruelest people in the world are rushing to fill in the gaps!”
At current, Kotaku’s main site continues to operate as normal.
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