Published , by Ozzie Mejia
Published , by Ozzie Mejia
For all of Twitter's many ills, if nothing else, the Twitter Gaming account appeared to represent a sincere attempt by the company to engage with the video game community. It brought attention to upcoming major releases, signal boosted Twitch and YouTube personalities, and also highlighted various sectors of the esports scene. Between all of that and the occasional meme, it was a lovely account. Then Elon Musk happened. Since a few days after the Tesla head took over Twitter, Twitter Gaming has been inactive and now appears to be dead following one of the recent rounds of layoffs.
According to a report by the Washington Post, all five of Twitter Gaming's marketing employees were among the thousands of layoffs on November 4. The Twitter Gaming account has been noticeably silent since then and given that the new Twitter owner has much bigger problems at the moment, it's growing increasingly unlikely that anybody will be appointed to replace those fired workers. It should be noted the report does note that Twitter global head of gaming partnerships Rishi Chadha has survived the round of firings to this point.
Twitter Gaming's absence would leave a large void in the video game world, as its employees frequently communicated with both large gaming companies and recognizable gaming personalities. Even if the account were to be revived with new employees, they're essentially stepping into the wild west given the recent verification and checkmark disasters that have been unfolding. Worse yet, some of the personalities that Twitter Gaming would usually reach out to or engage with are starting to leave the platform, Nibel being among the most prominent. Likewise, the aforementioned checkmark fiasco is among the reasons that advertisers are becoming increasingly wary of Twitter and why the large gaming companies that Twitter Gaming would connect with may move away from the platform in the future.
Twitter is cursed with living in interesting times with this Twitter Gaming story being the latest in an ongoing saga. Who knows what comes next? We'll keep a lookout for the latest updates here at Shacknews.