Gametap to Lay Off Editorial Staff

Turner-owned Service to Focus Exclusively on Games

While the gaming industry may still be immune from the downturn in the US economy, the industry that covers it certainly isn’t.

Today Gametap’s VP of Content Ricardo Sanchez announced that the entire editorial division of the on-demand game service will be given the axe next month. The decision was purportedly made so that Gametap could wholly focus its efforts to on-demand gaming.

The layoffs could extend beyond editorial. Wired News reports that all individuals not involved with developing game content will also be laid off.

Speaking on Gametap’s forums, Mr. Sanchez said:

A year ago we introduced a whole new GameTap to the world – GameTap.com. We added free, ad supported games, download to own games, and moved all of our video to the web site as well. A little later we added the editorial section.

We have had a lot of successes over the last year and the move to the web has been a good one for us. While we have been very happy with the work done by our editorial and video teams, we’ve made a decision to focus the business on our biggest strength, which is our game catalog. As a result, we will be restructuring the site to focus exclusively on gameplay.

What this means to our visitors is that instead of having a separate “READ” and “WATCH” section of the site we will be incorporating written and video content directly into the game pages. Doing this will allow us to improve and expand the gaming library and community aspects of our business.

For us, it’s always about how can we make your on-line gaming experience at GameTap the best out it can be and we think this is the way to do it. Speaking of having the best experience, American McGee’s Grimm is coming along great and will be ready to play this summer.

There is no word on exactly how many will be laid off when all is said and done.