The Inverse gaming section is dead. Four staff, including Deputy Editor Shannon Liao, were laid off from the website on Friday as it reportedly “divests from gaming.” It’s a shift that comes as owner Bustle Digital Group pivots to being an “influencer company,” whatever that is.
Launched in 2015 by Dave Nemetz, who previously co-founded Bleacher Report, Inverse began life primarily as a tech and science website before later pivoting to entertainment and gaming. It will seemingly now only cover movies and TV now that the gaming side of its masthead has been wiped out. Several staff, including Liao, shared the news on Bluesky.
“After flying back from Vegas last week, I was just laid off from Inverse today,” she wrote. “Inverse‘s gaming section is being shut down as the company ‘divests’ from gaming content. I’m out of a job along with my wonderful co-writers,” wrote staffer Hayes Madsen. “I’ve put my heart and soul into this job for four years. Gonna need to take time to process…”
Bustle Digital Group, which purchased Inverse in 2019, has been on a rollercoaster ride the last 12 months. Last February, it was being sued for $3 million it allegedly owed in back rent. CEO Bryan Goldberg, who also co-founded Bleacher Report, then announced in May that profits were soaring and the company’s cost-cutting era was behind it.
By the fall, however, he was pitching the investor world on a new pivot. “We are the next generation influence company,” Goldberg told Axios last October. The idea was to turn style and clothing audience members into cash-generating influencers by giving them special access to brands. The whole thing still sounds really weird, but apparently 12,000 people applied. It’s basically the unpaid blogger network Bleacher Report pioneered but for Instagram.