While G4 has struggled all through 2022, the shutdown itself was sudden. The Washington Post seen one other e-mail despatched Sunday from G4 head Joe Marsh to staff that knowledgeable employees that G4′s Los Angeles facility can be closed till Oct. 18 — and that every one streams have been postponed. But that e-mail didn’t point out the community’s shutdown. Additionally, former G4 staff who requested anonymity because of the signing of nondisclosure agreements informed The Post that employees have been locked out of inner communication providers like Slack and Google Drive with out rapid rationalization. This got here after crew from “Arena,” a present produced as a part of a vital deal with the WWE, stop final week, in accordance with ex-employees.
G4 is Comcast’s try at reviving a community from the early 2000s that imagined what televised online game protection and leisure might seem like years earlier than content material creators on YouTube and Twitch started amassing thousands and thousands of viewers. Despite repeated makes an attempt at bringing mentioned creators into the fold — reveals similar to “Name Your Price” have been hosted by Twitch stars like AustinShow (who has not publicly divulged his full identify) — the community by no means discovered its footing when competing towards particular person influencers, who themselves have been impressed by G4′s authentic, 2002-2014 iteration.
Expenditures for visitor expertise seem to have performed a job within the closure. According to a number of G4 staff interviewed by The Post, some high-profile creators demanded day charges of $25,000-$30,000 when invited to look as friends on G4.
Several occasions have presaged G4′s demise. The nosedive that culminated Sunday started when then-president Russell Arons exited G4 at the tail end of August. In September, G4 laid off greater than 20 crew members, a lot of whom labored on reveals like online game overview and commentary flagship “X-Play.” Every week later, Kotaku reported that one of many revived G4′s most outstanding faces, “X-Play” host Indiana “Froskurinn” Black, was not with the community. Later that very same month, Kevin Pereira — one of many largest names to return out of the unique 2005-13 run of geek tradition selection program “Attack of the Show,” who additionally hosted its reboot — additionally departed.
In Sunday’s memo, Scott expressed his regrets.
“I know this is disappointing news, and I’m disappointed, too,” he wrote. “I want to thank you and everyone on the G4 team for the hard work and commitment to the network.”