Earlier yesterday, according to various sources, Machinima laid off about 10% of their staff. NMR reached out to Machinima, and this is what their rep had to say:
“[Yesterday] Machinima underwent a reorganization to address its global growth, and this process unfortunately resulted in layoffs. Less than 10% of Machinima’s workforce was affected. Also as part of the restructure Machinima is hiring across key divisions including Sales, Marketing and Product.”
Some of the employees who lost their jobs immediately went to Twitter to share the news:
I just found out I am no longer employed. Should probably update that LinkedIn profile.
— Billy Shibley (@BillyShibley) December 14, 2012
Yes, to those asking, I got laid off too. Good thing I updated my LinkedIn!
— Esmeralda (@EsmeraldaIP) December 14, 2012
Effective immediately I am no longer at Machinima. Would love to send an official email with my contact info but they took my computer.
— Justin Fassino (@Justegarde) December 14, 2012
Today is sadly my last day at Machinima. It’s been an incredible experience and I love everyone there. So… anybody hiring?
— Patrick (@Paaatrick) December 14, 2012
In a video posted yesterday from WoodyGamersTag, a popular video game channel signed under Machinima, he says: “Machinima is letting 23 people go, and they are hiring 15 new ones. So they are just kind of rebalancing a little bit. I think whats happening is that they’re focusing less on creating new content and focusing more on getting money out of the existing views that are brought on into the network.”
“This is growing pains. Machinima has grown a lot in a short amount of time. We had to look at the business, look at where we’re focusing,” Smith told us. “It has hit the editorial group, but we are still doing editorial coverage in a slightly different way.”
According to comScore’s latest press release, as of October 2012, Machinima has surpassed Maker Studios from September and is now the #1 YouTube independent partner channel by unique viewers. From these numbers and the fact that they are still hiring, it seem like Machinima is doing quite well. Like any other company, changes like these are normal in order to make sure the company is focused on the right things for optimal scaling. In this case, as WoodyGamersTag notes further along in his video, Machinima seems to be focusing less on producing internal content and putting more emphasis on monetizing off of their current big partnered YouTube channels for now.
For anyone interested in checking out which positions at Machinima are open right now, check out these listings by Mashable, Craiglist.org and the Machinima Careers Page.
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[…] smarter with their money.” Machinima seems to already be doing that, having just laid off 10% of its staff this month, which the video-game and entertainment network called “a reorganization to address its […]
[…] “be smarter with their money.” Machinima seems to already be doing that, having just laid off 10% of its staff this month, which the video-game and entertainment network called “a reorganization to address its […]
[…] smarter with their money.” Machinima seems to already be doing that, having just laid off 10% of its staff this month, which the video-game and entertainment network called “a reorganization to address its […]
[…] smarter with their money.” Machinima seems to already be doing that, having just laid off 10% of its staff this month, which the video-game and entertainment network called “a reorganization to address its […]
[…] smarter with their money.” Machinima seems to already be doing that, having just laid off 10% of its staff this month, which the video-game and entertainment network called “a reorganization to address its […]
[…] on" and "be smarter with their money." Machinima seems to already be doing that, having just laid off 10% of its staff this month, which the video-game and entertainment network called "a reorganization to address its global […]