GameTrailers Shuts Down After 13 Years
John Williamson / 8 years ago
GameTrailers was a very popular video game website which specialized in unique previews, reviews, recorded footage and HD trailers. The website had a very passionate community and became involved in uploading community content. Sadly, this wasn’t enough to keep the site running due to advent of Twitch, YouTube and other video services. Despite operating for 13 years, GameTrailers is now officially over, and all the staff members have lost their jobs. GameTrailers’ Editor-in-Chief, Brandon Jones made the announcement on Twitter and thanked fans for their long-term support:
Today is the last day of GameTrailers. I wish it wasn’t so. I love all of our fans like family. Thank you for letting me do this job.
— Brandon Jones (@TrailerJones) February 9, 2016
Clearly, the site found it extremely difficult to retain a large audience as trailers were posted on YouTube by leading publishers. Additionally, the advent of NeoGAF, Reddit and other popular forums probably contributed to their demise. It’s extraordinarily difficult to run a video games website and keep paying the bills. Perhaps, AdBlock had a major effect to the site’s revenue. Whatever the case, GameTrailers is the latest website to be removed, and follows the likes of CVG. According to Associate Editor Ben Moore, the team only heard about the site’s closure hours before it went public:
“Hi everyone, Ben here. I just wanted to confirm that GameTrailers is shutting down officially today. Everyone is being let go. We all found out mere hours ago, so we’re still reeling a bit. Sincerely, thank you all for the tremendous support.”
This a shocking way to treat employees who worked for over 13 years at a company. It’s uncertain if the ex-employees will move to other websites, or even stay in the industry. The rise of streaming and YouTube celebrities has really made traditional gaming sites seem from a different, bygone era. Who knows which site will be next, but in many cases, it looks inevitable.
Are you sad to see the end of GameTrailers?
Image courtesy of Polygon.
