i’m just ken

Love and peace #hndr_FA #hundredline #hundred_line #eitoaotsuki

when someone shows me their labubu

SpongeBob sick as fuck talking into a phone

me thinking about how i could be going about this sick day in a more efficient and productive manner.

ICE Is About To Go on a Social Media and TV Ad Recruiting Blitz Contracting records reviewed by 404 Media show that ICE wants to target Gen Z, including with ads on Hulu and HBO Max.

New from 404 Media: ICE is about to go on a social media and TV ad recruiting blitz, according to contracting records. Shows ICE wants to target Gen Z and have ads on Hulu, HBO Max, Amazon Prime. Will also geofence areas to target particular people. Wants to hire 14k www.404media.co/ice-is-about...

If IGN has layoffs, nobody in games press is safe. If Microsoft has layoffs, nobody in platforms is safe. If Ubisoft and Bungie and NetEase have layoffs, nobody in game development is safe. If the Romeros get their funding pulled, no studio is safe.

It's rough out there, right now.

Screenshot of our new bluesky account

after g/o made us get rid of the last account, kotaku is now on bluesky again. y’all should follow @kotakudotcom.bsky.social 🥰

being sick really heightens your emotions so do you know how many times i’ve cried today?

Hello! You may have seen it, but I am one of the employees that have been impacted by layoffs at IGN.

It's been a great six years, but this now means I am looking to apply my talents to something new and exciting.

Today, IGN Entertainment announced that it would be laying off eight members of the IGN Creators Guild. This is 12% of our bargaining unit, and comes just days after our sister union, the Ziff Davis Creators Guild, underwent similar layoffs impacting 15% of their members. It also comes just months after our multibillion-dollar parent company, Ziff Davis, instituted a company-wide buyout that shrunk our unit numbers, with the express intent of avoiding future layoffs. And it comes just a little over one year after three of our members were laid off almost immediately after our union went public. The company has told us that the reason for this layoff stems from a Ziff Davis-mandate to cut costs despite several quarters in a row of year-over-year revenue increases, to which IGN Entertainment responded by coming for our members' jobs. This is perplexing to us, as we are told again and again that IGN Entertainment has had a tremendously successful year thus far thanks to their hard work. In just the last few months, our members have been absolutely essential to major events and livestreams, including San Diego ComicCon, Summer of Gaming, and IGN Live. Every single person impacted today was involved in and critical to the success of those events. Meanwhile, IGN Entertainment continues to spend money on costly acquisitions, only to turn around and gut those companies in the same way it is cutting away at IGN itself. For instance, last year, it acquired Gamer Network, and almost immediately laid off a number of staff critical to making those sites successful. The company has not responded to the union's questions about whether its budget for future acquisitions is being reconsidered as a cost-saving measure alongside these other apparently necessary personnel cuts. At a time when it is more necessary than ever to support its creators, IGN Entertainment is choosing to eliminate the individuals who ensure IGN remains competitive as generative AI

threatens our reach. We have been told that expert opinion pieces, original interviews, and work that leverages our staff's deep knowledge of gaming, tech, and entertainment are all essential to combating AI summarization and regurgitation of our work. Management has responded by cutting several individuals who do that exact work, as well as others whose job it is to ensure that these written and video pieces are published in a speedy manner — another component of combating AI we're told is critical. This continued cycle of repeated, aggressive cuts to our staff and being asked to do more with less, only for management to continue to spend on new business it isn't interested in sustaining cannot continue. We will enforce our interim agreement that guarantees better severance and other protections to laid off members, as well as demand additional support for those impacted. We will continue to bargain over our first contract with the aim of enshrining even better protections against further layoffs, working conditions continuously degraded by understaffing, and the encroachment of generative AI. And we won't stop fighting to ensure IGN remains the best destination for trustworthy, original, exciting, and creative work covering video games, entertainment, and tech. While IGN Entertainment management may not value us, we value one another and the incredible work we can do together. Behind the articles, videos, social posts, playlists, and maps of IGN are human beings, not just numbers on a spreadsheet to be pushed around when some number at the top isn't big enough. Without us, there is no IGN.

Today, IGN laid off eight extremely valuable members of our union and workforce via directive from our parent company, Ziff Davis. This, after two incredibly successful live events IGN Live and SDCC, and yet another corporate acquisition.

Please take a moment to read and share our full statement:

Screenshot of our new bluesky account

after g/o made us get rid of the last account, kotaku is now on bluesky again. y’all should follow @kotakudotcom.bsky.social 🥰

hey i’m at the financial point where i have to choose having “any job” over having “a games career.” if you know anyone hiring writers in new york city or remote then please gimme a holler. “kind unaffiliated stranger messaged me about a public job posting at hoyoverse” is how i got my last job so 🙏🏼

I don't play World of Warcraft Butters, you said you're on your computer all the time Yeah, but I'm playing Looking at traffic data after working hours

kotaku can finally see traffic data again after g/o took chartbeat away, and you know what that means

shoving all the beloved franchises microsoft has killed in one way or another into one picture is brutal.

i got too much shit happening this week for this

rumi summoning a persona

have a sore throat and what feels like a fever coming on

Downloading SF6

could be you, bb

why discourse when you could be doing your annual post-evo “downloading a fighting game you’ll play for three days because watching fighting games played excellently all weekend has convinced you that you can also do that?”

Gotta make em think they have an out

btw if you haven’t all watched it before christmas i will be forcing you when we are all in the same room 🥰

preparing my siblings for an IRL reaction video

Monokuma GIF Alt: Monokuma dancing

danganronpa's cultural impact is unending because i was just on a date with a guy who english was his second language and he didn't know what "despair" meant when he read it on my tattoo so i told him

chapter 6. this is the end. good bye academy of despair. end

a white background with the words: me too… thank you

game over screen

an endless sea

a black and white teddy bear with the words you wanna know i bet you do Alt: a black and white teddy bear with the words you wanna know i bet you do

me just saying “damn that’s crazy” and 🤔 every time something happens

anne hathaway meme eating an ice cream cone sad and then a bunch of ?????

11 years later and people reacting to danganronpa 2 feels like the first time @diegoarguello.bsky.social

I dunno tbh. I’ve started watching a lot more to like vicariously re-experience stuff through other people and maybe it’s just the source material being as infectious as it is because I sometimes cringe at people’s reactions (bc they can feel performative) to things but not this.

Who’s the person with Houndoom?

all i do is watch kpop demon hunters reaction videos and cry

that bowen yang and matt rogers scene was c r a z y

“he’s still figuring himself out”

ok but what if he obliterated that twink?

five episodes into overcompensating and i love yearning as much as the next guy but the straight to gay sex ratio in this show is lopsided as fuck

me at the gym

the shorts are getting shorter