Bear in mind Twitter Gaming (opens in new tab)? The official Twitter account debuted in the beginning of 2016 as a part of an effort to “assist the avid gaming neighborhood and assist the highest gaming organizations and personalities ship prime quality content material to and have interaction with their followers on Twitter.” However now, amidst the chaos and hilarity of the primary two weeks of Elon Musk’s one-man rule, it seems to be gone for good.
The Twitter Gaming account hasn’t tweeted since November 3, someday earlier than Musk lower the corporate’s workforce in half. The layoffs affected a variety of groups on the firm, in accordance with a Reuters (opens in new tab) report, together with communications, content material curation, human rights, and ethics. Some product and engineering groups had been additionally impacted by the cuts. Shiraz Siddiqui, previously the senior social lead for Twitter Gaming, confirmed that he’d been let go final week as a part of these layoffs:
cool, get do one in every of these lastly sooner than I believed pic.twitter.com/V5yIe9KVrBNovember 4, 2022
But it surely wasn’t simply Siddiqui who was lower free: A brand new Washington Publish (opens in new tab) report says your complete advertising aspect of Twitter Gaming was let go on the similar time. That squares with the present state of the one-million-follower account, which final tweeted on November 3, someday earlier than the layoffs. Previous to that, the account had tweeted on virtually a every day foundation, but it surely’s been fully silent within the eight days since.
As farewell tweets go, it isn’t essentially the most stirring I’ve ever learn:
Gaming basically represents a good portion of Twitter’s general exercise: The Washington Publish says there have been 1.5 billion tweets about gaming within the first half of 2022, in comparison with 10.4 billion tweets about “information.” Twitter is undeniably a implausible supply of game-related data—I depend on it closely for my work—and it is also an effective way for content material creators to reveal themselves to bigger audiences. That each one occurs individually—you need not observe Twitter Gaming to maintain up with gaming on Twitter—however the account gave the impression to be a part of an even bigger advertising technique that’s now, with out warning or clarification, apparently kaput.
Assuming that Twitter itself does not implode and crumble into mud earlier than the tip of the yr (and given what an absolute gong present (opens in new tab) it has been since Musk took over, I would give it 50/50 odds), the Twitter Gaming account might resume exercise sometime, beneath the management of a brand new staff, or possibly Elon himself, if he can determine the password. There have additionally been stories that after chopping too deep, Twitter is now begging some former staff to please come again (opens in new tab), which might be humorous if it wasn’t so unhappy and damaging, so possibly some life will probably be discovered there. For now, although, it is gone: Collateral injury within the ongoing black gap collapse of one of many world’s foremost social networks.
