They were just waiting for the situation to become official. As Tech&Co announced on October 8, the Game One channel will cease its activity before the end of the year. The directors of Paramount, the parent company of the channel dedicated to geek culture and video games, officially confirmed this to its employees on Tuesday, October 21, according to internal sources, confirming information from the Le Monde site.
The ten employees will now be supported with reclassification leave. Some could be offered recovery within the group acquired by Skydance last July. As part of a global restructuring plan, the latter has decided to close several chains in France. In addition to Game One, the channels J-One, MTV Hits, BET and Paramount Network will also close, resulting in the elimination of approximately sixty positions.
Launched in 1998, Game One, then owned by former gaming giant Infogrames and Canal+, popularized gaming culture in France, notably through shows like Level One, hosted by Marcus, a pioneer before the time of live game discovery formats (Let’s play formats popularized by Twitch and YouTube). Its acquisition in 2006 by Viacom, now Paramount, gradually oriented its editorial line towards more pop culture, manga and other anime.
A wave of emotion and support
The announcement of the closure of the channel raised a wave of emotion among the first fans and the most recent arrivals, multiplying messages of support and launching a petition to save the channel.
Xavier Niel, head of Free and a great fan of digital culture, was even harassed on X by many viewers to encourage him to buy the channel. As the channel was not going through financial problems, the announcement had difficulty reaching viewers, but also central figures of the channel such as Julien Tellouck or Marcus, historical presenter of the channel and the world of video games, who had indicated on his channel that he had not been warned of the imminent closure of the first match.
Other employees, informed at the beginning of the school year of upcoming changes or shortened contracts, told Tech&Co that they did not understand the channel’s refusal to communicate beforehand or to let their faces do so. However, there were not many doubts about the establishment of internal negotiations around a “project of cessation of activity”, which would effectively lead to collective dismissal.
Game One will stop airing in December, with no date confirmed by management. It could be in the first days of the month, they told us. Employees are still waiting for a buyer to appear, Xavier Niel or Webedia, whose names are whispered or expected. According to Le Monde, they could also try to continue together on new projects and try to recover the channel’s brand and files to keep it running, to avoid Game Over.
Source: BFM TV
