[Update: Engadget has revived Joystiq and Massively is opening a new site called MassivelyOP]

[Oiriginal article:] AOL has finally passed down the order to drop the guillotine on their enthusiast blog network: Joystiq, Massively and the WoW Insider are all going kaput. The news originally circulated as a rumor, as reported on by sites like Gamer Headlines and Reaxxion, but was later confirmed in a blog post recently on Massively and WoW Insider.

Alex Zeibart from WoW Insider writes in the opening line…

“On Tuesday, February 3, 2015, WoW Insider operations will cease. I’m finding it difficult to say much more than that; eloquence fails at a time like this. We certainly weren’t expecting it.”

After a decade of running the once reputable blogs, AOL decided it was time to cut their losses. It’s an issue that’s becoming pervasive in the gaming space after audiences began ramping up their usage of Adblock and sites continually took a stance to demonize, attack, belittle and eventually declare their own audiences as… “dead”.

The last act of defiance by a media seemingly tired of the people who kept the lights on for them, enacted a movement under the hashtag called GamerGate, which sped up the demise for a lot of the journalists whom are now bereft of a platform to pitch their petulance at the perturbed public.

The news about the closures sent a rippling wave of dichotomous opinions surging through the core gaming community: some felt the shutdown was necessary, others… not so much.

Brianna Royce from Massively pinpoints it to the machinations of corporate contrivance, writing…

“I know more of what I know about corporate from reading tech and finance news than through my own job. We all suspected this was coming eventually a year ago when a VP whose name I don’t even know and who never read our site chose to reward our staggering, hard-won 40% year-over-year page view growth by… hacking our budget in half. There’s nothing to do in the face of that kind of logic but throw your hands in the air. It’s not about merit or lack thereof, and it’s not about journalism or gaming being dead or anything grand like that, so there’s no point in taking it personally.”

Interestingly enough, Susan Arendt from Joystiq seemed to have a different take on the situation…

Arendt became the topic matter of a recent exposé on Breitbart, where some stories about the behind-the-scenes treatment of the staff and principles for running the site were laid bare for the public to witness.

What’s more is that this is more shifting of the old guard. Whether gamers like it or not, what started before #GamerGate was sped up by #GamerGate and now we’re on the path of no return. Advertisers, politicians, lawmakers and lobbyist now see the games industry as “toxic”, according to Extra Credits’ James Portnow. If gamers continue to maintain #GamerGate and Operation Disrespectful Nod, it’s unlikely that the gatekeepers of old will stay around much longer at this rate.