Gawker Media, the parent company for subsites like Kotaku and Deadspin, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection so that the company may protect all assets from being seized by former WWE star, Hulk Hogan.
Gawker Media Group, the parent group for Gawker, also announced that it will be selling its assets in a court-supervised auction. Some buyers are already lined up to purchase some of Gawker’s properties with Penske Media and Univision—the latter of which have already held discussions with the company before the debacle with Hulk Hogan—all being potential buyers. Ziff Davis, a subsidiary of j2 Global, has already agreed to purchase Gawker’s assets for a sum between $90 and $100 million.
Gawker Media has no plans to stop delivering content whilst this process proceeds and will continue to update all of its subsites until it no longer can. In fact, Nick Denton posted in a tweet that “Even with his billions, Thiel will not silence our writers. Our sites will thrive — under new ownership — and we’ll win in court.”
Even with his billions, Thiel will not silence our writers. Our sites will thrive — under new ownership — and we’ll win in court.
— Nick Denton (@nicknotned) June 10, 2016
Further enforcing the notion that Kotaku and other sites under Gawker are here to stay, Stephen Totilo posted an article on Kotaku, entitled “A Note To Readers” saying, “For more than a decade, we at Kotaku have been publishing the kinds of stories and videos about games and gaming culture that we believe people who love this stuff want to see… Through the Chapter 11 process, we will continue normal operations and maintain that same editorial focus. That means covering E3 next week, reporting about gaming culture in the months to come and, of course, writing the best possible review of Half-Life 3 when it finally comes out.”
Source: Politico
Lewis is a games journalist, freelance gaming and consumer-tech journalist. They contributed 344 articles to ICXM between 2015–2017, focused on opinion pieces, game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: has since served as Editor-in-Chief at StealthOptional and Gaming Editor at MSPoweruser, with bylines at Gfinity Esports and FRVR.