Search giant Google has laid off Leo Olebe, head of YouTube Gaming who the company initially brought in to spearhead its gaming ambitions. Olebe is amongst the 100 Google staff who were let go earlier this month.
The YouTube layoffs come as part of Google's broader restructuring, which has so far encompassed over 1,000 layoffs. According to VentureBeat, these cuts reach even as far at Olebe, a seasoned gaming executive, who has previously worked at Facebook (Meta) as senior global director for game partnerships.
Additionally, he held the position of vice president of marketing at GreatSchools, served as senior director of product marketing at Zynga, acted as vice president of marketing at Gazillion Entertainment, and has had experiences at Kabam, BioWare, Vivendi, Webzen, Warner Bros., and Disney throughout his career.
Google's faltering gaming ambitions
The search giant announced that it was, “Testing “Playables” on YouTube in September 2023 but has since been silent on the feature. Google's venture into cloud gaming began with Stadia, a streaming subscription service with the option to purchase games and which also included a hardware element came to a close when the company decided to discontinue its pursuits last year, indicating a potential shift away from its gaming initiatives.
Letting go of Olebe means that there's no one at the helm of YouTube Gaming currently. And with Playables still in its “experimental stages," it's hard to say whether Google is still all-in with its playables plan or its gaming ambitions as a whole. Right now - as this is Google we're talking about - anything can happen at a company that's famous for pulling the plug and changing its mind.
Throughout Olebe's tenure, YouTube renewed contracts with popular gaming creators such as Ludwig, Courage, and Valkyrae. The platform also achieved record-breaking streaming viewing success with the release of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto VI trailer, amassing more than 90 million views in 24 hours. The company also crossed the milestone of 100 billion views for Mario.
