GameTap axes editorial staff

SIDEBAR: Last summer, online rental service GameTap expanded its offerings to include a full-featured gaming site with news, reviews, previews, and video programming. To help get the initiative off the ground, the company picked up a number of veteran writers who had previously worked for GameSpot, IGN, and other high-profile enthusiast publications.

Today, the service announced a change in direction, and one of its employees confirmed to GameSpot that the change is resulting in layoffs for the entire editorial team. GameTap creative director Ricardo Sanchez announced the revamp on the service's forums.

"While we have been very happy with the work done by our editorial and video teams, we've made a decision to focus the business on our biggest strength, which is our game catalog," Sanchez wrote. "As a result, we will be restructuring the site to focus exclusively on gameplay."

Visitors of the site will notice that "Read" and "Watch" areas that currently house editorial content will instead be integrated directly into GameTap's individual game pages in the future.