Better Collective announces redundancies, Dust2 esports coverage sites affected

Sports betting media group Better Collective have announced a round of layoffs that have affected around 300 people across the company, including staff from Esports coverage sites Dust2.se and Dust2.us.

The layoffs, which include Dust2.us Editor-in-Chief, Ryan Friend, Senior Writer Jeff Moore and the entirety of Dust2.se staff, will result in Dust2.se being shutdown.

The outcome first came to light when Friend took to social media to announce that he had been laid off from the company. Dust2.us is a website dedicated to providing news and coverage of the North American Counter-Strike scene.

According to Friend, the news came as a shock as the Dust2.us team continued to hit every target set by Better Collective. However, the parent company had a year of underperformance which led to the layoffs. Friend was also keen to point out that the decision had not come from the HLTV.org team, but rather Better Collective.

Following this news, full-time Senior Writer Jeff Moore announced that he was being let go from the outlet. Other members of the Dust2.us team, which is made up of freelancers, made similar announcements.

Better Collective became a major shareholder of HLTV in 2020 to buy all rights to the website, including affiliated regional sites such as; Dust2.us, se, dk, br and others.