After a dismal IPO, a series of layoffs, and the departure of Snoop Dogg, it looks like FaZe Clan is ready for “The Reset.”
Multiple FaZe Clan members have appeared to hint at a “reset” for the organization, posting an image of the FaZe logo surrounded by a red ring. Nordan “Rain” Shat, Richy Banks, and Thomas “temperrr” Oliveira, better known as FaZe Rain, Banks, and Temper, all posted the image to their Instagram with the words “The Reset” underneath.
The posts pay homage to the notorious Xbox 360 “Red Ring of Death,” a hardware error code that displayed on the console. In many cases, the Red Ring of Death (RRoD) was fatal for Xbox 360s, rendering them beyond repair.
It’s a pretty clear reference to the dismal state FaZe finds itself in now. The organization itself is throwing up a RRoD, and the only fix is "The Reset."
What’s wrong with FaZe?
FaZe Clan has made headlines over the past few months, rarely for good reasons. All of this stems from the company’s public IPO back in July 2022. After an initial surge, seeing the price rise by 75% to an all-time high of $17.43 in September 2022, the price plummeted late in the year.
This led to a crisis in early 2023, as many FaZe Clan employees and talent had been given shares under the auspices of reaping the organization’s profits. With the stock plummeting, their “payment” was rapidly losing value. Many also had deals whereby they couldn’t sell their stock for the first six months. However, when those deals expired, many dumped their stock, causing the price to tank even lower.
FaZe was then hit with a wave of layoffs in February 2023, which affected 20% of its employees.
In March 2023, the company was served a “Notice of Delisting” from the Nasdaq due to falling below a single dollar share price for a sustained period.
And in the most symbolic blow, Snoop Dogg resigned from the FaZe board on April 4.
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What is the FaZe Reset?
“The Reset” appears to be an attempt to revitalize the organization. Given that all three of the posters are effectively “OG” FaZe Clan, the common assumption is that FaZe is looking to return to being a creator-first, creator-owned company.
After all, that’s how FaZe started. And leveraging the Xbox 360 nostalgia is no mistake. In 2010, when FaZe was originally founded, it was based around creating trickshot content in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on the Xbox 360.
Given that some estimates put the number of Xbox 360’s that Red Ringed at as high as 50%, there’s a good chance if you enjoyed FaZe content back in the day, you had your Xbox hit with the RRoD as well.
Let’s hope that this Red Ring of Death is fixable for FaZe, though. Exact details of what "The Reset" is haven’t been released. But something drastic is definitely needed to get FaZe back on track.
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