The infrared emission properties of rare-earth (i.e., Dy 3+ , Pr 3+ or Sm 3+ ) and nickel-codoped Ge-Ga-Sb-S glasses were investigated by photoluminescence measurements. It was found that the emission intensities of the rare-earth doped glasses were significantly weakened even with very few amount of nickel (i.e., 500 atomic ppm). On the other hand, the nickel doped glasses show larger indices of refraction, which property will be desirable in nonlinear optics. Our results, however, suggest that to obtain rare-earth doped chalcogenide glasses of better infrared emission property it is necessary to keep the nickel dopant as low as possible.