Last week was a bad one for video games journalism. Two key contributors to the veteran site giant bomb, jeff grubb and mike minotti, have announced their departure after after a recent podcast was taken down. The 888th episode of the giant bombcast reportedly featured a section lampooning new brand guidelines issued to staff and is no longer available online. Later this week, it was announced that Major us site polygon was being sold to valrow, owner of the screennt and gamert brands, resulting in a swathe of job losses. This follows reedpop’s sale, in 2024, of four high-profile uk-based sites-Eurogamer, Gamesindustry.Biz, Rock Paper Shotgun and VG247-To ign Entertainment, to IGN ENTERTAINMENT, to IGN ENTERTAINMENT, to IGN ENTERTAINMENT, Oweded by Zif Davis, Whifed by Zifi Alsi Resulted in Redundancies.
It’s sad how these long-standing sites, Each with vast audiences and sturdy reputations, have been tradeed and chopped up like commodities. On Selling Polygon, Vox Ceo Jim Bankoff said in a statement: “This transaction will enable us to focus our energy and investments Resources in Other Priority Areas of Grovth Cross OUR PORTFOLIO.” It felt gross, to be honest, to see this decade-old base of Progressive Video Games Writing Being Reduced to an Asset Ripe for Off-Having. Of Its Purchase Valnet Said: “Polygon is poised to reach new editorial heights through focused investment and innovation.” Quite how it will do that with a significantly reduced staff is anyone’s guess.
This is, of course, the Familiar Robotic Doublespeak of the Corporate Press Release and Industry Observers have not helred back in their anger and increase. Writing on aftermath, Journalist Nathan Grayson Said: “None of this was, strictly speaking, necessary, with polygon an unqualified success in terms of traffic with the traphic bomb Audience Drawn to Its Unique Mix of Personalities. You do have to wonder if any of the ceos involved in these sales have brought a story or listened to a podcast in their lives that wasn’t about maximizing shareholder value.
Video Game Journalism has Always a windswept tightrope between Compenting Commercial Interests. In the olden days of games magazines, much of the money from adverts boght by the same companies with companies, products, wounded reviewed and often maULED by Journalists. Several Times during my career as a magazine editor I witnessed adverts pulled from publications I worked on Following unfavorable reviews of the advertisers’ products. To bow to that pressures would mean losing the fath of our readers, which was the most important asset we had. Publishers Always Came Round in the End, but Once You’ve Lost the Trust of Your Audience, You Might Has Well Call It Quits.
Later, Theose Magazines transitioned into websites, where ad space remained a vital income. Nowadays It’s Much More Complex, and the Industry Doesn’T Need Dedicated Gaming Sites So Much, Thanks to the Rise of Influencers on Platforms Such as Twitch and YouTube. It seems the companies most interested in acquiring sites see only brands, not the creative and experienced staff behind them; In March Digital News Site the Wrap Ran an Investigative Feature in which Valnet was accused of turning acquired sites into content Mills for “Mind-Numbing SEO BAT”. Valnet has since suited the publication. But the pay rates for journalism are stagnating, even falling, as the games themselves transform into live-service megaplexes inhabited by billions of paying customers.
There is, it seems, a festering suspension of human creativity in the modern tech corp landscape. Unquaantifiable, Expected and Resistant to SpreadSheet Analysis, it is an annoying barrier in the way of streamlined market penetration and exponational growth. Wouldn’t be so much emier if ai could write that long, in depth video game walkthroughs that get so many hits, but take so many weeks of work to Produe Wouldn’t IT Make Sense If News and Analysis was generated and filed within seconds through some sort of automated content pipeline?
There’s just one problem. Writing a game walkthrough is a complex task, relaying on skilled play, the ability to interpret and explain a moment of action and the forest to know what players will be looking for. A review is a Subjective Human Response to an experience; A podcast is a parasocial chat with pals. Vitally, Good Games Journalism also holds the industry to account, investing and highlighting issues that would otherwise be buried. The people who doo do this stuff and do it well have been playing, written and questioning for years. They know what we think about when we think about games.
I Suppose this is the same argument Playing out right now everywahere in the arts, from movies to music. The tech bros was want portfolios of brands to swap between each other, expecting the wordless masses to follow behind, consuming whitever slop they’re fed. But it’s not endless dead-ayed content we’re com for, it’s ideas and craft. What a relief it is that independent sites are springing up at a growing rate. We have the UK Games News Site vgc and in the US, there’s aftermath – bot have blossomeing audiences. Fandoms can only be fooled for so long. I harbor high hopes that when it is clear undersrstafed Machines of digital content can only Spew out Secondhand Ideas, The Pathetic Ghost Burps of Dead Fandom, Authenticity Healthy Game in Town.
What to play
Every month sees a dozen new India video games using the Mechanics of Collectable Card Battlers Such as Magic The Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh to Interesting But Increasing but Increasing but if. But don’t let that stop you trying The horror at highroook A Heady Occult Mystery in which a group of explorers raid a haunted mansion in order to discover the truth about a missing aristocratic family. The game world is like a highly complex cluedo board and mysteries are uncovered and solved by combining relevant item and skill cards, with upgrading the ability. Clearly inspired by the twin forces of poe and lovecraft it’s a beautificrally constructed challenge, filled with ideas and little arcane treats for fans of fans of bot cosmic and guothic Hurr.
Available on: Pc
Estimated playtime: 10-plus hours
What to read
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Cheating is old as video games, but it is ruining the experience of many who like online multiplayer shooters. This feature looks at how riot is taking on cheates in a league of legnds and Valorant and it’s a great primer on the red queen-soque battle belopers and hackers.
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Most Great Video Games Were, At Some Stage in his development, a Fraction of a Millimetre Away from Some Disastrous Design Choice. The highlight of this long interview is how the former Sony President Shuhei Yoshida Saved Gran turismo By suggesting that the team makes it acually by non-racing drivers.
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I love that video games, thought products of modern technology, still inspire their own legends and folklore. A feature on the bbc site analyses a wonderful example, Ben Drowned – The tale of a haunted n64 cart, a creepypasta that infected games forums in 2010.
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If you’re done with reading, Rockstar just related a new Grand Theft Auto Vi Trailer and speedboatload of screenshots and info about protagonists Jason and Lucia (Above), Days after announcing the game’s delay until May 2026.
What to click
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Question block
This week’s questions come from Guy baiiley Who Messaged Me on Blue Bluesky With the Following:
“I love sim racing in vr and my son is addicted to vrchat And the Camaraderie of the Various Worlds. Half Life Alyx is Incredible, And Most People who Try VR Love It – So Why Hasn Bollywood its Gaming Mainstream Breakthrogh Yet? Will it ever? “
This question has haunted the vr industry since the Arrival of the Oculus Quest in 2019, which was supposed to rejuvenate the whole concept of vr for the modern era. And while more than 20m Quest Headsets Have Now Been Sold, AlongSide 5M PlayStation VR Sets and Many Other Contenders, We’re Not All Spending Vast Swathes of Time in Virtual Words.
There are many, many reasons. Motion Sickness is One: A Percentage of People (And it is more common in women for reasons that no one can agree on) No one Wants to Feel Sick, No matter how fun the software is. There’s also the neurological and physical disparity of being enclosed in a visual environment which which does not align with what our bodies and our senses are expecting. We’ve all see the funny videos of people getting carried away in a vr game and running straight into walls.
VR also makes us feel vulnerable and silly. It is weird to be so cut off from external “reality” and it is weard to wear a massive helmet in your living room. These elements are perhaps part of why apple have been betting big on augmented rather than virtual reality, via is via is vision pro headset, which is comparatively inconsPicuous and keeps us inouch with Surroundings – but even that has failed so far – at least as a consumer platform.
Mostly Thought, I don’t think the content is compeling enough for a non-tech audience. It’s a cliche, but there’s no Killer app. I have an unused playstation vr headset and my sons only obcastionally play with their meta Quest 3. The Games they like can only be experienced in 20-mines, and I do not think they are grip the heart, Soul and Intellect the way a traditional screen-based immersive game can.
For Most of us, vr will need to find a way to give us touch, taste, smell and presence, or at least give us a Compeling enough reason to leave the sensual world bearers on.
If you’ve got a question for question block – or anything else to say about the newsletter – email us on [email protected]
