#oneaday Day 715: Fuck Valnet

My distaste for groups like Valnet and GAMURS is hopefully well-established by this point, but today there's a whole new disgusting chapter to the sorry saga that, so far, has resulted in an almost entirely non-functional games press in 2026. According to Lex Luddy of startmenu, Valnet has just issued new contracts to writers on TheGamer (a site which Valnet had already gutted of its main features staff) saying that they will not get paid unless their articles reach a minimum viewership threshold. As Luddy points out, the remaining staff at TheGamer — and indeed across Valnet — already had pay that was tied to overall article performance, but this new step provides a hard cutoff on whether or not they get paid at all, based on viewership.

man in gloves sitting with hands on face over laptop — Photo by Never Dull Studio on Pexels.com

This is, I won't beat around the bush, disgusting. Tying pay to article performance is already a shitty thing to do, but to withhold pay completely based on view counts is outright exploitative. And it's not as if writers on Valnet sites are getting paid fairly anyway.

As several people replying to Luddy on that Bluesky thread pointed out, this has been a longstanding problem with online media in general. It should be the writers' responsibility to produce the material, and it should be the people running the website from a business perspective's responsibility to promote that material and ensure it gets read.

Unfortunately, for a long time now, writers have been forced into a position where they have to write provocative, baiting articles in the hope that they will get clicks, because the people running the sites seemingly just… don't do anything other than lay people off. And, of course, bring generative AI into the picture, because this type of Business Idiot has no understanding whatsoever of how the actual audience has zero desire to read AI-generated content, instead believing that because generative AI is fashionable and responsible for billions of dollars of imaginary money being thrown around, they might be able to get a piece of that pie by enshittifying their website.

And the really stupid thing is that you never can predict what is going to spread across the Web and "do well" if it's left up to the writers. There is no magic formula that says "IF you write an article like this, THEN it will always succeed". There are manipulative tactics — like clickbait and ragebait — that sometimes work, but more and more people are wise to them today, and refuse to share material that falls into that category. Video game enthusiasts are some of the most online-savvy people out there for the most part, so resorting to these tactics is declining in effectiveness as time goes on.

What does seem to work — to an extent, at least — is having someone who is responsible for making sure those articles get seen: advertising the website. Effective use of a dedicated social media manager is why longstanding sites like IGN and Eurogamer are still just about hanging in there, but they are the last few remaining holdouts of a once vibrant and thriving media sector — and they have their own issues. IGN, for example, is currently butting heads with its Creators' Guild union over fair pay rises in line with inflation, and Eurogamer cut its editorial staff considerably a while back.

Once again, I have to say that I am baffled by this. Video games, as a creative sector, are bigger than they have ever been, with a broader, more diverse range of releases than ever before. So why are we, collectively, apparently completely incapable of sustaining an enthusiast press?

Moreover, retro gaming is more accessible than ever before, too, meaning that there is a worthwhile place for some retro-centric sites to spring up and do a good job of covering classic gaming material — but so far, we've seen very few outlets even attempt to step into this space, with only Time Extension online and Retro Gamer in print coming to mind outside of the unpaid (or at least non-commercial) enthusiast blog sector.

The usual answer to this is "b-but YouTubers and streamers!" and I'm sorry, I don't buy it. YouTubers and streamers have a place in the modern media landscape, sure, but they fulfil a completely different function to a traditional press — and moreover, they demand a completely different sort of attention to written material. And if you've ever accused a traditional press outlet of "paid reviews", then I have some unfortunate news to tell you about a widespread concept known as "influencer marketing".

I am sad about all this! I spent a significant portion of my life looking at my brother with intense admiration for his role in helping to shape the games press in its prime, both in print and online, and hoping that I would one day be able to follow in his footsteps! And yet, by the time I did manage to get a meaningful foothold, things were already starting to collapse. I was, somehow, too late — and I am having great difficulty understanding why, because it's not as if video games have gone anywhere. One would think with the sheer number of the bloody things being released pretty much every day at this point, a functional games press would be a desirable thing to have. And by "functional", I mean "one with full-time employees who get paid a fair salary on which they can live, enjoy the medium that they have chosen to specialise in and be able to have a good work-life balance".

And yet here we are. I despair sometimes, I really do.

Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.

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#oneaday Day 328: Polygone

Well, another one bites the dust. Today, we learned that gaming site Polygon has been sold to Valnet, the sweatshop of online media, and that, as is standard practice in this situation, pretty much all the regular writing staff have been let go, to be replaced by contractors who will be paid absolute fucking peanuts to churn out SEO-baiting drivel and contribute nothing of any real value to the broader conversation about video games.

I was never a huge fan of Polygon, I'll confess. But this isn't about me. It's about yet another significant pillar of Video Games Journalism collapsing — because make no mistake, being sold to Valnet means that your brand is going to have very little value left afterwards — and the entire landscape of this section of the media getting just a little bit worse.

To make matters worse, it appears that Giant Bomb is circling the drain, too. I don't think anything "official" has been announced on that front yet, but from what some of the people involved have been saying publicly… yeah, that site isn't long for this world, either.

Why does this keep happening? Why are we allowing sites that are demonstrably good at what they do to get destroyed in this way? At this rate, we're going to have absolutely no "big names" in the games press left.

And perhaps that might, over the long-term, be a good thing. Because every time something like this happens, it feels like more and more worker/creator-owned outfits pop up and show that yes, it is possible to do things a bit differently; it is possible to put together an interesting and enjoyable site without resorting to SEO-baiting bilge and Guide Content; it is possible to build a sustainable publication that doesn't rely on ad-revenue and instead asks its most interested readers to pony up a couple of quid a month in exchange for stuff that is actually worth reading.

But will this successfully become the norm? We have to make that happen. We have to look beyond the search engine algorithms, start following the sites we actually care about… and support them. One of the worst things to ever happen to the press in general — not just in gaming — was to set the expectation that everything, everywhere, should be free, always. It's devalued the hard work of people working in the media, it's normalised paying people an absolute pittance for hard work, and it's actively making useful information and meaningful commentary harder to find. None of that seems the slightest bit desirable, but we keep heading down that path.

I already support a few folks I like via Patreon. I think it's probably about time I start ponying up for a subscription or two for sites I think are doing worthwhile work. Off the top of my head, I recommend Aftermath for gaming-related stuff, and 404 Media for tech journalism. Both are doing great work, and both are doing well through support from their audiences.

The issue, of course, is that if you end up supporting a lot of sites in this way, it can get pricy. But then think of it this way: did you buy every magazine that existed every month, or did you have a favourite? There you go. I guess the answer is to read fewer, better sites. And don't support the shittier behaviour of the sites that have already been fed to the Valnet monster, or which are in the process of sliding down that drain. You can solve today's Wordle by yourself, believe me. I believe in you!

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1379: Press Pause

The assertion that "video is the future" of online media is probably more hyperbole than anything else — much like the argument that "free-to-play is the future" of gaming — but it still concerns and frustrates me somewhat.

This isn't to put down any of the hard work that genuinely talented video producers, editors and performers do, of course. It just makes me worried — particularly given my occupation — and also frustrates me as someone who still likes to, you know, read things.

You see, I don't like video as a generic means of consuming information. It's intrusive, it's noisy, it's disruptive and it demands your full attention for a fixed period of time. This is fine if what you are specifically doing is sitting down to watch a video, but when you want to get a piece of information quickly, video quite simply can't compare to a simple piece of text and possibly a Find function.

Video is not particularly portable, either. While mobile phone data networks — and the devices with which to access them — have improved considerably over the last few years, there's still a significant chance that if you're out and about on the go, you may not be able to watch a video link, and even if you do, there's the risk of running afoul of your mobile provider's data limits and/or fair use policies. A simple text link, meanwhile, is something that is quick to download and, perhaps more importantly, easy and discreet to browse in public or while doing other things.

It also makes me a little sad to see people well-known for their entertaining writing skills stepping back from penmanship in favour of video content. Let's take Jim Sterling, for example. This isn't specifically to "pick on" Sterling; he's just a good example of what I'm talking about.

Sterling's work around the Web has historically been somewhat provocative, but to an entertaining degree rather than any attempt to deliberately cause offence. He's mellowed somewhat from his quasi-"shock jock" nature of a few years back and become someone who can bellow well-informed vitriol without alienating people — or at least, without alienating people who don't deserve to be alienated. His reviews and opinion pieces over on sites like Destructoid were always a good read — he wrote in a distinctive voice, but from a well-informed perspective, and even if you didn't agree with his points, he usually made a convincing argument.

Now, Sterling is primarily doing video content, in which he does much the same thing. No bad thing, you might think, and indeed I've specifically sat down and watched a good few Jimquisition episodes when I wanted to have a giggle at the game industry's expense. But I'm significantly less likely to watch a Jimquisition video than I am to read an article simply because of the time involved — and now he's taken to variations on Let's Play videos I now have even less interest in his content whatsoever. It's a bit sad, though I also recognise that I am but one person and he is simply doing what there is apparently demand for.

I've made my thoughts on Let's Plays reasonably clear in previous posts, but I'll reiterate and perhaps reinforce them, since I've had a while to think about them as the format has grown in popularity: I'm not a fan. At all. Particularly Let's Plays of story-based games, which, to me, completely defeat the object of a story-based game. People already get pissy at the slightest hint of a spoiler about games, movies and other media, and yet there are people out there doing nothing but spoiling games… in more ways than one. This is baffling to me; I understand the basic concept of a Let's Play as an opportunity to see how a game plays and get some commentary about it, but to watch a story-based game with someone babbling over the top of it rather than playing it is just, frankly, the absolute last thing I want to do with my time. Again, though, I recognise that the format has popularity and there's apparently demand for it.

I guess what I'm getting at is that I don't want traditional media to go away. I don't want to see the death of long-form articles about games — or even short, snappy news pieces, though I wouldn't mind seeing the back of two-sentence placeholder pieces. I want to see talented writers continue to have the opportunity to express themselves in a medium that they're comfortable with; I don't want to be forced to watch a video just to find out what a voice I trust thinks about a particular game or issue in the industry, particularly when I'm out and perhaps want to share it with friends.

By all means, then, video content producers and consumers, keep doing what you're doing; just don't forget that the way you do things is not the only way to do things.