Aftermath’s Luke Plunkett posted a brutal comparison of Polygon’s masthead from last week vs today on Bluesky. Eviscerated. A tragic, gross visual of the human cost of senseless layoffs.

Brendon Bigley, Wavelengths:

I’ve been reading Polygon since the day in launched in 2012. I was an avid fan because of its focus on people — at the time most sites were primarily focused on their own branding which led to sites as monolithic entities. Reviews weren’t by any specific writer, they were by [BRAND DOT COM] and discussed on early social media and in forums as such. Polygon broke the mold by being staunchly supportive of the individuals who made its ongoing success a reality, story by story and brick by brick until it became an institution in the space. They made videos about funny bullshit (complimentary) and reported on troubling labor practices in the game development space in equal measure because different people are good at different things, and all of that is what boiled up to being the brand. It’s why so many freelancers and ex-employees are online today speaking highly of their time working with Polygon. The boots-on-the-ground team that allowed the site to function cared about these people in a meaningful way and there was a tangibility to that care that permeated into the readership.

I can’t help but walk away from this news feeling like the very thing that inspired me to spend my time considering games and the industry around them has died a very permanent death. While I’m glad to see independent outlets like MinnMax and Aftermath continue to pave a new path forward and inspire future generations to think critically about the medium, there’s a real sense of loss here that reaches all the way backwards to Facebook’s disastrous “pivot to video” era. What we’re left with is Patreon and Memberful and influencers and IGN. That’s games media now.

And what’s left of the sites I used to love and find community within in Polygon and Waypoint and Giant Bomb and so many more is just an AI grind house serving Google of all companies. Google, who are well on their way to speedrunning destroying their own business model at the cost of everyone else’s. It’s an implosion supervised by idiots who have been grifted by other idiots who have been grifted by actual grifters.

Grayson Morley on his Backlog newsletter:

I’m a fiction writer who wandered into games criticism. I say “wandered,” but the truth is, I got some serious help early on from Chris Plante, former editor-in-chief of Polygon. When I was a nobody, and not, as I am now, nearly nobody, Plante hopped on a Zoom call with me when I was between jobs, trying to see whether I could pivot into doing some games writing. Our correspondence up until that point had been mostly me emailing him about my short story, “Brent, Bandit King,” which had won an award and was based on an article he’d written at the time for The Verge. Let me be perfectly frank: Very few people on this earth would email back a random stranger telling them they wrote a short story based on an article they wrote. Plante did. And not only that, but he offered sage advice to me when I was first getting Backlog going, a kindness for which I have no way of repaying him.

Besides Plante, I owe a lot to current and former Polygon folks like Mike Mahardy, Maddy Myers, and Matt Leone for their edits and guidance. But before I was a contributor, I was a Polygon reader, and that’s the part of me that’s mourning right now. For me, Polygon was my absolute favorite place to read about games, both on the reportorial side, thanks to powerhouses like Nicole Carpenter, and especially on the critical front, with its variety of voices, both in-house and freelance, who offered fresh takes on the art form I so love. For that to be more or less gone this morning is incredibly sad.

I don’t have a radical take to propose today besides to say that you should follow these writers wherever they go. People make the publication, and not the other way around, and when the business side loses track of that, we all suffer. I fear there will never be another Polygon, and as someone who cares about this medium, that’s a hard pill to swallow. The people of Polygon deserved better. The readers of Polygon deserved better. The industry deserved better.

I echo Morley’s sentiments. I’ve had the great fortune of meeting and befriending a handful of folks from Polygon over the years. Their empathy, care, wit, and insight only made me want to be part of their team even more. Some incredibly bright and dedicated individuals that certainly deserved better.

Here’s a 13 part documentary on the creation of Polygon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=At1NP_hl7pc&list=PLFECD492AC5E3201F.

I’m so glad this exists. (Truthfully, I couldn’t remember if this documentary was real or just a dream I had. I’d first seen it 13 years ago. I don’t remember it being carved up into 13 parts.)

The introduction of this documentary is terribly ironic and depressing. Here’s a short snippet:

The Goliaths inspired a nimble counterpart — the game blog; sites like Kotaku, Joystiq, and Destructoid. Once again, a newcomer had the advantage of speed. Within an hour, a reader saw multiple posts. Within a week, they had a magazine’s worth of content. This speed occassionally resulted in misreporting, and pretty visuals took a backseat to getting the post live first. But they were persistent, news-minded, and at least at first, outside the system. The rising tide began to threaten traditional publications. The survivors retreated to the high ground of co-marketed partnerships with console makers and game retailers. But even these publications were a risk.

Which brings us to today. A time of shift. Fast blogs creating more original material. Gargantuan networks that are breaking news. Magazines testing their hands online and in apps. Everyone learning from each other. Games writing is stronger than ever and games are covered in almost every conceivable way. There’s no shortage when it comes to information about games.

Major gaming sites get tens of millions of hits a month. Gaming grows every year. More gamers. More success. More influence. The stakes have never been higher.

Poring over the somber Bluesky posts, Discord conversations, new articles, and newsletters regarding Polygon’s sale to Valnet and the mass layoffs at the site has sent me spiraling down memory lane. In my previous post, I mentioned Polygon inspiring me to become a games journalist and/or web developer. A lot of that sentiment stems from this documentary. I didn’t just want to be a games journalist and/or web developer. I wanted to be a games journalists and/or web developer at Polygon.

Jay Peters of The Verge, reporting on the sale of Polygon to Valnet:

Polygon, The Verge’s sister site dedicated to gaming and entertainment, has been sold by Vox Media to Valnet, a company that owns brands like ScreenRant, GameRant, and Android Police. Some Polygon staffers will continue with the publication under its new owner, while others have been laid off, according to posts online and an internal message sent to Vox Media employees.

Valnet owns more than 27 different brands that cover areas like entertainment, gaming, sports, and travel. A recent report from TheWrap includes one former contributor to a site under Valnet’s purview describing conditions as “almost sweatshop-level.”

This is gut-wrenching. Polygon meant so much to me. It’s a big reason I dreamed of becoming a games journalist, in turn starting this blog, and likely the sole reason I took any interest in web development.

When the website launched in 2012, the design, articles, and personality forward staff felt like a revelation. I was hooked. Pieces like their PS4 and Xbox One reviews took my breath away. Tracy Lien’s No Girls Allowed is an all-timer.

Between 2013–2014, likely even longer, I had daily ritual of poring over Polygon to find pieces to blog about. During my stint working in the podcasts industry, I did everything in my power to help promote their shows like The Besties and Mini Map. During my time working in the news industry, I took a go at building their Breath of the Wild review in Apple News format (which turned out great), and had the great fortune of showing it off to then EIC Chris Grant.

Working in games media had (has?) always been a dream for me. For every friend and acquaintance I made at Polygon, that dream had been partially realized. I look up to the folks. I adore their work and how they elevated games journalism. I’m sure I’ll have more to say, but for now, tearing up as I write this, I’m absolutely gutted to see Polygon go. All my best to those affected by this news.