’An implosion supervised by idiots who have been grifted by other idiots who have been grifted by actual grifters’
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.