Business TheGamer website suffers widespread editorial layoffs - + More than 1,200 games journalists have left the media in the last two years

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Video Games Chronicle: TheGamer website suffers widespread editorial layoffs (archive)

It’s the latest in a series of job losses across games media

22nd Oct 2025
Posted by Jordan Middler

TheGamer-logo-1024x576.webp

Video game website TheGamer has suffered widespread layoffs, according to former staff.

On Wednesday, several former members of the site’s editorial teams took to social media to announce that they’d been laid off. According to multiple former employees speaking anonymously to VGC, entire section teams have been “decimated.”

According to those still at the outlet, TheGamer will continue in a slimmed-down form, though those who remain aren’t clear on how that will manifest. According to staff who spoke to VGC, these layoffs have been expected, but the scale has surprised those still at the site.

VGC has reached out to Valnet for comment.

TheGamer was founded in 2017. TheGamer’s parent company, Valnet, is also behind OpenCritic, Game Rant, and, as of earlier this year, Polygon.

Features lead Jade King took to X to confirm that her entire team had been let go as part of the reshuffle at the site.

https://x.com/KonaYMA6/status/1981022594837909565 (nitter archive)
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News editor Rhiannon Bevan, who remains at the site at the time of writing, wrote on Bluesky, “TheGamer is losing so much talent today, it breaks my heart. On a personal and professional level, I cannot put the loss into words.”

https://bsky.app/profile/rhithewitch.bsky.social (archive)
https://bsky.app/profile/rhithewitch.bsky.social/post/3m3s4pcsess2h (archive)
rhiannon.webp

These job losses are the latest in what has been a difficult period for games media. In May, popular outlet Polygon was sold to Valnet, which resulted in many staff, including then editor-in-chief Chris Plante, losing their jobs.

Also in May, cult-favourite video game outlet Giant Bomb faced significant staff departures as part of a dispute with its then-owner, Fandom. Following this, the site’s staff purchased the brand from Fandom and has persevered with a fan-supported model.

Other leading publications, such as IGN and Gamer Network, which owns sites like Eurogamer, GamesIndustry.biz, and VG247, have also experienced job losses in the past year.
 
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Video Games Chronicle: More than 1,200 games journalists have left the media in the last two years (archive)

According to Press Engine data, the global pool of games journalists has shrunk by 25%

22nd Oct 2025
Posted by Andy Robinson

More than 1,200 video game journalists have left the media in the past two years and haven’t returned to the industry, it’s claimed.

That’s according to data supplied to VGC by Press Engine, a popular PR tool used by developers and publishers to distribute codes and press releases to a global database of journalists and content creators.

According to Press Engine, more than 600 journalists who regularly covered video games at major outlets around the world have disappeared from their database in the past 12 months.

Virtually the same number of people left their positions in the 12 months before that, the firm said, and haven’t taken up roles at other media companies since.

According to Press Engine’s database of ‘tier 1’ publications that cover games (which is defined as major websites, both specialist and mainstream, with seven-figure-plus audiences), the global pool of game journalists has declined by 25% in just two years. The vast majority of these departures were from specialist games websites like IGN, Polygon, or Gamepot.

If amateur, part-time, or freelance writers are included, the number of departures from the games media swells to more than 4,000 people since October 2023.

The figures highlight a significant drop in the number of people writing about video games, either because they’ve chosen to change professions, or been affected by the wave of redundancies that have hit most major game publications since the pandemic.

Like the games industry, publications that cover video games have been rocked by a turbulent market since the highs of the COVID-19 pandemic. Media owners like IGN, Fandom, Gamer Network, and Valent have all cut jobs in the past year.

According to Press Engine co-founder Gareth Williams, the most significant contributors to job losses in the games media are an overall shift towards covering the biggest games, resulting in increased competition for those who remain, and harmful changes introduced by the Google search engine.

“A culmination of a number of factors has cost videogames journalism some of its brightest talents,” Williams told VGC. “The COVID highs, followed by lack of diversification in content, diversification of advertising spend, Google’s Helpful Content Update, summaries, and AI have all contributed to where we are now.

“Fan-led media might be the simplest route to consolidate revenue for publishers and secure the future for staff, but it’s only the start.”

He added: “In a consumer world where ad blocking is standard and Games as a Service and social media are communication tools where children and adults form their relationships, videogames media needs to evolve and innovate. Support your favourite publications, before you don’t have the choice.”

Veteran games journalist Alex Donaldson, who owns the publication RPG Site and regularly writes for major outlets, agrees that the games media’s recent troubles are primarily due to Google, but also to changing reader habits. He also argued that layoffs could have been avoided with better management of media businesses.

“We’re now seeing increasing numbers of brands ran off the road entirely through a confluence of factors but certainly primarily led by search changes, Google’s AI summaries, and even user behaviour changes as a portion of queries move directly to services like ChatGPT,” he said.

“My expectation is that games media will continue to shrink for at least the next twelve months – any earthquake has aftershocks, and I’m currently not even convinced that we’ve hit the grip of the main earthquake yet – this might be the foreshocks.

“For quality games media, I continue to believe that the best form of stability is dedicated reader bases to remove reliance on funds, and a hybrid of direct reader funding and advertisements. If people want to keep reading quality content from full time professionals, they need to support it or lose it. That’s never been more critical than now.”

Donaldson continued: “Although, to be clear, this isn’t all on demanding reader support. A not insignificant proportion of the losses the games media has suffered, I strongly feel, could’ve been avoided with better management, clarity, and more realistic expectations on the part of proprietors.

“Even this week, we’ve seen talented people with a high work output laid off by a larger parent that doesn’t seem to have a solid strategy. The best protection against these sorts of losses for the media at large is a healthy slate of truly independent outlets not beholden to such parents. Supporting those is particularly vital.”
 
They don't do anything, they're useless. If anyone wants to learn about a game they can look it up and discuss it with people who have played it.
 
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ShahOfIran1979 dijo:
Honestly, most gaming articles now are useless BS or Reddit posts, and are most likely bot generated anyway.
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It's one thing to have clickbait, but they're publishing outright misleading articles like "Knights of the Old Republic III announced", but it's just about Jedi Survivor, because game with lightsabers is just like game with lightsabers, right?
 
I'd feel a shred of sympathy if these cretins weren't telling people to learn to code a decade ago. Maybe they should learn to weld or do plumbing!
 
According to multiple former employees speaking anonymously to VGC, entire section teams have been “decimated.”
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Decimated means only 10% was cut. It needs to be 100% and for real.

chiobu dijo:
Maybe just focus on writing about games next time
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There's nothing to write about in gaymes except (ironically) employment and embezzlement corporate drama.
 
I absolutely love searching some thing about a game and having literal 10000 pages from the same site about every minor thing that takes forever to actually answer my question and are filled with ads and links.
 
For those who want a sample of Jade's work

Cyclonus

Tema 'Hogwarts Legacy Made Us Ignore Transphobia, So What's Next?'

www.thegamer.com

Hogwarts Legacy Made Us Ignore Transphobia, So What's Next?

Gamers are pretty spineless
www.thegamer.com www.thegamer.com

Hogwarts Legacy Made Us Ignore Transphobia, So What's Next?
BY
JADE KING

Gamers are pretty spineless

Hogwarts Legacy has already sold over 12 million copies. Good job, everyone - we worked together to show that pesky woke boycott who’s boss and stuck up for the little billionaire and the multinational corporation. The continued acceptance of JK Rowling’s universe and its transphobic baggage is a clear sign that gamers are willing to throw aside societal progress and the support of minority groups if it...
Reacciones:Lunacy x 13 Semper Fidelis x 3 Enojado x 1

I also briefly confused Jade with Stacey Henley, also a trans staff member of The Gamer, who the BBC foolishly gave a platform to sprout off BS about JK then later had to apologise for.
 
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