Games media is consolidating and shrinking
Most of what people read about games comes from a few websites, and most of the big ones have changed hands since 2022. Four companies now own the best-known names, and all four have cut staff. Check who owns a source before relying on it.
Where it stands
Ziff Davis owns IGN, Eurogamer and GamesIndustry.biz. Fandom owns GameSpot and Metacritic, Valnet owns Polygon and Game Rant, and Future owns PC Gamer and GamesRadar+. Press Engine's figures show the number of games journalists down 25% in two years. Jackson Ryan's investigation for Aftermath showed a marketing company buying a games site and filling it with casino articles under AI-generated bylines. The alternative so far is small reader-funded sites owned by their writers, such as Aftermath and Giant Bomb.
| Owner | What it owns | What happened | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ziff Davis | IGN, Eurogamer, GamesIndustry.biz, Rock Paper Shotgun, VG247 | A US media company. Its IGN Entertainment arm bought the British group Gamer Network in May 2024, and redundancies were confirmed the same day. | |
| Fandom | GameSpot, Metacritic, GameFAQs | A company best known for fan-written wikis. It bought the sites in October 2022, laid off roughly 40 to 50 staff three months later, and sold Giant Bomb to its staff in 2025. | |
| Valnet | Polygon, Game Rant, TheGamer | Bought Polygon from Vox Media in May 2025, and many of Polygon's staff were laid off. | |
| Future | PC Gamer, GamesRadar+ | A British magazine and website publisher, named as one of the four big owners. | |
| Clickout Media | The Escapist, VideoGamer, Esports Insider, GamesHub | A marketing company. In February 2026 it laid off most of its editorial staff and kept a skeleton crew it calls AI Editors. | |
| Gunzilla Games | Game Informer | A games company, maker of the blockchain shooter Off the Grid. It revived the magazine in March 2025, rehired the whole team, and says the editors make all editorial decisions. | |
| Its own staff | Giant Bomb | Bought from Fandom in May 2025 by the people who make it. Aftermath, started in 2023, is owned by its writers in the same way. | |
| Estadão | TecMundo, Voxl | A Brazilian newspaper group. In October 2025 it bought No Zebra Network (NZN), until then controlled by the investment firm H.I.G. Capital. NZN owns TecMundo and its games desk Voxel, now Voxl. |
Timeline
2022
Fandom buys GameSpot, Giant Bomb and Metacritic
Fandom, a company best known for fan-written wikis, buys GameSpot, Giant Bomb, Metacritic and GameFAQs in October 2022. Three months later it lays off roughly 40 to 50 staff.
2023
Former Kotaku writers start a site they own themselves
Four former Kotaku staff launch Aftermath, owned by its writers and paid for by subscriptions. 'The current ad-driven model most sites are built on is collapsing,' they say.
2024
IGN's owner buys Eurogamer, GamesIndustry.biz and Rock Paper Shotgun
IGN Entertainment, part of the US media company Ziff Davis, buys Gamer Network, the British group that owns Eurogamer, GamesIndustry.biz, Rock Paper Shotgun and VG247. Redundancies are confirmed the same day.
2025
A blockchain game studio buys and revives Game Informer
Gunzilla Games, which makes the blockchain shooter Off the Grid, buys Game Informer, the magazine its previous owner had closed, and rehires the whole team. Gunzilla says the editors make all editorial decisions. It is the clearest case of a games company owning a games outlet.
Polygon is sold to Valnet, and many of its staff are laid off
Vox Media sells Polygon to Valnet, the owner of Game Rant and TheGamer. Polygon's co-founder and editor-in-chief is among those laid off. Valnet was at the time suing TheWrap for $64.5 million over an investigation into how it treats its writers.
Giant Bomb's staff buy it from Fandom
Fandom sells Giant Bomb to the people who make it, about a week after a round of layoffs. 'Giant Bomb is now owned by the people who make Giant Bomb,' they announce.
A quarter of games journalists have left in two years
Press Engine, a service that publishers use to reach the press, finds that more than 1,200 journalists at major outlets have left games media in two years, shrinking the pool by 25%. Counting freelancers and part-timers, more than 4,000 have gone since October 2023.
2026
The owner of The Escapist replaces most editors with AI editors
Clickout Media, which owns The Escapist, VideoGamer and Esports Insider, lays off most of its editorial staff and keeps a skeleton crew it calls AI Editors. Severance pay is tied to non-disclosure agreements.
An investigation shows a games site refilled with casino content
After eight months of reporting, Aftermath shows what happened to GamesHub, an Australian games site sold to Clickout Media in 2025 without the buyer being named. It relaunched with casino articles under author profiles whose photos were generated by AI. One byline produced more than 100 gambling articles. Within about two months of the relaunch the site's search traffic had fallen by half.
Eurogamer loses its video team and VG247 is down to two writers
Eurogamer makes its second round of editorial cuts since the 2024 sale, including its whole four-person video team. VG247 now exists only as a small guides operation run by two writers. Fandom, Future and Valnet have all cut jobs in the past year too.
IGN lays off staff two months before Grand Theft Auto 6
Ziff Davis lays off staff at IGN, including Brian Altano, Seth Macy and Bo Moore. Four of those laid off are union members, and the union says it was blindsided.
Consequences
012026
A games site's reputation can be bought and spent
Jackson Ryan of Aftermath explains the business. A marketing company buys an established games site for the trust that search engines place in it, then uses that trust to rank pages about gambling. The old journalism stays up as cover. 'Should anybody be able to just buy a gaming website and then start ranking?' one of his sources asks.
022023
Writers conclude they have to own the outlet
Aftermath appears on this page three times, as the investigator of GamesHub, as a staff-owned alternative and here as a voice, so it has a stake in this argument. Luke Plunkett, one of its founders, argues that as advertising collapses, corporate ownership of media sites is becoming increasingly exploitative. His answer is for the staff to own the site and the readers to pay for it.
032025
Support it or lose it
Gareth Williams, co-founder of Press Engine, expects games media to keep shrinking. Readers, he says, need to support it or lose it.
042025
Who pays shapes what goes unsaid
Riley Fox of Spilled.gg mapped the owners: Ziff Davis, Fandom, Valnet and Future, which owns PC Gamer and GamesRadar+. Fox argues that sites which depend on advertising from game publishers have a ceiling on how critical they can be. 'Ownership shapes what gets said. More importantly, it shapes what doesn't,' Fox writes. The piece offers no documented case of a review being killed.
Objections
Counterpoint2025
The cause may be Google, not the owners
The man behind the job-loss figures does not blame owners. Gareth Williams of Press Engine points to changes in how Google ranks sites, to AI summaries that answer a search without a click, and to coverage narrowing to the biggest games. That squeezes independent sites as hard as corporate ones.
Counterpoint2026
Nobody has measured how much the four groups control
The claim that four companies control most games media appears in a headline and is not backed by a share of readers or of outlets. The map is already out of date: Giant Bomb has left Fandom, Kotaku belongs to a fifth owner, and new independent sites keep starting. The industry's trade press, often assumed to belong to game publishers, belongs to a media company, an events group and its own founders.
Counterpoint2025
Not every sale has hollowed out the outlet
When Gunzilla Games bought Game Informer it rehired the entire team, and says editorial decisions are the editors' alone. A sale can also be what keeps an outlet alive.
What to watch
2026
Whether readers still arrive
November 2026, when Grand Theft Auto 6 comes out. It is the biggest event for games coverage in years, and a test of how much search and AI traffic still reaches the outlets that cover it.
2027
Google's UK deadline on AI summaries
Early 2027, the end of the nine months the UK competition regulator gave Google in June 2026 to let publishers opt out of its AI summaries while staying in search, and to credit them with clear links.
Further reading
- AnalysisThe Secretive Company Filling Video Game Sites With Gambling And AIaftermath.site
- AnalysisFour Companies Control Your Favorite Gaming Mediaspilled.gg
- AnalysisFuture, Ziff Davis to Struggle Most From Traffic Dropsamediaoperator.com
Where to follow it Aftermath, Press Gazette (media business beat), Game File, local trade-body statements, WHOIS/company filings for suspect domains
- Games companies are still cutting jobs
- Rich markets are losing players, and growth has moved elsewhere
- China's growth is going to Chinese-made games
- Publishers are retreating from live-service games
- Investors are pulling money out of studios
- Mobile games are struggling to find new players
- AI data centers are taking the memory games hardware needs
- Game prices are stalling as hardware prices climb